Because of the floods our trip to Itasca became one day instead of two and we had to drive south from Willow River to get around the closed roads and bridges to find a route we could use to go west. This took us around Lake Mille Lacs, over to Brainerd, then up to Walker and on to Itasca. There I received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Minnesota Association of Environmental Education (MAEE). This was an amazing honor and wonderful recognition from my peers. The event was held at the Mary Gibbs Center in Itasca State Park - the headwaters of the Mississippi River and an important part of our 2013 expedition. Lake Itasca is shaped like a slingshot and the river drains out of the north end over a series of slippery stepping stones. It is hard to envision the small stream that exits the lake to be the same river as the industrial waterway we saw near New Orleans. The Mississippi starts in the true north - land of red and white pines and Minnesota...
GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley I am intrigued by the idea of Sense of Place; to feel completely ‘at home’ in one particular place. I have read that people who grow up on the Great Plains feel claustrophobic when they are in forested environments and in reverse, people who have grown up surrounded by forest find the openness of the plains unnerving, with nothing to break the view to the horizon. I grew up in the city, but the Minnehaha Creek and Parkway were just two blocks away and I spent countless hours playing and exploring there. The city lakes were within biking distance. The Mississippi River was just blocks away from the apartment where I lived the first four years of my life. When I was 36 I married Mike and moved to our current home and it was perfect. When my dad first visited us in our new home, he said, “Kate must think she’s died and gone to heaven”. This is where I am supposed to be. Scientists who have studied the e...
WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley Let me tell you a little bit about how my brain works and the challenge I face every two weeks when a column is due. The week before I start thinking of possibilities. The closer it gets, the more my brain and eyes search for possibilities. Sometimes it’s really simple because a unique bird or behavior appears; more often it’s like this; ME: The article is coming out right before St. Patrick’s Day – a most important holiday because of my ancestry – what could I write about that relates to that and birds? St. Patrick is famous for driving the snakes (paganism) out of Ireland, not the birds; so that’s out. What about green? Hmmm --- the only green birds that I know of are parrots or parakeets – I have seen them in various places, not here of course, I wonder why there are so few green plumed birds in the world; Lots of people keep these types of birds as pets……. (then wandering past the windows as I’m thinkin...
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