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That experiment is under way this summer at Itasca State Park, where the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is offering free, high-speed wireless Internet to park users.
Call it a fight-fire-with-fire strategy: With park attendance slumping among 18- to 35-year-olds, DNR officials see the one-year experiment as a potential way of luring a wired generation to visit a state park, even if it means Internet surfing inside your tent.
But the Itasca State Park experiment isn’t drawing just young people. Some Internet users have been as old as 65, and some are using it to stay in touch with work, according to an online survey users fill out before logging on.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing, DNR officials say.
“Lack of time was cited (in a recent study) as the strongest reason for people not getting outdoors and not coming to a state park,” said Patricia Arndt, state park planning and technology manager for the DNR. “We thought it might help some people overcome those time restraints.”
Itasca State Park became the first state or federal park facility in Minnesota to offer wireless Internet service when it was launched in May, according to the DNR.
The experiment also highlights the nature-versus-electronics debate being waged here and around the country.
A recent USA Today poll shows 28 states offer wireless Internet service in state parks, and the number of wired parks is increasing. California leads the way with 50 Internet-wired state parks out of 278, USA Today reported in April. But there are no plans to add Internet service to other Minnesota state parks, and the service isn’t available at Voyageurs National Park or at district ranger offices or campgrounds operated by Superior National Forest, which oversees the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
“It’s definitely not a priority,” said Kris Reichenbach, spokeswoman for the Superior National Forest in Duluth. “I’m not sure we would have the infrastructure to support it.”
I’ve traveled extensively throughout northern Minnesota this summer and found high-speed, wireless Internet at motels in Ely and coffee shops in Grand Marais. It is increasingly available at private resorts around the state, even along the remote reaches of the Gunflint Trail.
Two summers ago, I found a free wireless connection at Many Glacier Campground in Glacier National Park. But the campground host, not the National Park Service, offered the service through his satellite connection.
In Minnesota, public facilities are slow to get on the wireless bandwagon.
At Voyageurs National Park near International Falls, wireless Internet isn’t available to park employees because of federal security concerns and lack of funding, said park technology specialist Lois Fogelberg.
“I know park staff sometimes drive down the road to use it in Ash River,” she said.
But more and more, park managers see the writing on the wall: The public wants wireless Internet in the woods.
“Quite a few times last year, I was approached and asked, ’Do you have Internet service here?’ “said Jeff Karels, assistant manager of Itasca State Park, Minnesota’s oldest state park. “I think the (DNR) is being proactive.”
He said Itasca was chosen for the wireless experiment because it was already outfitted with the necessary fiber-optic network to support it, and Bemidji-based Paul Bunyan Telephone Cooperative agreed to offer the service free for one year. The agreement expires Dec. 31.
The Internet service isn’t available throughout the 32,000-acre park, but only at hot spots at the visitors center, Douglas Lodge, the Forest Inn and one campground. The newly built Mary Gibbs Mississippi Headwaters Plaza is wired for Internet, but it is about a quarter-mile from the actual headwaters and the signal doesn’t reach there.
About 400 users logged in during the first five weeks.
“I’ve seen a few people having breakfast with their laptops open,” Karels said. “I haven’t gotten any negative comments on it, but it’s still pretty new.”
The decision wasn’t easy, and some DNR officials still fret that Internet service might distract from the park experience, Arndt said.
One recent Itasca Internet user grumbled in his survey, “the idea of dozens of ’campers’ hunched over their laptops, infesting the commons areas of this nice state park with their antisocial, singularly-focused e-mailing etc., is enough to make me think this is a bad idea.”
Yet Arndt said she believes state park visitors see laptops as less intrusive than cell phones ringing along park trails. Moreover, only a portion of the most heavily used areas of Itasca State Park, which is 32,000 acres, is wired for Internet. Itasca is the third most visited among Minnesota’s 66 state parks, with about 500,000 visitors annually.
If the service expands, it would be to high-use state parks, such as William O’Brien near Marine on St. Croix or Gooseberry Falls on the North Shore, Arndt said.
Unlike wilderness areas, state parks offer a lot of modern amenities, and Internet service might be among them if the public wants it.
“We have flush toilets, showers and paved trails,” Arndt said. “Maybe this is another amenity that we offer in those high-use areas. If it helps people stay connected, but gets them outdoors, we might go with it.”
