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Culture and Ecology Make a Good Tourism Fit
Public attention has shifted to the Minnesota State Fair and how the huge exhibition helps connect Minnesotans with the land and the state’s abundant resources. This is great, but it need not be just an annual gathering on the fairgrounds.
Last weekend, more than 100 people passed through or camped at Willow Lake Farm near Windom for an every-other year AgroEcology Summit. This year’s summit and barn dance theme was “The Bison Beat”: Footprints in the Upper Watonwan Basin – Tracking the Story.”
The summit at the Thompson family’s ecologically sustainable farm was both academic and fun-based, appealing to people who would consider both as complementary, said Mari Harries, a Minnesota 2020 policy associate who lives in Windom.
For her, the weekend at the farm was especially beneficial for learning about where her food comes from and how environmentally sensitive farmers produce it, she said. But there were great speakers at the summit wading in on such significant subjects as the PaleoIndian history of the Watonwan valley, European settlement and recent history of the area, and restoration of the prairie and regional landscape.
Such topics, along with music and dance, brought people from throughout the Midwest and at least three West Coast states, Harries said.
Such success should prompt people in the Red River Valley to consider similar sessions. Granite Falls and Montevideo could consider geology-themed outings, and communities throughout western Minnesota could consider events saluting the glacial ages that shaped the landscape.
Culture and education can be fun and advance sustainable economic development; this proves it.
Posted in Economic Development | Related Topics: Agriculture Minnesota Cities