(gentle music) - I didn't have any business.

My May, June, July sales tax that I collected all combined all three months put together was less than $3.

- And now I don't even see the coyotes anymore, while I'm riding.

It's just the pressure from the donkey keeps the coyote out of the pasture.

- Our grass production just skyrocketed... (bright music) - Funding for this program was provided by SafeBasements of Minnesota, your basement waterproofing and foundation repair specialist since 1990.

Peace of mind is a safe basement.

Live Wide Open.

The more people know about West central Minnesota, the more reasons they have to live here.

More at livewideopen.com.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, where peace, relaxation and opportunities await.

And the Members of Pioneer, PBS.

(gentle music) - Ice roads, seasonal highways across frozen lakes.

The plowed pathways are one of the most visible signs of human adaptability in colder climates.

In most cases, they're used for the delivery of supplies.

This road however, was necessary for another reason.

The Northwest Angle is the chimney that juts upward on the Minnesota Canadian border.

There was a mapping year after the 1783 treaty of Paris.

And the result is the Northern most part of the contiguous United States and arguably the most unique fishing destination in the state.

The majority of travelers follow a route that goes from Warroad, Minnesota into Manitoba Canada, then back into the United States at the Northwest Angle, but in 2020, that became a problem.

- The border will not open in 2020.

- The only way to get across would be to go cross 40 miles the open water (indistinct) - The US and Canadian border is back in... - My May, June, July sales tax that I collected all combined all three months put together was less than $3.

And this is for a business that's, you know have been here like 85 years.

And when we were as established as it gets I want Americans to be able to go to America.

Right?

(bright music) - Paul Colson is a third generation owner of Jake's Northwest Angle.

- Jake, my grandfather, he came up here in 1919.

He was originally from Clearwater, Kansas.

He homesteaded up here.

He was actually on his way to Alaska.

Heard you could homestead on the Angle.

- Paul was raised here and wanted to raise his kids here.

- I did.

I looked back at my youth, the opportunities I had as a boy and my wife and I, we took a little break when we got married ran up to Alaska, thought about it, talked about it and decided to come back here just to raise a family.

- It's this reason that resorts that normally engage in some healthy competition banded together to build the ice road.

- And the comradery.

It brought everybody together with a common purpose and that was to somehow get business going in spite of the US-Canadian border being closed.

- Debra Kellerman along with her husband Tony own Angle Inn Lodge on Oak Island.

They purchased the broken down business with plans to rebuild it and sell within two years.

- Couple of years, Mariana flipped it and turn it.

And we just haven't figured out what two years that's gonna be now.

25 years later, raised our kids here.

It was a good environment.

- That was a little different, you know, even just having to take a boat 10 miles to see my friends.

And you know, I can look back on that now and know that I had a really cool experience that not many kids can say they have.

- Because of its unique location, the Northwest Angle has had to overcome numerous obstacles when it comes to travel.

- A lot of people came up here like in the 30's during the depression because you could actually eat, right?

And that's where the bar was.

- I will say this, it was a hell of a lot easier getting to the Angle back in the day.

'Cause there were ferry boats, Burt steel, Resolute, all these boats that were plying the Lake.

And we had a big dock out here.

And so back then it was easier to come to the Angle.

There was actually a flying service, you know and now there isn't flying service because insurance is too high.

So they went out of business and there is no boats going across the lake.

They're out of business.

- Paul's grandpa Jake and some of the other locals realized they needed a road to get into the Angle.

So they pooled their money and resources and built a gravel road that connected to a highway in Canada.

- Guys were kicking it around much like this ice road.

My grandpa, Jake, Joe Russert, neighbor next door, and a Comstock.

I can't remember his first name.

They just said, you know what?

Let's put a road in 'cause the County, nobody was moving.

Nobody was moving to the County state side of it.

And so they did, they went down to Red Lake, had a meeting with them about, you know, crossing the land.

They gave them an easement.

