Camp Rabideau project gets USDA award

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

June 11, 1996

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Volunteers hardly ever get noticed and recognition of their work comes even less frequently. However, volunteers who have helped to restore and preserve historic Camp Rabideau south of Blackduck have received just that, recognition.

Members of the Chippewa National Forest and the Blackduck Outdoor Learning Center committee were honored for their work with the camp in a ceremony June 5 in Washington, D.C. The Camp Rabideau Project Team received a 1996 U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary's Honor Award in the category of Public Service.

"The Secretary's Honor Award is the most prestigious award given by the Department of Agriculture," stated a news release. The team was recognized for its creative interpretive and educational programming and for its exceptional use of partnerships in the preservation of historic Camp Rabideau.

Camp Rabideau is one of only a half dozen remaining Civilian Conservation Corps camps left, said Peggy Irish, project coordinator. "When they were built, they were only meant to be temporary locations," she said. "When they finished the work they were doing, the camps were to be moved."

Irish said Rabideau is special because it is the only one of the few remaining camps that has a significant number of buildings still standing. The other camps remaining do not have as many original features left, she said.

The CCC camps were established as part of Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal," Irish said. Between 1933 and 1942 there were more than 4,000 CCC camps distributed throughout the United States. The were instituted to "provide financial relief for young men who were not married, mostly," she said. "It was a way to give them constructive work that would not take jobs away from those who had families."

The camps were operated jointly by the U.S. Army and a combination of agencies. The Army dealt with the logistics of the camps, Irish said, the number of people staying at each camp, camp life, food and other jobs needed to run the camps. Ranking Army personnel acted as camp director at each camp. However, Irish said, the camps were not run a military basis. The enrollees did not have to do drills and salute the Army personnel.

The work projects were distributed by a number of agencies, Irish said. The Soil Conservation Service, the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Biological Service (now called the Fish and Wildlife Service) and state forestry services were all involved. These agencies decided what work would be done and where and how many men would be needed to complete the tasks.

The CCC enrollees were employed to do a variety of things. They replanted forests, improved wildlife habitats, worked to restore and preserve historic sites, fought forest fires and built numerous ranger stations, trails, camps and wayside rests," Irish said.

"The enrollees worked 7 billion man-days of work during those nine years," she said. "That's a staggering amount."

Irish said the project team works hard to preserve Camp Rabideau because of the historical significance of the period. "It's a period of our American history that's not focused on as much as earlier periods," she said. "The Depression is such an important piece of our history."

"It's a real honor to be honored," she said. "We're all just really excited that we've been recognized. However, there were a lot of people who have done a lot that weren't mentioned."