Trail of Tears State Park offers host of outdoor activities, educational opportunities

Whether you�re into camping, fishing, hiking or kayaking, Trail of Tears State Park � an area covering 3,416 acres within Cape Girardeau County � can be the place to fulfill many of your summertime plans.

Trail of Tears State Park superintendent Denise Dowling has been with the Missouri Department of Conservation since 1995 and is well versed in all things outside. She also was at the park�s visitor center on Saturday for its annual open house event.

The park � which had nearly 191,000 visitors last year � includes two campgrounds, multiple hiking trails and picnic areas, Dowling said, and has been certified as a site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.

Dowling said with the warmer weather and school not being in session, the campgrounds are already getting full and she expects Memorial Day weekend to be full as well.

�The lake will be very popular for swimming and fishing,� she said. �Typically, our electric campground is always full. The nonelectric campground, you have a better shot of setting up a tent and not having to make a reservation, unless it�s a holiday weekend.�

Mya Ordonia paddles a kayak Saturday on Lake Boutin at Trail of Tears State Park.Fred Lynch

She said Saturday�s open house was a different format from what has been done in the past.

The visitor center featured several different stations for hands-on learning, in addition to a question-and-answer session in one of the conference rooms.

�We end up with a lot of visitors that are on the Trail of Tears, so they may be going from North Carolina to Oklahoma, and we also have a lot of visitors from the Great River Road,� Dowling said.

She said Trail of Tears State Park is a little bit different compared to other parks.

�Ours is more of a �relax and chill out� kind of park,� she said.

Dowling also emphasized the importance of vacationing locally and discovering what�s available right here in Southeast Missouri.

She added people might not realize the citizens of Cape Girardeau County purchased the park, which makes it �their park.�

�I think that a lot of people have this mentality of, �If I�m going to go on vacation, I gotta go out,� and you never bother to see what�s in your own backyard,� she said.

Dowling said park-hosted programs and activities begin Memorial Day weekend, with special events throughout the year, including the annual Polar Plunge in February and the annual triathlon in September.

�And right now what we�ve been doing is some demonstration tables featuring insects, for instance,� she said. �You can�t manage a resource unless you know what you have.�

She said there are also always things to maintain within the park year-round, with this year�s budget projects already submitted.

The recent flash flood at the end of February caused the park to replace a culvert pipe at the entrance, she said, which is still a work in progress mainly because of �staff limitation.�

�I just don�t have enough staff to have somebody working on it seven days a week, so it�s taking us a while to get that done,� she said. �There was some damage to the culvert pipe that was fixed last April,� she said, �from the previous year�s flash flood.�

Steve Schell � the park�s interpretive resource coordinator � has been with the parks department for eight years. In addition to other responsibilities, he oversees the collection of various specimens, which is one of the current projects being implemented.

Schell described multiple drawers of bees and wasps � all different species � and explained how the insects influence the environment.

Carpenter bees, for example, Schell considers to be �regular,� and �native,� as he referenced a warning sign placed at the entrance of the visitor center to inform guests of the bees� presence.

�They could cause damage, but for us, it�s mostly superficial,� he said. �I think it�s good that you can work with these things.�

From May through September, the visitor center is open five days a week: from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632