Try as we do, we can’t always see eye to eye with our friends in outstate Minnesota. (Hell, we don’t even see eye to eye with our spouses always, but that’s another story.) We hate to add fuel to the fire of the present urban-rural dissension, but how can we help it? Now a few greedy Minnesotans have managed to convince the state court of appeals that their local rails-to-trails bike path should be closed, the land fenced and turned over to them for their exclusive use. One imagines it took just minutes after the controversial decision for the rustic mob to turn out with their pitchforks, torches, and No Trespassing signs.
Lawyers representing three land-owners adjacent to the Paul Bunyan State Trail near Walker have filed suit based on technicalities, claiming that the Burlington Northern Railroad never owned the land to sell it to the state—they only had easements dating back to the 1890s. Never mind the fact that in almost every similar case across the country, easements are as transferable as titles and must explicitly be abandoned. And never mind the fact that this sort of ugly selfishness has no place in civil Minnesota society. Their claim is a transparent land grab, and a fine example of not-in-my-backyard softheadedness.
Minnesota has 1,300 miles of trails converted from railroads—a happy state of affairs endorsed in precincts as far away as the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time that railroads were being decommissioned in the late seventies because of the rise of truck and air transport, courts recognized the value of railroad corridors and acted almost universally to ensure their continued preservation in the interest of the public. That commitment to “railbanking” proved to be prescient. Virtually every community in the nation that has created one of these paths has seen its investment returned in a bounty of tourism, recreation, and community spirit. Property values increase, the tourist economy takes off, people are agreeably sociable, everyone wins. Except the hardbitten redneck who would sooner shoot his own foot than abide city slickers in Lycra.
It gives us pause to consider how this situation is handled in the Old World. In Scandinavia and in the British Isles, for example, private property has an even more storied and sacred past. And yet in places like Scotland and Norway, there are explicit “Freedom to Roam” laws that make it illegal to prevent law-abiding, nature-loving citizens from walking harmlessly through one’s “private property.” Nature is seen as a national treasure and inheritance. Access to it is a birthright. And even in the more ill-tempered counties of England, there are national holidays known as “Trespassing Days,” where roaming is encouraged and supported as a noble principle.
And now three “property rights” bumpkins up past Brainerd may have the courts tied up for years to come, threatening the continuity of every public trail in the state. Imagine the daydreams of shameless litigators, hoping to cash in on the deep reservoirs of misanthropy, xenophobia, and yuppie hatred that are as much a part of the rural landscape as creosote, mullets, and grain elevators. And this surly mob may effectively reduce the state’s trails to a fractured system of dead ends. Mike Sandberg, of Guthrie, was one of the few landowners who was willing to speak publicly on behalf of the Covetous Three. Resorting to the time-honored babblings of anti-government paranoia, he said of the state, “They think they can do whatever they can do. They want the land.” We have news for you, Mr. Sandberg. “They” is us. There are more of us than there are of you. And yes, we want our trail back.
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