Severson Dells

Thursday, July 23, starting at 6:30 pm

Pattiann Rogers                      Brian Doyle

There will be nothing ordinary about this evening. It will be talked about on a variety of levels for weeks, if not months, quite possibly years. Come hear one of the “nation’s most persnickety” poets, Pattiann Rogers of Colorado, and one of the nation’s “oddest essayists”, Brian Doyle of Oregon. “The thesis for the evening: there are no small things, only moments crammed with story and song and revelation and epiphany, if only we could see – we are swimming in a sea of the most particular and amazing miracles. We search for them and embrace them with our senses and our stories, our music and our joys, our visions and our intellect”.

The evening will begin with accomplished local poets, Mary Caskey and Chris Swanberg sharing some of their words and thoughts. Then Rogers and Doyle will share the podium as they sway back and forth from poems to “proems” in a crescendo of words and feelings.

Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland - the best university magazine in America, according to Newsweek. He is the author of numerous books and his essays appear in a wide variety of periodicals and anthologies.

Pattiann Rogers, born and raised in Missouri, has spent most of her adult life in Texas and Colorado. She is the author of 13 books of poetry and has been awarded five Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award. Rogers has taught as a visiting writer at several universities. Her papers are archived at Texas Tech University.

Free to all, but please call for registrations at 1-815-335-2915. This program is in honor of the memory of Dr. Alan Hutchcroft.

Saturday, June 20, 8:00 am-12:00 noon

Leader: Keith Blackmore. For ages: junior high to adult. We will begin with an introductory lecture about ponds and pond life and then spend a couple of hours exploring the pond environment and collecting representative organisms. The organisms will be identified, discussed, and released back into their natural community. Those who have hip boots or old sneakers and shorts can help with the sampling. Others can sort materials on shore. Fee: $5. Call 1-815-335-2915 to register.

When: Saturday, June 13
Where: Severson Dells Nature Center
Time: 9:30 AM - 12:00 Noon

We seem to live at a time when electronic gadgetry serves as a crutch for many of our activities. Witness the vast array of cell-phones, hand-held GPS devices and mobile navigation systems. Can anyone read a road map anymore? Are we in an era when analytical thinking and personal observation skills take a back seat to blind allegiance to what a machine says? If our technology fails us can we still function and continue with our plans or are we like the proverbial canoe heading upstream without a paddle?

Severson Dells Nature Center will offer the chance to leave your high tech digital route finding devices at home and instead rely on a map (actually printed on paper) and your ability to interpret it. If you’re up for the challenge you can choose to also test your skills with the original “high tech” navigational device, a compass. Best of all is the fact that while you are honing your route finding skills you are surrounded by the woodland, prairie, creek, hills and, of course, the dells of Severson Dells Forest Preserve.

This is an activity known as orienteering, a popular sport in parts of Europe, but existing in relative obscurity on this side of the “big pond.” Many Americans when asked if they can find a particular location blithely exclaim, “I can’t read a map!” This indifference toward map reading and finding one’s way almost seems a cultural norm. However the exploration of our continent was done by those who relied only on basic navigational devices and/or dead reckoning. The likes of Daniel Boone, David Thompson, John Fremont and Lewis and Clark found their way without a map because they were the ones making the map. Many who went through the ranks of the Boy Scouts received training in map and compass and that organization still offers a merit badge in orienteering.

Here’s how it works. Come to Severson Dells Nature Center on Saturday, June 13 between the hours of 9:30 AM and 12:00 noon. There you can check out a map which will have trails, streams, pond and various man-made structures shown on it, along with a series of x’s representing checkpoints which you are challenged to locate. If you choose the easier orienteering route all of your checkpoints will be located along established trails so go ahead and wear your shorts. Those up to it can choose the more challenging route where some of your checkpoints will be off the trail, which means out in the woods or in the middle of the prairie. As you probably already figured out, shorts are not advised for this route. You will need a compass to do the more adventuresome route and you can check one out at the nature center.

A short course on map reading and compass use will be offered at the nature center at 10:00 AM for those wishing instruction before heading out on the trail. Attending the course is not mandatory, however, and anyone can come between the hours mentioned above and head out on his/her own. This activity is a great opportunity for families and individuals to get outside in a beautiful location and learn backwoods route finding skills at the same time. There is no fee for participating. However donations to Severson Dells Nature Center will be appreciated. Call 815-335-2915 for more information.

Submitted by,

Richard Benning, Severson Dells Nature Center

ⓒ Photo By Robert Renk

In the plant world, skunk cabbage is one of the first signs of Spring. Severson Dells member Robert Renk captured these images of skunk cabbage March 28 during the Skunk Cabbage Meander at Anna Page Park.

ⓒ Photo By Robert Renk

It’s called skunk cabbage for good reason: It stinks. And it’s a good survival strategy as the rancid odor attracts flies, bees and gnats that pollinate it. Skunk cabbage blooms way before other wildflowers. The plant generates heat and is sometimes seen surrounded by snow and ice.

It grows in wet areas like creek and river bottoms, and wetlands. Its maroon petals and green leaves provide marked contrast to the leave litter that it emerges from.

