Study finds school trust lands account for modest share of statewide recreation but are regionally critical in northeast Minnesota

The Office of School Trust Lands presented its first-ever analysis of recreational use on school trust lands to the Legislative Permanent School Fund Commission on May 26, concluding that school trust lands account for roughly 5% of Minnesota’s land base and about 5% of recreation statewide, with much greater regional importance in the Arrowhead region of Northeastern Minnesota.

"This is the first time that we've ever studied the recreational use of school trust lands," Director Aaron Vanderland told commissioners. He said the office contracted an outside consultant to apply use-weighted modeling to hunting, fishing, boating, trail and campground data to produce estimates of annual visits and percentage shares.

Key numbers from the presentation: the study estimated about 265,000 hunting days on school trust lands annually (about 4% of statewide hunting days), roughly 280,000 annual fishing days launched from public water-access sites on school trust land (about 1% of statewide fishing days by the study's measure), and about 168,000 boating launches from those sites (about 4.4% of statewide launches from public water access).

Vanderland emphasized the regional nuance: while school trust lands represent a small share statewide, they provide important trail connectivity, campgrounds and water access in Northeastern Minnesota. Of approximately 3,050 water-access sites statewide, about 194 (roughly 6%) are on school trust lands—and 143 of those are in Northeast Minnesota. He told the commission that State Forest Campgrounds, signage and mapping are concentrated in the region and have local economic and connectivity roles.

The study also provided implementation-cost estimates for signage and mapping. It estimated 474 entrances would require school-trust signage; estimated first-year signage costs total about $155,000, with a small annual replacement cost projected for year two. Updating 43 printed maps to clearly identify school trust lands was estimated at roughly $316,000; an online update to the DNR recreation mapping platform was estimated at about $5,000.

Vanderland told the commission the report intentionally does not advocate policy changes and contains no recommendations; OSTL submitted the statutorily required analysis to the legislature in January and will use the findings to inform asset-management planning and potential examination of alternative revenue strategies. "The report has no advocacy in it," Vanderland said.

Commission members asked about potential revenue approaches used by other states and raised concerns about adding new fees for anglers, hunters and snowmobilers. Senator Farnsworth and others urged caution about imposing new user fees; one member suggested proportionally allocating a small share of existing license or registration fees instead of creating new charges.

Next steps: OSTL will continue asset-management work, and commissioners indicated they will review the study further before proposing legislative changes. The commission did not adopt policy at the meeting.