Sherburne County Heritage Center Interpretive Plan Final Report 2005

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flat nest on some old muskrat house or some dry spot safe from high water. Occasionally I took a set of six eggs and hatched them under a hen and raised the quaint greenish yellow goslings. They were generally the tamest, most friendly and talkative birds of the barnyard, a great delight and interest." (Vernon Bailey, "The Hiram Bailey Family: Pioneers of America and Early Settlers of the Middle West," typescript, SCHS, 1928, 32) That's What They Said!-- Craigs'Prairie Rabbits Nona Mason remembered Blue Hill residents hunting and trapping in the 1920s. "They hunted rabbits, squirrels, partridge, and prairie chickens. They trapped cottontail and jack rabbits and sold them at the Knowlton store down in Orrock for 10 cents for the cottontail and 20 cents for the jacks. We never caught a jack rabbit in the trap because they were more down in Craig's prairie. I can remember my brothers and my cousins going down there in the old Model T and it didn't have a top on it. Craig's prairie used to be one big prairie and now its full of pine trees. When it was just one big prairie they would chase these jack rabbits with the old Model T. Then they could take them down to Knowlton's store and get 25 cents apiece for them." (As quoted in Anderson, 93) Fishing in Sherburne Coun Fish were plentiful in the lakes and streams of Sherburne County. Residents first used fish for subsistence fare; later they harvested fish for sale and home use, and finally fishing became a leisure -time activity. That's What They Said! "The streams and lakes were well -supplied with fish, pickerel, pike, suckers, three kinds of bass, sunfish, perch and bullheads. These were important items in our bill of fare, for during the early spring when the pickerel ran up the creek and out over the flooded meadows we could always get all we wanted at anytime, and a good mess of this delicious white-meated fish was a great treat after the long winter. There were no trout and we did very little fishing with hook and line, but any time during the summer when a mess of fish was needed we would hitch up a team, take our little boat to the closest deep lake with sandy shores and with a crude jack light and some pitch wood cruise quietly along the edges of the lake, one man standing with a spear in the front of the boat and picking out the choice fish with his spear. Usually it was not difficult to get all the fish we would need for a couple of days, and then we would put the boat in the wagon and drive back home and get part of a night's sleep after all.... As the country filled with people and the fish supply began to dwindle it was necessary to prohibit jacklighting and spearing fish, as the few fish of the present day would not long stand such methods. If the same resources of the country could have been more carefully guarded they could have been greatly prolonged or made permanent. But at that time no one dreamed of there ever being a scarcity of game or fish or wild fruits." Sherburne County Historical Society Heritage Center Interpretive Plan, April 21, 2005, page 35