02/27/2026
‘I wanted to do something cool’: Meet the man who made the Minnesota-shaped forest
Retired Department of Natural Resources employee Bill Lockner created a state-shaped forest in northern Minnesota nearly 40 years ago. This photo from 1990 shows the shape shortly after trees were logged. It's still visible from the air and likely will be for decades to come. Read more about this story from MPR below 👇🏻
Years before Google Earth, DNR forester Bill Lockner used hand tools and calculated all the angles and distances to etch Minnesota’s shape into a stretch of forest in Lake of the Woods County. He doesn’t talk about it much, but he spoke recently with MPR News.
