OUTDOOR CORNER: VANCILL HOLLOW PROVIDES UNIQUE VIEW OF THE PAST

How would you like to take a trip back in time? I know of a place where you can glimpse the look and feel of the land before settlers from Europe arrived. In fact this place can give you a brief look at Missouri around the time that glaciers sat on the northern half of our state.

A trip like that sounds like an impossibility. It may even sound like it is a place like nothing around here, but it is closer than you think.

The place I am referring to is Vancill Hollow Natural Area, located in the heart of Trail of Tears State Park. The park is located along Highway 177 north of Cape Girardeau. A short drive will convert your scenery from an urban realm to a land where a wide variety of wildlife call home. Vancill Hollow is habitat to many species because it has all the requirements, food, water, shelter, and space.

However, this is not what makes Vancill Hollow so special. It is a leftover from a time long ago. Anyone who has ever been to the Appalachian mountains in the east knows that they look different from the Ozarks. The difference goes beyond the size of the mountains. The types of trees you will find in an Appalachian forest consist more heavily of tulip poplar, beech and a variety of magnolias. Ozarkian forests consist more of oaks, hickories and maples.

Visitors to Vancill Hollow might be surprised to find the oaks and hickories they normally see are replaced by Tulip Poplar, American Beech and Cucumber Magnolias.

Ecologists have puzzled over the explanation for why an Appalachian type forest is nestled in a valley of the Ozarks.

The answer lies back in time when Missouri was a different looking state. The swamps of Southeast Missouri were not created yet. The land was more elevated than in the present day and the Mississippi would be unrecognizable to us, because its path had not been determined by glaciers. This Missouri was a very different place and much has changed since then.

The forests of the eastern United States ranged through present day Illinois, Kentucky, and Southeastern Missouri. Nothing prevented the eastern forests from meeting with the oak-hickory forests of this region. It was not until massive arctic glaciers moved down that things began to change.

Glaciers are mile high barriers that do not erode as easily as soil; and believe me these glaciers bulldozed a LOT of soil down with them. Rivers that formerly ran into present day Hudson Bay were forced to run south for the first time. The Mississippi river cut deeply into the limestone of the Ozarks.

Massive floods from melting glaciers released unimaginable quantities of water southward. The water would not go north because the remaining mile high glaciers were sitting on their former watershed. Scouring of the southeastern part of the state began to wash away the Eastern forests that occurred there.

A thin ridge of land known as Crowley's Ridge is one of the clues left to help explain this rearrangement of Missouri's landscape.

That brings us back to Vancill Hollow. Here is a little patch of Eastern forest cut off from the rest of its range. Pockets just like it occur along Crowley's Ridge, and parts of Cape Girardeau and Perry counties. Vancill Hollow is a high quality example of this forest type in Missouri so it was designated as a natural area.

Anyone may enter the natural area but be aware that trails in this portion of the park do not exist. One of the stipulations of becoming a natural area is that development of any kind is prohibited. Thus trails and established campsites are not created allowing nature to take its course. Visitors to the natural area are given a chance to encounter nature on its terms.

Vancill Hollow has very steep, rugged hills and is crowned with enormous trees thriving in the rich soil of this river valley. A wide variety of wildlife call this place home and chances are good for seeing many animals in a natural setting.

It is possible to get back in this forest and truly feel you are the first person to ever set foot on this ground. You will see things much as the early settlers did. You may even be able to look back in time and see how Missouri was a very long time ago. If you are lucky your trip will become a trip back in time.

For more information on Vancill Hollow call Trail of Tears State Park at (573-334-1711).

A.J. Hendershott is an education consultant with the Missouri Department of Conservation.