We still have the ledgers about people donating money to put the road in.

I still got all that stuff.

So it was a community effort and they just scraped up what equipment they had and started putting a road in.

- You can draw parallels between the road built years ago and the ice road built this year.

- You know we all ponied in money at the beginning to be able to pay for the preliminary building, the plowing, any breakdowns of equipment... - To survive at the Northwest Angle, most businesses cater to tourism particularly those that come for the fishing.

- I guess we're in the walleye capital of the world.

So ,you know, fishing is probably the number one but just tourism in general, people come in to see the sites and, you know, come to Lake of the Woods... - Not only did the businesses come together to help each other survive, but loyal customers came to the Angle to support them as well.

- We come from a small community and we know how small businesses work and they're small and they need the help from all over.

- There's a lot of fish up here.

So you probably will catch some small ones with potentials to catch big ones too.

But I like eating all eyes.

So I'm looking for some meters.

- It's probably one of the better places in Lakewood's fish because you're so close to the fishing and hospitality is great.

- We fish primarily on structure instead of mud flats.

And as a result, the schools of fish could tend to hang and your likelihood of being able to catch your limit or catch your supper or catch and release a trophy is high.

- While you come for the fishing.

Ultimately, it's the experience you remember and the relationships you create while you're there.

- (laughs) Oh, yeah.

- It's more of the atmosphere of the people you're with and who you're spending your time with.

The fishing is a second part of it.

- The border closure also affected private cabin owners.

- You know not being able to go South was more of an inconvenience and not a hardship but for the resort owners, not being able to have people come from the South is truly a hardship.

And so that ice road, you know, whoever thought of it and the people that executed plowing it and constructing it was a genius idea.

- You know, your initial reaction is really?

An ice road, I mean, I already have one to the Island and that's 10 miles and it's pretty spendy.

And you're talking 22 to 30 miles of road that you need to build and maintain and we're a small population then, you know, you wonder whether or not it really will happen.

- Creating the ice road was a long road.

- We still had open water at the entrance of the road January, the first week in January.

So you couldn't open then.

- Opening it up Wasn't that much fun.

There was four or five or six trucks out here for seven days, just trying to get it opened up for the 14 miles that we do.

And that was breakdowns every day and... - Despite some fair conditions for the road, the mild winter means more pressure ridges and cracks to repair.

- Usually when temperature changes, the ice shifts and then it blows a crack up.

You have to either move it or just drop it down.

- The first eight miles is actually a road already maintained by Springsteel Resort, near Warroad.

They allow the guests ice road, to connect to their road at Whiskey flats.

- Yeah, I remember growing up and taking our boats up to go visit those resorts and go see that part of the lake and thinking how awesome it was.

And, you know, it'd be really be sad to lose that.

You know, whether you're competitive or not it's such a neat part of the Lake and it wasn't a hard decision for us to wanna help and do what we can to get people up there.

- The road then travels another 14 miles North towards the Angle before making landfall and traveling along the border on a snowmobile trail.

(gentle music) The last eight miles is a picture S John through tall pines and swampy lowlands.

(gentle music) Before arriving at Jim's Corner and traveling to Angle Inlet along the only gravel road in the area.

As spring arrives and the big lake reclaims the road that once carried anglers North, business owners look back on the decision that kept them afloat.

- You know, I've thought about it a lot.

If Herb Brooks had his miracle on ice, then Northwest Anglers now had their miracle on ice.

It opened the door and every resort up here has been very happy to see guests again, have people in their camps, do their businesses and be able to have a little bit of income that they lost over the summer.

But at least to feel normal again.

- It gave us a chance.

That's what it gave us right?

I generated, I was down, you know, 87% for the summer.

This winter, I'm thinking I'm gonna run about a third of our normal volume, just because we're gonna lose summer much here, it's warming up.

So it's just with a shortened season.

Yeah.

Well if we're doing a third, but a third is a heck of a lot better than 13%.

