Emily Brisse

A shout out: If you've never heard of or checked out The Nature Conservancy , ladies and gentleman, now is the time. They're involved in important work all over the world, and if you love yourself some unspoiled places, it's likely that they've had a hand or at least a finger in either the preservation of that locale or the preservation of public opinion that such sanctuaries matter. In Minnesota alone, TNC has helped conserve more than 500,000 acres  of wild habitat. That's no small field of grass. And the photography they post? Let's just say it's not ugly. There are plenty of other strong organizations out there, too. Please leave a link in the comments if you think there's one in particular I need to know about!

Numbers have never been my passion, but I'm about to throw some at you like slick boomerangs with the hope that they'll fling back and sting me between the eyes, seep into my skull, and do that one thing I'm doing all this for: inspire. In Minnesota... -- there are over 15,000 lakes and ponds -- there exist  three of North America's major drainage systems (meaning, lots of rivers and streams) -- there are four  ecological biomes: prairie parklands, eastern broadleaf forests (sugar maple, basswood, and elm), and Laurentian mixed forest (white pine, red pine, spruce, fir, aspen, and birch), and tallgrass aspen parklands -- the area of greatest relief is the Arrowhead region, with the lowest elevation at 602 feet above sea level (Lake Superior's shore) and the highest at 2,301 feet (Eagle Mountain) -- the greatest twenty-four-hour rainstorm of record was 10.8 inches on July 21-22, 1972, in Morrison Country -- the lowest annual precipitation was 7.8 inches in...