Conservation community in west central Minnesota and beyond loses one who stood tall

Jun. 16—NEW LONDON

— For Laura Molenaar, the death of Roger Strand at age 87 on June 6 raises a question poised years ago by writer and musician Doug Wood.

"Who is going to hold up the sky when the big trees are gone?"

Strand, of New London, stood very tall in the conservation community of west central Minnesota and beyond. Thousands of people visited the land he protected in a conservation easement as the Stoney Ridge Farm.

Located near Sibley State Park on the very same glacial moraine, the rural New London site has been host to the Prairie Pothole Days event for 39 years. The day features a wide range of events and educational offerings, most of them aimed at introducing young people to the outdoors. No admission has ever been charged at Strand's insistence.

All in keeping with Strand's own passion, according to Molenaar. While Strand made his name in the conservation community for championing the fate of wood ducks and wetlands, at his heart he was also driven by a love for introducing young people to the outdoors.

Molenaar, who won numerous awards as an educator with the New London-Spicer Schools, credits the support of Strand and his fellow members in the New London chapter of the Izaak Walton League for making it possible. She came to understand just how passionate he was about young people when he came one spring day, as he always did, to help the students maintain the trail of wood duck houses he had helped establish. She knew that Strand was caring for the love of his life, Kay, on a full-time basis at the time and rarely left home.

"This is what I want to do," Molenaar said he told her when she asked him why he gave up his limited free time.

"Just a gentleman," said Pat Laib, of Laib's Gunsmithing, a longtime friend and fellow member of the Izaak Walton League's New London chapter. "He could say a cross word, but with a smile," laughed Laib.

Most of all, he remembers Strand for his passion for conservation. Many were the "dark and stormy nights" that Strand endured nasty weather to work on tasks for the cause, Laib explained.

Strand came to his love for the outdoors in the best way possible. In an interview with Kelsey Olson for the New London oral history project, Strand explained that while he grew up in Minneapolis, his father maintained a cottage on the north side of Green Lake where he and his siblings spent their summers. Strand talked about exploring a woodland that extended three miles at the time, and frequent family trips to Lake Andrew and Sibley State Park.

His father, Orrin, purchased 80 acres around Stoney Lake in the early 1950s so that his sons could grow up duck hunting. In later years, Roger added to the Stoney Ridge farm site and made it home; it's where he and Kay raised three children. Kay died in August of 2020, just shy of their 60th wedding anniversary.

The couple had honeymooned in a rustic cabin without electricity or running water on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This was Roger's other special place. The cabin was the launching point for numerous family canoe trips into the protected wilderness. He had worked at the YMCA Camp Menogyn in the summers of 1955 and 1956. He and three other co-workers each tossed in $250 — representing their entire earnings for the season — to acquire the cabin.

"A legendary force for conservation, education and philanthropy in our region and beyond," said Dave Pederson, former director of the Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center, when learning of Strand's death last week.

The Prairie Woods ELC in rural Spicer was a special place for Strand as well. Strand served for many years on its board of directors. He and Kay were generous financial contributors to its mission and many other conservation causes.

Dave Lais, who retired as manager of Sibley State Park, credits Strand's support for a key land addition to the park. As with so much that he did in this respect, Strand was a behind-the-scenes contributor who declined any attention.

Now retired, local physician Phil Iverslie enjoyed 66 years of friendship with Strand after the two met while in medical school.

"If I didn't fish and hunt, I'm not sure I'd have any friends," joked Iverslie while visiting about his friend.

But, of course, it was their mutual love for hunting and fishing that made them friends. They enjoyed hunting adventures together on waters ranging from Stoney Lake on Strand's property and Monongalia or Mud Lake at New London to the Platte River in Nebraska.

Iverslie also knew Strand "as one of the best surgeons I worked with. ... Very patient, very careful, precise in his surgery."

He was empathetic and compassionate too. Iverslie recalls how Strand would visit with the families of his patients, sometimes after they met at church services, to answer all the questions they had.

Strand's medical career of more than 30 years included internships in Hennepin County, Minnesota, and in Washington state, service to an Indian health center in Montana, and practice in Willmar beginning in 1969. Years into his career as a general surgeon, he took a sabbatical to study hand surgery.

Once he retired in 1991 at age 55, Strand put all of his energies into his love for wood ducks and the outdoors. The avid duck hunter had put up his first wood duck house in 1957, the year he graduated with a medical degree. In later years, he maintained around 100 houses on his property.

He became nationally known for his work on behalf of wood ducks, and his knowledge of them. LeRoy Dalhke, retired as a wildlife manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Willmar, said many of his professional colleagues often turned to Strand for the knowledge he held.

Strand kept meticulous records of the hatching in each wood duck house. He devoted hours to observing wood duck behaviors, first in a blind and later via cameras he installed in some of the houses.

He authored many articles on wood ducks for the Minnesota Waterfowl Association's newsletter and as editor for the Wood Duck Society's Newsgram. The Newsgram was Strand's retirement project, and became one of the best teaching tools for helping wood ducks across their range, according to John Molkenbur, president of the Wood Duck Society.

"No one could do the job that Roger did," said Molkenbur about Strand's role.

Stephen Straka, past president of the Wood Duck Society, called Strand's passion for wildlife and wood ducks "front and center" as his time allowed. "We could all learn from Roger Strand. I know I did."

Wood duck numbers had dropped to precipitous levels when Strand began his work for them, dating to that first house. It was nailed on a tree, and as he soon learned, vulnerable to predators such as raccoons. Strand and the Wood Duck Society famously worked to encourage people to place the houses on poles away from trees and with cone-shaped guards on the poles to protect against predators.

Strand helped Laura Molenaar's students establish wood duck trails at both the NLS elementary and middle schools. He also taught many students on the grounds of Stoney Ridge Farm, according to Molenaar.

She is not surprised that Stoney Ridge Farm plays a role for introducing people to conservation in much the same way that Aldo Leopold and his Sand County, Wisconsin, property has played. Molenaar said Strand knew the late Nina Leopold, daughter of Aldo Leopold, the well-know author of "A Sand County Almanac."

She said Strand was inspired by Leopold's writings and work. Strand had the gift of making learning about the outdoors a "magical" experience for her students, she said. He took to heart the message of Aldo Leopold: "The objective is to teach the student to see the land, to understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands. — Aldo Leopold, 1942.

A memorial service was pending at the time of this writing. Arrangements are with the

Harvey Anderson Funeral Home

.