- As of now, nobody knows what the future holds but if the border doesn't open up back soon, more tough decisions will have to be made by those that reside in work at the Northwest Angle.

- So we have to find some way forward so we can survive.

And I guess, yeah, we'll do whatever it takes, I guess.

(gentle music) - Counts are thick in Southwest Minnesota.

And although a predator has attacked only one of their calves, to be proactive, they brought in a donkey patrol, eight years ago.

- That route in that soil is just key.

(gentle music) - They used to be when I'd go out and ride a pasture in the summer.

It was nothing for me to see a coyote while I was out riding the pasture.

And now I don't even see the coyotes anymore.

while I'm riding, it's just the pressure from the donkey keeps the, the coyote out of the pastures.

(bright music) - Grant and Dawn Breitkreutz run Stoney Creek Farm near Redwood Falls where they graze cattle, hogs and chickens in pastures.

Cows are thick in Southwest Minnesota.

And although a predator has attacked only one of their calves, to be proactive, they brought in a donkey patrol eight years ago.

- I got the idea from a good friend of ours.

They farm and ranch three hours North of here and they've dealt with the timber wolf for about 30 years already in the region they live in.

And they decided to combat the timber Wolf with a natural way.

And what they found was the donkeys.

They just brought the...

They just saw these donkeys were on sale and went and bought them and brought them home and started picking through them, watching the donkeys, how they behave and how they acted and decided to sort through the ones that they thought were the best and kept them for their operation to help with the timber wolf.

Here obviously we're not dealing with the timber wolf yet but... - We have cats.

- We have mountain lions roaming through here on and off.

And we obviously have the coyotes slick as hair on a dog around here.

And we first got three donkeys and we unloaded them.

- - They were in that in a pan over there.

- And we had two yard dogs at the time.

One of them was pretty aggressive predator control and the dogs had not seen the donkeys yet.

And all of a sudden the dogs could see those ears, those big point of ears sticking up.

And the dogs immediately thought there was something wrong in the yard.

And they started barking and running towards that yard.

Those donkeys all three of them lined up nose to tail nose to tail nose to tail across that yard fence.

There was no way those dogs were gonna come into that pen.

- He thought our dogs were gonna be dead.

- I figured they were gonna be dead.

(bright music) - Grant and Dawn practice rotational grazing.

Their pastures are divided into paddocks and cattle are moved from one to another.

Chickens are rotated in three to 10 days after the cattle.

- This last year we had issues with coyote with chickens but it was also our first year of chickens.

So we will use the donkey every place we think we need it to protect our livestock.

We've been blessed to have friends that fall a few donkeys every year.

So we've been buying yearlings from them for a couple of hundred bucks a head.

- We paid less for a donkey than you Would for a good guard dog.

- I mean, I've seen him chase a napkin tumbling across the pasture because they're just such a curious animal.

They want to know what it is that's in their environment.

And obviously if they don't like it, they run it out of their environment.

- The Breitkreutz own six donkeys, one stays with each of the six groups of cattle that are rotated.

But when cows are calving, donkeys have to stay outside the fence.

- Those cows get really defensive and aggressive to anything that's not supposed to be out there.

- This is the only donkey that we have tamed.

This is the largest one alright.

She's a mammoth donkey, but Dawn tamed this one with the hopes that having one tamed, one would help with moving cattle, because donkeys are donkeys.

They are stubborn, stubborn animals and it works to have her tamed and trained that it helps with moving them.

If we want the donkeys to move we'll try to get them to move away from us.

My own personal feeling is if we keep them wild they'll act more like they should in nature and be a more aggressive predator control.

And I'm not saying that taming this one made her less aggressive.

- We've had instances where all of us here know, they'll break through the fence or something.

The cattle will get out and she has disappeared for three, four days.

She's just off in the... - - She would go off in the woods.

- And we couldn't find her and pretty soon... - All of a sudden she shows up and comes back with the cattle.

