Finding spring in the river world of Fort Snelling State Park
Finding spring in the river world of Fort Snelling State Park
A morning walk revealed nature's slow churn and the stark beauty of flood plain forest.
By Bob Timmons, Illustrations by Mark Boswell
April 23, 2021 — 12:35am
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I quickly found it.
At first blush and from a distance, I thought I was marveling at waterfowl, bunches of them swept slowly along in the eddies of a coffee-brown Minnesota River. But my idea broke apart like the white objects before me. They weren't more swans like the pairs anchored in a nearby backwater pond. Turns out they were the remains of winter upriver: small flotillas of ice and dirty snow in their last throes. I clearly had found a marker of spring, and it was fitting. Water is a dominant theme in the flood plain forests of Fort Snelling, one of the most visited of Minnesota's state parks to hike, picnic, bird watch and explore.