Emily Brisse

The Big Woods. In the early 1800s, pre-settlement, huge stretches of Minnesota were covered in dense elm, basswood, sugar maple, and oak stands. When the French explorers came here, they noticed that these trees were taller and larger than those in many of the other forests they'd traveled through, so bois grand , they said. Big woods. Big, beautiful woods, I said, as I walked along the extensive trails at Lake Rebecca Park Reserve , just outside of Delano. My mother and I had met there for a picnic: chicken salad and crackers, a green apple, fresh-picked strawberries, and cold water. As we explored the quiet beach, the busy playground, and the shady walkways, I thought about those early-1800s years and how Minnesota looked then. One of my childhood dreams was to be an explorer, to walk over land few had seen. Although the many acres that make up Lake Rebecca Park were discovered long ago, ambling through it gave me a bit of that experience, because--what is  up ahead of that be...

"When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything." -- Black Elk   I can promise you one thing: when my brother and I, as children, careened around the Pipestone National Monument 's Circle Trail ( through prairie, over rocks, up cliffs, down ledges, through prairie ), we were not thinking about prayer. And we certainly didn’t whisper. The sacredness of the place never crossed our minds. Our parents were from Pipestone, the small southwestern Minnesota town where the monument resides, and the park seemed as much our backyard playground as it had once been theirs. Besides, we were eight and five, and it was just cool to climb stuff. But when I was older—twelve, maybe—I was given my first pair of dangling, red pipestone earrings, carved into the shape of leaves, and later—at fifteen?—I received a small ceremonial pipe. There were conversations surrounding these gifts, explanations of how the pipestone was quarried from the earth, how it had been ...

Some of my earliest memories involve parks. In fact, I think most of them do. What child doesn't love open spaces or mysterious woodlands to run in? And what adult--well, this adult, anyway--can't appreciate the perfection of a large swathe of land that's only purpose is to be itself? How centering is that? How necessary. So it saddens me to learn how the budget cuts in Minnesota will/might impact these important places. Thanks to Zoologirl for the alert. You really should just go to her blog and read her full response , but below is part of the Star Tribune article she quoted. One-third of state parks could have hours reduced and services slashed under a sweeping environmental bill approved by the Minnesota House and Senate on Tuesday. The Republican-controlled House would cut deepest, but both houses would limit spending for the environment and natural resources during the next two years to about $200 million, a trim of about $40 million from projected spending. The H...