But the ones that aren't tamed, they're usually always right with the cows, always with them.

- Dawn and grant discovered that their 30 year old donkey named Jenny is drawn to the reflective lens of a camera.

- She has scared a cameraman to death.

(Dawn laughs) You can see how she'll nuzzle up to Dawn.

- Donkey kisses.

- A guy who was interviewing me in the middle of the pasture.

And it happened to be the pasture she was in, she went around and said hi to the other people that were in the group.

And then she walked right up behind the cameraman just put her head over the shoulder and put her lips right on his face.

And he immediately throws and looked at me and said am I about to die?

And I said no, you'll be okay Brian.

- The people that have seen that video when they come and visit, they wanna see Danny the donkey.

She's kind of got her own following don't ya?

Yeah.

You are adorable.

- She's a big donkey and a donkey's feet are like lightning strikes.

And you can watch a cow kicky.

You'll never see a donkey kick yet until it's done.

- They have strong jaws and really accurate feet.

They can run fast.

- I've ridden beside him on a four Wheeler, 35, 40 miles an hour.

We have no idea what their donkeys do at night.

I mean, there's times in the middle of the summer you get in for work and lay in.

You're walking across the yard and it sounds like Jurassic park out in these pastures.

It is so loud.

So that tells me that the donkeys are upset by something.

And then it's just chaos out there at night.

And yet we don't hear a cattle bellowing we don't hear calves bellowing and everything stays calm.

The friends that we got these from, they do a lot of stuff horseback, and they were pushing cattle through some brush and came out and there was a donkey standing there and they had 160 pound dog that got too close to the donkey.

The donkey grabbed it, flipped it up in the air, kicked it over her head and landed on her horse.

So that's when we hear all that noise at night, that's about the only thing that any of us can imagine is going on.

(bright music) - The Breitkreutz don't know what predators mother nature may send their way in the future.

There could be more mountain lions, Bobcat's, even timber wolves but there'll be no match for the cute, but fierce donkey patrol.

(Gentle music) - Twenty four years ago, Grant Breitkreutz's parents, Carl and Deanna surprised him by calling it quits from farming.

My mom and dad, had made a commitment to each other that when they turned 50 years old, they were either gonna continue farming or look at doing something else.

And to my amazement, my mum and dad decided to quit farming.

- His parents went on to other things and Grant his wife Dawn took over the farm.

They rented the land, purchased his parents' cows and calves and started a venture and called it Stoney Creek Farm.

Today, they graze Red Angus cattle, hogs and chickens on 465 acres of natural grass.

There are 450 acres of no-till corn, soybeans, wheat and alfalfa, incorporate cover crops.

But the award-winning environmental stewards, weren't always so unconventional.

(soft music) - We started out what I would call very conventional.

I mean, we did everything we could the way our neighbors did.

over the years we learned that it wasn't really working for us.

So we started looking at different methods of farming... - And we were actually producing like two crops in one year to try to have enough feed for the cattle.

We fed our cows more of the year than we actually had them out on pasture 'cause the pastures didn't work.

- The couple switched from continuously grazing their pasture land to intensive rotational grazing.

They set up fence sections called paddocks then moved cattle from one to another, to give grasses and resting paddocks a chance to recover.

- We're going still chasing production.

We wanted more pounds of beef per acre.

We wanted more grass per acre.

And then the realization came that we had changed the soil health.

When bogs along the river here, that we could never graze before.

All of a sudden we could graze them because the rainfall was landing on top of the hills and staying on top of the hills instead of running into the bogs.

- Our grass production just skyrocketed, you know compared to what it used to be.

And all of a sudden we had this tall lush grass going on in pastures in the spring time.

And we hadn't had that before.

You know, the best we could do is a little bit above the ankle.

- We're producing grass, this shoulder high on me with no fertilizer and no herbicide.

- That's when we were like, Oh my God if we can do that, where, you know, it's under grass why can't we start doing that out on our fields?

