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Sharon R.

@mysharona612.bsky.social

Sharing a favorite from our walk on Friday near Bdote, the sacred place of creation for the Dakota people.

Bdote sits at the confluence of the Mississippi & Minnesota rivers.

History on cultural significance in alt text.

#StunDay #EastCoastKin #Photography #Landscape #StateParks #MNStateParks

Photo: The late afternoon sun is reflected on a body of water. The sky is partly cloudy. A tree line is in the distant horizon, and native plants and brush are in the foreground.

Historical background: This spot is located in what is called Fort Snelling State Park today. Long before Fort Snelling existed, the surrounding land was known as Bdote by the Dakota people, who are Indigenous to the region.

Efforts to add “at Bdote” to Fort Snelling signage a few years ago were shut down by state legislators as “rewriting history,” despite the fact that Bdote is what the area was known as historically.

Excerpt below from the Sacred Land Film Project’s “Bdote in Mni Sota” report, by Addie Wright:

Minnesota, known as Mni Sota Makoce to the Dakota, is “the land where the waters reflect the skies.” The Dakota word Bdote means “where two waters come together,” representing the spiritual and physical place of creation for the Dakota people. Bdote is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers (on the eastern edge of the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport, and south of the Twin Cities).

This place of waters meeting is most often referred to as where the Dakota arrived in human form. Seven tribes of Dakota are said to have descended from the seven stars of Orion’s belt, arriving at the convergence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

Bdote presents a potent example of a spiritual landscape overlaid with history, where sites of profound cultural importance are born near well-established sacred natural sites. The river confluence was the place of creation. Ceremonies were conducted at a flourishing freshwater spring and on a nearby hilltop. The land was taken away by colonizers, followed by resistance and hangings, as deceit, murder and military action sparked a long battle for truth and reconciliation. Dakota elder Dave Larsen describes the Bdote as “where everything began and where everything began changing.”

November 30, 2025 at 7:07 PM

TheProphetSilk

@theprophetsilk.bsky.social

Cook Forest

#BlueskyArtShow
#EastCoastKin
#Photography
#StateParks
#ColorADay
#GreenSat
#Warmth
#Nature

Cook Forest State Park
Leeper, Pennsylvania

November 29, 2025 at 8:02 PM

DocLT

@doclt.bsky.social

#forestfriday #photography #stateparks #parks

Yellow, green, brown oak leaves, large and deeply lobed, with spiny tips—fall color on a black oak. Coffeeberry shrubs in the background. Henry Coe State Park, California.

November 29, 2025 at 4:01 AM

mgwhiteley.bsky.social

@mgwhiteley.bsky.social

Hiking this morning at Prairie Rose State Park, Shelby County, Iowa #getoutside #optoutside #Iowa #hiking #nature #stateparks

November 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM

Bay County Coastal news

@baycntyflnews.bsky.social

Holiday Events!
https://baycountycoastal.com/articles/1986/view/st-andrews-state-park-panama-city-and-edward-ball-wakulla-springs-state-park-announce-holiday-events

#holidayevents #travel #stateparks #familyfun #holidayseason #explore

November 26, 2025 at 8:02 PM

DocLT

@doclt.bsky.social

#blueskymonday #photography #stateparks #parks #nature

A gravel road arcs through a forest of various oaks, sycamore, bigleaf maple, and bay trees. The maples and sycamores have fall yellow in their leaves. Oak studded grassy hills are in the distance, under grayish-blue, mostly cloudy skies.

November 25, 2025 at 12:05 AM

Joe Brasshammerz

@brasshammerz.bsky.social

Donner Party Memorial.

#photography
#stateparks
#donner #donnerparty
#donnersummit
#memorial

“The Pioneers” statue at Donner Memorial State Park. The statue displays a group, presumably a family, gazing to the unfamiliar horizon. The woman holds a baby, and another person is at the man’s left leg.

The plaque on the pedestal reads: “VIRILE TO RISK AND FIND: KINDLY WITHAL AND A READY HELP. FACING THE BRUNT OF FATE:
INDOMITABLE. - UNAFRAID.”

The tall height of the pedestal represents the terrifyingly huge amount of snow, in feet, that the Donner Party experienced.

“No one knows the strength of kindred love until it is tried.” - Elizabeth Keegan, 12 years old, 1852.

This quote is painted on a section of the Donner Memorial.

DONNER CAMP
HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A
REGISTERED NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK
UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THE HISTORIC SITES ACT OF AUGUST 21. 1935
THIS SITE POSSESSES EXCEPTIONAL VALUE IN COMMEMORATING AND ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
1961.

November 24, 2025 at 11:55 PM

What in the HEAL?!

@whatintheheal.bsky.social

#florida #save #stateparks

November 24, 2025 at 3:02 PM

Creativ Adventuring

@creativadventuring.bsky.social

Love Letchworth in the fall. Even when the leaves have only just started to turn it is still gorgeous.

#letchworth #stateparks #newyork

November 21, 2025 at 12:31 AM

DistractedHiker

@distractedhiker.bsky.social

#HikingLog 8
#Catskills. Tremper mountain Fire Tower via Willow Trail.

Split down the middle

#RockinTuesday #rocks #hiking #newyork #ny #nature #photography #forest #treescape #moss #landscape
#naturephotography #EastCoastKin #stateparks #fog

November 18, 2025 at 12:05 PM

Cheryl

@wclpdenver.bsky.social

Love monday hiking...

