The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is working to sell tens of thousands of acres of the state’s most pristine land to the federal government.

The plan involves about 80,000 acres — or 125 square miles — in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

“This is a pretty big deal,” says Patty Thielen, Forestry Division director with the DNR.

But this isn’t just any property purchase.

The DNR is proposing selling the ‘school trust lands’ to the U.S. Forest Service.

Those parcels — in the hundreds — are spread across the BWCAW.

The idea follows an earlier DNR proposal to exchange the school trust lands for other properties outside the wilderness, which didn’t happen.  

The Forest Service says Congress has appropriated $50 million for this newly planned purchase. 

“We get to steward those lands into the future,” notes Thomas Hall, the Superior National Forest supervisor with the U.S. Park Service. “So, the lands that the state has for those trust lands will all be managed as wilderness.”

The parcels have been providing income for the Minnesota School Trust Fund.

This past year, the fund distributed $51 million to districts across the state.

“So, there’s revenue generating activities that they’re typically able to do, right, whether that’s timber harvest, mining projects, or whatever occurs on those state parcels,” Hall explains.

However, beginning in the 1960s, federal law banned those activities inside the Boundary Waters.

The DNR says it was no longer able to manage the lands ‘in the best interest of the trust’ and says there was also an impact on forestry management.

“The federal laws limit activities that can occur in the Boundary Waters. The administrative issue is we can’t do our work on these lands because of the federal laws that apply,” Thielen says. “It’s motorless, and so equipment can’t be used, and we do not manage the timber in the Boundary Waters.”

The DNR, the Forest Service, and the Office of School Trust Lands all worked jointly on the proposal to sell the land.

The plan now is for the money from the sale to go to the permanent school fund.

“This proposal would infuse millions of dollars into the permanent fund supporting K-12 Minnesota schools,” says Ingrid Lyons, executive director of ‘Save The Boundary Waters,’ an Ely-based environmental watchdog group. “(It) consolidates federal ownership on lands in the BWCAW.”

“It’ll be easier for the Forest Service to not have property boundaries across the lands as they’re doing any management they’re going to do there,” Thielen adds. “It’s going to be a positive thing for the school trust and for schools across Minnesota.”

The Conservation Fund — a Virginia nonprofit — is offering to sell an additional 15,000 acres in the Superior National Forest, outside BWCAW boundaries, to the Forest Service.

Regarding the school trust lands, there will be a one-month public comment period starting at the end of July.

If the plan goes forward, a transfer of those lands to federal ownership could happen by 2026.

“This is definitely one of the largest land acquisitions that we have been working on for a really long time,” Hall says. “And so, a really big deal.”