This park contains a wonderful wildflower walking trail. I read about it last spring in a local newspaper and brought my kids here for a great afternoon. We found trilliums, spring beauty, wild ginger, hepatica and a great big snapping turtle. There are informative signs along the trail to help you identify the flowers.
This park was originally just the site of the historic marker for Old Abe McCann, an eagle that fought in the Civil War. A local teacher discovered the abundance of wildflowers here and brought school groups to the park every spring. However, the traffic from the children and other flower lovers was hard on the delicate plants. When the Jim Falls power dam was relicensed in the 1980's, new regulations required some recreational developments so when the teacher contacted the owner of the land, Northern States Power Co. (now Xcel Energy) about developing trails they were happy to assist.
NSP mapped out the trails, they were covered with gravel and interpretive signs were installed. The completed trails opened in 1988.
The spring flowers usually begin in April and peak in May but winter weather and spring moisture will affect the blooming times. One flower that we found particularly interesting was the wild ginger. The flower is just above the ground at the base of the plant. It is often covered by dried leaves and not readily visible.
Also worth noting along the trail is the rock-eating tree.
The listed coordinates will take you to a historic marker. To find the coordinates for the cache, you will need to gather information both from the marker and from one of the interpretive signs along the trail.
Updated May 3, 2021 to account for change in the interpretive sign.
Find the interpretive sign at the north end of the wooden bridge on the trail (less than 0.2 miles from historic marker). The name for the flower has two parts.
Flower name = A B
The number of letters in word A = J
The number of letters in word B = K
From the historic marker, find the date Old Abe died: March XY, 18 Z1.
Use these numbers to calculate the cache coordinates.
Final cache can be found at:
N 45 03.[K][J+K][K]
W091 16.[X][J+K][Y-Z]
The cache is a small LocknLock container.