And that's really when everything intensified and our journey really started down that regenerative path.

(bright music) - We started implementing many, many different practices on our row crop land, added more diversity to our cropping, added cover crops in and 10 years ago, we made the switch to the last crop to a hundred percent no-till.

In our crop land we've reduced our synthetic fertilizer over 70% that we apply.

We've reduced our herbicide over 60% that we use.

We're not organic, it's a long-term goal, but just doing that and still maintaining the yields respectable yields within the county has really changed our operations.

- Among their many honors, the Breitkreutz received the regional environmental stewardship award from the National Cattleman's Beef Association.

- The impact of a cow on the land.

It can't be measured.

As long as it's done correctly, what comes out of a cow can't be duplicated in science, in a lab, anywhere there's so many living organisms that follow that cow, that are in that cow that are expelled in the land that help feed the biology in the soil.

It's just unbelievable.

When we had started changing things, especially in the grazing system, it was really hard on my dad.

He would never directly talk to Dawn and I.

He would always send it through my mom, the filter.

And it's like look at those kids are wasting all that grass.

And we begged dad to come into the classes that we'd have here in the farm or the field days, the pasture walks that we'd have.

And eventually my dad did come.

- Yep.

- And then he realized what we were doing.

We weren't wasting grass, we were building fertility.

That was our weed pressure program.

And now my dad is the biggest champion of this of anybody, I mean... - He's pretty proud of... - He's pretty proud of it.

And he does a lot of our harvest here on the farm.

He's actively farming again.

He loves it now seeing what we're doing and he'll get done harvesting a small grain crop from me running the combine and right away, it's like, can you get the no-till drill hooked up?

I gotta get cover crops but in there he knows how important that is now for our operation is to have a living route in the soil at all times, is our goal.

- That route in that soil is just key.

You know, it's harvesting sunlight and it's feeding the the livestock we have underneath the surface of the soil.

Soil is alive.

And so we have to feed it.

- Cover crops for wildlife around here is...

I never thought I would see it in my life.

I quit hunting white-tailed deer because there were none.

I mean, if we'd get one every three or four years.

Now the guys I got out here hunting, you know this year on 84 acres of our pasture land that harvested 11 deer this year.

We're now 120 plus deer on this farm in the winter.

It's a food source for them.

- The pheasants are coming back, birds that we've never seen before.

The insect population, you know, the beneficial insects.

It's just an explosion of those.

Just, it's just crazy everything.

It's like, we've got a magnet here.

- The bonuses feeding the livestock are our own livestock on those cover crops.

Neighbors stop and ask and look and watch.

And we do have neighbors in the community that are starting to shift their practices to the way we do it.

As human beings in anything, we can decide if it's gonna make it, or if it's gonna fail.

And so it comes back to the producer having the right mindset that we're going to make this work on our farm.

And we will, and they will (bright music) - Funding for this program was provided by SafeBasements of Minnesota, your basement waterproofing and foundation repair specialist, since 1990.

Peace of mind is a safe basement.

Live Wide Open.

The more people know about West central Minnesota, the more reasons they have to live here.

more at livewideopen.com.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, where peace, relaxation and opportunities await.

And the Members of Pioneer, PBS.

(indistinct) - Oh yeah.

And here's the one for the bucket.

Look at that and he absolutely inhaled.

So what I'm using right now is a hyper glide.

It's like a jig and rappelling.

It's got these wings when you jig it up it kinda floats and swims down.

And he chased that thing up.

I started to get a little bit more aggressive with it.

He chased that thing up and then on the way down, he absolutely inhaled that thing.

And I actually tipped it with a whole minnow.

A lot of times I'll just use part of a minnow maybe a minnow head or even a minnow tail.

And I put the whole head, the whole minnow on there and he's got this whole minnow and this whole hyper glide in his mouth and they have been tight lipped today.

It's a high sun.

It's bright and sunny.

It's late season.

There's been a lot of pressure up here.