Updates & Stories

7:00 AM: The day starts with getting the truck from the “bull pen”, a fenced area where all the DNR and Corps trucks are housed. Our crew leader Steve checks his email or calls our project host to see what we are doing, and today we are heading up to Wild River State Park to work on woody invasives. Read More

In the early morning hours of September 2, a four-person crew boarded a plane for Saipan, where Typhoon Soudelor made landfall on August 2 before heading to Taiwan, China and Japan’s Ryukuy Islands. During its 30-day deployment, the crew will set up a Volunteer Reception Center (VRC) to help coordinate and manage volunteers from multiple agencies and community groups. Read More

This summer, the Corps joined forces with Superior National Forest (SNF) to hire and train 12 young adult corps members through the Faces of Tomorrow initiative, which provides intensive training and work experience to under-represented individuals to help them move into full-time Forest Service conservation positions.  Read More

During 16 days in August, a six-person Conservation Corps crew stripped and restored church pews at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Indiana, which is operated and maintained by the National Park Service.  Read More

For a third consecutive year, Summer Youth Corps crews helped plant trees at Voyageur’s National Park in International Falls, in collaboration with the Rainy Lake Sportfishing Club, Koochiching Soil & Water Conservation District and the National Parks Conservation Association.  Read More

Unlike many other field crews, work on a water trails crew can be very much a feast or famine type of situation. Some rivers will give us more work than we sometimes think we can handle. We’re working at least ten hours a day (many days more than that) and it seems we don’t get anywhere. Snag after snag and jam after jam seems to be blocking our path to open river, freedom and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Read More

Ever wonder what an oak tree talking to another oak sounds like? I know… Oak-Oak-OAK.An oak savanna -- especially one that doesn’t need management – is a rare ecosystem. Read More

As a member of the NPS Roving crew, I work with the Exotic Plant Monitoring Team (EPMT); as a part of that work I have spent nearly four months backpack spraying in forests and restored prairies throughout parks in the Midwest. We’ve treated exotic invasives such as sericea lespedeza, Johnson grass and Japanese stilt grass, to name just a few, but also focused on native invasives like sumac, dogwood and plum.  Read More

Like many Plains States, Minnesota was once home to millions of acres of prairie grassland. Native grasses like big blue stem, little blue stem, switch grass, Indian grass, porcupine grass or side-oats grama, and forbs such as goldenrod, prairie smoke and blazing star covered the western and southern parts of the state. However, if you travel through the southwest region of Minnesota today, you would be hard-pressed to find an area with native remnant prairie.  Read More

On my first day with Conservation Corps, I pulled into a dark and snowy parking lot where my crew leader and the first crew member to arrive were standing to greet me. That crew member shook my hand and introduced herself: “I’m Sophia, but you can call me Grace,” she said. She was bright eyed and excited. Read More