#colorado_unique #colorado #hiking #stateparks #fallincolorado #fallorado #nature #naturetherapy #hikingwithdogs #sunshinepowered #blessedlife #beautifulworld #takeahike

November 18, 2025 at 2:10 AM

Josh Phillips

@joshphillips.bsky.social

Good spot to make a birb.

#crossstitch #embroidery #cardinal #guntersville #explore #wander #art #stateparks

November 17, 2025 at 5:29 AM

Bipolar Vortex

@bipolarvortex.bsky.social

Not a kitty, but my favorite picture from today’s trip to #NockamixonStatePark. It really captures November in the Northeast. Beautiful, but bleak.

Lake Nockamixon is 45-60 minutes from where we live in the greater Philly area.

#easternkin #stateparks #nature #november #roadtrip #pennsylvania

A view of Lake Nockamixon as seen through a gap in the trees and brush.

The sky is overcast, the low blanket of clouds are light gray. There is a strip of trees on the horizon—deep brown and green with barely visible patches of orange, yellow, and crimson. The bright foliage of fall is past its prime and leaving the tree branches bare and black. The strip of trees separates the sky from the lake, which is exactly mirroring the light gray sky above, only the ripples of boats’ wakes disturb the lake’s surface.

Framing the lake and sky is a dark, chaotic tangle of bare tree branches and bush overgrowth. Here and there are scattered some rust colored leaves, caught in the frenzy of twisting twigs, on their return to the dark, moist earth below.

November 16, 2025 at 12:30 AM

mgwhiteley.bsky.social

@mgwhiteley.bsky.social

Hiking the Tall Grass Prairie, Prairie Rose State Park, Iowa #hiking #stateparks #Iowa #landscape #photography

November 14, 2025 at 4:25 AM

Tom Gillispie

@tgilli72.bsky.social

#USstateparks U.S. STATE PARKS #US #stateparks #WashingtonOaks #GardensStatePark #Montana #Kentucky #HillsboroughRiverStatePark
tom-gillispie.blogspot.com/2025/06/us-s...

U.S. STATE PARKS

READ: Lists of state parks by U.S. state U.S. STATE PARKS The Best State Park in Each State * The 10 BEST State Parks In Montana * From ...

tom-gillispie.blogspot.com

November 12, 2025 at 3:01 PM

Phi

@bossybb.bsky.social

My partner and I visited Natural Bridge State Park this past weekend.

I wish more hikes were accessible but I was very grateful to get to see part of this one!

#photography #hiking #nature #stateparks #virginia #disabled #wheelchair

The background creatures some rocky mountains and fall colored (orange, green and red) foliage. There is a paved path and on the path there are two people. One of the people is in a wheelchair and is wearing a raven mask. The other person is holding the first persons wheelchair and is wearing a white rodent(could be a guinea pig or mouse type animal) mask.

November 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM

DistractedHiker

@distractedhiker.bsky.social

#HikingLog 7
#Catskills. Kelly Hollow

Wet and #mossy #rocks in all shades of #green.

#hiking #photography #NewYork #trees #nature #stateparks
#naturephotography
#RockinTuesday #PhotographersOfBluesky
#EastCoastKin

Small stream cascades over mossy rocks covered with fallen logs and autumn leaves.

Tree roots gripping a mossy rock ledge covered with wet autumn leaves

November 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM

KristinRuth

@kristinruth.bsky.social

When fall meets winter

#camping #vanlife #rvlife #stateparks #hiking #photography #kentucky #autumnleaves #eastcoastkin

November 10, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Sandra Friend

@sandrafriend.bsky.social

Springtime scene along the Little Miami River in Yellow Springs, Ohio at John Bryan State Park.

#photosky #naturephotos #stateparks #yellowsprings #photosky #stunday

Big boulders and small rocks along a rushing river in a forest.

November 9, 2025 at 11:33 PM

Paul Larkin

@paullarkin.bsky.social

Tree Root Monster's Lair

#photography #blackandwhitephotography #photo #naturephotography #nature #trees #stateparks #dailypic #dailyphoto #monochrome #Virginia

Black and white photo of a close-up shot of tree roots in Smith Mountain Lake State Park, VA. The tree has fallen to one side, pulling away from its base and creating an intricate webwork of roots and earth. Behind the roots, a dark cave beckons.

November 9, 2025 at 4:42 PM

Tom Gillispie

@tgilli72.bsky.social

#USstateparks U.S. STATE PARKS #US #stateparks #WashingtonOaks #GardensStatePark #Montana #Kentucky #HillsboroughRiverStatePark
tom-gillispie.blogspot.com/2025/06/us-s...

U.S. STATE PARKS

READ: Lists of state parks by U.S. state U.S. STATE PARKS The Best State Park in Each State * The 10 BEST State Parks In Montana * From ...

tom-gillispie.blogspot.com

November 9, 2025 at 10:27 AM

Adam Jewell Photography

@adamjewell.bsky.social

Brilliant fall foliage fills the frame in the Hells Hollow section of McConnell’s Mill state park in north western Pennsylvania on a crisp autumn afternoon.

#mcconnellsmill #stateparks #photography #fallfoliage #pennsylvania #hellshollow #falllandscspe

Prints —> adamjewell.com/featured/hel...