The St. Olaf Natural Lands hold a special place for me, not simply because they invite opportunities for recreation, nor that they provide habitat for an array of native organisms or create resilience to change in a dynamic earth system. They hold prominence in my memory as a student volunteer, joining another St. Olaf endeavor that asks one to be in service to others. I helped plant tree seedlings and saplings in the 1990 south and north forest restoration loops as well as helping cluster a number of small sugar maples nearby. I remember watching the tractor pulling the furrow planter through the area and coming behind it to help ensure root coverage and removal of air pockets, followed by buckets of mulch around the slender trunks of the trees. Being out among nearly 20-30 other volunteers made fairly quick work of the task at hand, and the young person who worked construction and labored on dairy farms to pay for his education felt power in the soils covering his hands and clothing. He relished the physical activity which helped clear the mind. What I didn’t know at the time was that I would revisit these plants throughout the next 34 years.

Before the next decade would begin, I found myself in a new role at St. Olaf College: one of a handful of freshly minted faculty members. Throughout the ensuing decades I would use the Natural Lands for teaching, research, recreation, student-generated projects, sustainability initiatives, and as a place to reflect, to grieve, and to express gratitude. Periodically I walk through these forest restoration loops, saying hello to old friends and welcoming the warblers, finches, cardinals, owls, squirrels, hawks, owls, snakes, deer, racoon, cottontails, and others that have shown themselves on my travels. Moreover, I appreciate the spaces all these more easily seen organisms have co-created with a host of unseen co-conspirators — and the human colleagues and new volunteers who nourish the landscape. I have tasted wonderful student creations — in brewed and baked forms — emerging from the sugar bush, bore witness to sculptural and photographic expressions inspired by these places, and embrace the seasonal cycles surrounding the life and death moments ever present.

As I think about these first 150 years in the life of St. Olaf College, the Natural Lands remind me of Indigenous wisdom expressing our relationships with the earth and all its inhabitants. How may we construct new meaning from experiences of generations past while honoring and supporting the generations to come? How might we augment and nourish all our relations, not simply the human ones? The ideas of thinking, feeling, and responding across seven generations are not lost on me in this moment. A sesquicentennial marks the first seven generations of time for St. Olaf College, yet the landscape, the air, and the water connect us to deeper time and space. What will we have the courage to do and to be in the next seven generations? May the Natural Lands continue to inspire, nourish, challenge, and invite all their relations to take risks, express gratitude, celebrate life and death, and inspire new paths onward.