Even though parts of the plant are poisonous, Native Americans used skunk cabbage to treat headache, muscle ache, hysteria, respiratory problems, epilepsy and various other ailments.

Why bring a child to summer camp? How about because nature experience changes lives.

Rockford Register Star Go columnist Geri Nikolai discovered that last year when she brought her granddaughter to a Grandparents and Grandkids camp at Severson Dells.

The experience changed her granddaughter’s life, replacing a sense of fear about nature with a sense of wonder and opening her eyes to the splendor of nature.

Click here to read the story. GERI NIKOLAI: Teach children to love nature

Learn more about Severson Dells Nature Center’s Summer Camps here.

At dusk on Sat., March 14, a fire was lit to manage a 4 acre prairie near the limestone barn at the Pecatonica River Forest Preserve. It was the finale to the Severson Dells Nature Center’s spring awakening, sponsored by The Law Office of Jim Black and Associates. Severson Dells board member Chris Mann captured the blaze with his camera.

Before the fire.

The fire begins.

Dan Johnson of the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District was the fire starter.

The crowd watches.

Big blue stem’s last stand.

Look at that!

The blaze pushes on.

Everything was orange. Then the fire died out.

The barn and prairie, after the fire.

David Olson photo

We’re welcoming spring on Saturday, March 14, with a Spring Awakening Gathering at the Pecatonica River Forest Preserve. MAP

Come learn how maple syrup is made, enjoy a barn dance, take part in a community supper and watch the prairie burn at dusk.

Click here for the schedule of activities.

From the Rock River Times
Severson Dells Nature Center strives to create a sense of place for the people who visit our site or take part in our programs. It’s a location where the names of plants, and animals as well as people become familiar to all. There’s a comfortable feeling one gets whether you are walking along the creek on the way to the dells or just sitting in the “bird room” watching the chickadees and nuthatches devour sunflower seeds from the feeder.

A sense of community grows out of such a sense of place. People get to know others who share their love of nature, their gratitude for solitude or a chance to take a nice walk in the woods. Severson Dells Nature Center, thanks to the generosity of The Law Offices of Jim Black and Associates, wants everyone to celebrate the sense of community by coming out to the “Spring Awakening Gathering” at the Pecatonica River Forest Preserve, 7260 Judd Road, Pecatonica, 1:30 p.m., Saturday, March 14.

Read Don Miller’s Rock River Times story about the Spring Awakening gathering

Bird Hike
Saturday, Feb. 21
8:30-11 a.m.
Join volunteer naturalist Phil Schwab at Severson Dells Forest Preserve as we begin by identifying birds at the feeders.

We then will walk outside with the hopes of seeing the numerous winter residents of Severson Dells.

Meet at the Nature Center, 8786 Montague Road

Bring binoculars and dress for the weather. No fee.

Call 1-815-335-2915 to confirm.

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And Sunday . . . .

From the Rock River Times

By Don Miller, Education Director, Severson Dells Nature Center

“Maybe the meaning of life will turn out to be a verb, something one does, some work, some endless process, rather than an end-state. Maybe…a person can find the meaning of life on the very day she’s wearing big, black, rubber boots and an embarrassing hat,” Kathleen Dean Moore states in her book Pine Island Paradox.

Moore is a philosophy professor at Oregon State University, essayist, activist, parent and lover of all things green or flowing, and she is returning to Severson Dells Nature Center Sunday, Feb. 15. Starting at 6:30 p.m., she, along with Paul Bogard, will present readings and thoughts from their books that explore the beauties and mysteries of the world in which they walk.

Bogard teaches at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., and is editor of an anthology about dark skies that tells the stories of what we will miss if the nocturnal wilderness vanishes. He will be reading from that anthology Let There Be Light: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark.

Essayist Moore is known for explorations of the cultural and spiritual connections to wet, wild places—ancient forests, Northwest coasts, wild rivers and windswept islands.

Read more >>

The lunar calendar nearly gave us a full-moon weekend in February. It missed by a smidgen.

But if you squint Saturday night, Feb. 7, you’ll hardly notice that the moon is two days short of full. Weather Gods willing, the moon will still provide beam enough to light a short hike to the “cabin on the lake” at Rock Cut State Park.

We’ll meet at 4 p.m. at the parking lot on the west end of Pierce Lake near the dam and walk a half-mile through the winter landscape to the cabin. There, we’ll enjoy a fire, hot chocolate and stories (bring your favorite moon, lake or winter readings to share).

We’ll watch the moon rise over the lake. Don Miller, hike leader and Education Director at Severson Dells, says, “We can hike, ski, or sled to our hearts content. It’s February, so this is a “Lover’s Moon” you know so no negative thoughts about cloudy weather! If there is moderate snow, hiking may be difficult.”

Maybe we’ll see some wildlife or hear owls.

This is a joint program with the Rock River Vallley Chapter of the Wild Ones.
For more info or to RSVP call Don Miller at Severson Dells 1-815-335-2915 or Kim Risley at 1-815-962-4584.