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congratulations to mark and shelly kennedy from elk river, mn for finding the fireball tree!! 

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here’s how they found it.  the place that hasn’t been since ’35 is camden woods, which became part of camden state park and was located near what is now the north picnic grounds.  they started there.  next, there is a train track (the iron trail) just to the east that goes mostly north-south, and if you take the iron trail down - down meaning south - it will eventually cross the redwood river (where it crosses the blue).  this was the general search area. after finding the sign for the jones mill historical sight, the rest fell into place: the sign is below a huge cottonwood tree (beneath the giant); the twins are the posts on either side of the sign (between the twins); on the sign there is a date of 1830 – on the back side of the sign behind that date (behind the times, a side seldom seen by anyone) they found the “winning ticket” wedged between the post and the sign.

i want to thank everyone that participated – this project was a lot of fun and i learned a lot about local history, particularly of camden state park.  if you have not been to there, you need to check it out.  it’s nice to have this little oasis out here in prairie lands.  congratulations again to mark and shelly!
 

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the fireball tree (facebook origin)

last week my wife and I decided to go have a bite and a brew at one of the small town bars in the area.  as we were enjoying our meal, we overheard some of the locals talking about a stranger that passed through recently.  they said he came in a little drunk and bragging about how he found the fireball tree.  “well sure, it’s out there,” one of them said, “everyone knows that, we just don’t know where.” it seemed like everyone genuinely believed there was such a tree - and maybe, just maybe, this guy really found it.  as they described the experience, i was starting to get an idea of where some of the clues were leading.

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the story continued...

we tried to catch everything that was being said but the bar was getting busy and it was hard to hear.  but it pretty obvious that the guy was throwing out clues here and there, cryptic and baffling as they were.  the bartender finally added, “so then he just stood up, mumbled something vaguely insulting, and staggered out into the night.  we never saw him again.”

after a while the conversation turned to other local concerns. we left, and on the drove home, i kept thinking about the notion that a thing like the fireball tree could really exist.  it seems implausible, but everyone at the bar believed it.  over the course of the next few days i documented all the clues I could find and starting trying to make sense of them.  i felt like i was banging my head against the wall, but it kept gnawing at me – like when you have a word “on the tip of your tongue” – i knew there was something familiar and i almost had it.

the first clue i figured out wasn’t all that hard once I thought about it.  it’s "here in the land that roars” he said.  well, eventually it came to me: it’s here in lyon county, minnesota.  lyon = lion = a beast that roars.  a stretch but it made sense to start there anyway.  so that narrowed it down to about 714.4 square miles to search…  then the clues started lining up.  i was getting excited, and after a few more days i felt i had figured it out:

i knew where to find the fireball tree!

it was difficult to contain my enthusiasm and I began the search.  i followed the clues and my heart raced as one lead clue to another and then another until at last – i found the fireball tree!  as you can imagine, i was pretty excited.  but also, I didn’t want to get carried away, so i made sure i only harvested a few – you know, sustainability and all that.  nectar of the gods, indeed.  as i sipped the sweet reward of my efforts, i fondly recalled the adventure of searching and then finding the tree, and i thought others might also enjoy it.  and well – here we are.

i took all the clues and put them in a song, appropriately titled, “the fireball tree” (musicians can get awfully creative you know).  i also added the lyrics below. 

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You can listen to the song here.... (thanks to Rhonda Maker for the awesome backing vocals!!)