nature in our own backyard
Courtesy DigNatureThe other day I was invited to take a canoe trip down the Mississippi River, where I saw all kinds of wildlife, including a prehistoric-looking heron, and lots of other birds. I also saw really cool bridges from the underside, and got an up-close look at a gigantic river barge.

The best part about it? I didn't even need to leave the city, I just rode my bike to a park in St.Paul and a few minutes later I was out on the water.

This trip was part of a new program that Wilderness Inquiry and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area are sponsoring to get city folks like me (and you?) out on the river. It's called the Urban Wilderness Canoe Area or UWCA, and the group organizing these trips hope to take 10,000 middle and high-school students on river trips. Some will even include overnight camping in St.Paul.

Besides being a really fun trip, I was able to see (and put my hands into) the place where my drinking water comes from, and where the run-off from my city street goes to.

While the water did look and smell better than I would have imagined, I did see all kinds of disgusting trash, some of which had made its way into the branches of nearby trees and bushes. I saw fast food containers, plastic toys, grocery bags and lots of cigarette butts. It's easy to forget that this stuff all ends up somewhere, and often times in waterways like the Mississippi, which eventually end up in our oceans. Even my short river trip was a great reminder of this.

Have any Buzz readers been canoeing or hiking along the Mississippi, or camping near the city? What did you see?

Tags : wildlife, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Urban Wilderness Canoe Area, UWCA, water, mississippi river, sustainability, future earth, Earth Buzz

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Join us to learn about the impacts of global warming on Minnesota's treasured Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The program--"The late, great Boundary Waters forests? Addressing the risks of rapid forest decline"--is part of the 2006 Sigurd Olson lecture series, and is free and open to the public.

Featured speakers:

• J. Drake Hamilton, science policy advisor, Fresh Energy;
• Paul Douglas, meteorologist, WCCO-TV; and
• Dr. Lee Frelich, director, University of Minnesota Center for Hardwood Ecology.

Monday, November 27, 2006
Science Museum of Minnesota Discovery Hall
120 West Kellogg Boulevard, Saint Paul, Minnesota

6:30 - 7:00 Pre-program special event
Guided tour of Science-on-a-Sphere, the museum's new whole-Earth visualization system

7:00 - 9:00 Main program

Sponsored by Fresh Energy, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, and the Science Museum of Minnesota. For more information, contact J. Drake Hamilton at 651-726-7562 or hamilton @ fresh-energy.org.

Tags : global warming, program, climate change, forum, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

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