Míle Fáilte ~

I've had more than "a thousand welcomes" since moving to Minnesota just over a year ago now.

Things work in cycles for me and there always seems to be a connection or an eerie coincidence with everything I experience in life.

The latest is the start of my new job with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. On Thursday 2nd Jan 2025, a year since receiving my permanent resident Green card, I began working in a permanent position as Office and Administration Specialist in Mille Lacs Kathio State Park.

The park is the 4th largest in the State. Over 10,000 acres of pines and hardwood forests, lakes, river and wetlands. We have 2 campsites, 5 rustic cabins, remote backpack camp sites, equestrian camping, a fire tower, trail centre and an interpretive centre. Many trails to explore and our wildlife includes deer, black bear, wolves, and a variety of other animals and birds. In the summer we rent canoes and kayaks, and in the winter, we rent cross country skis and snowshoes.

The park is full of history, and it is recognised as a National Historic Landmark to commemorate the meeting of the French explorers and Dakota villagers in the 1600's. The park preserves habitation sites and mound groups, believed to date between 3000 BC and 1750 AD, that document Kathio as the ancient homelands of the Mdewakanton Dakota nation and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe nation.

The 151-mile-long Rum River meanders through the park from its source at Mille Lacs Lake. It runs through Ogechie Lake, where wild rice is harvested by the Ojibwe Band, then on it flows towards Shakopee Lake, leaves the park boundary and winds its way down to Anoka where it connects with the mouth of the Mississippi.

Mille Lacs ~ "A thousand lakes". There are a thousand reasons why I ended up here. A thousand questions I ask myself how. Coincidence? Fate? Luck?

The dream never changes, but the plan that takes you there does, even if it changes a thousand times. Mille Lacs Kathio is vast, wild and enchanting. I feel a connection here and it's quite spooky walking around the park, but I love it here and it feels like I was meant to be where I am now.

Mille Lacs Kathio. The place where you will receive a Míle Fáilte.

Where there's smoke ~

The Smokechasing job description is exactly what the title says it is, smoke chasing.

I spent the last week mopping up a 167-acre wildfire in the Chengwatana Forest. It was my first project fire since I started this seasonal job last Spring, and it was absolutely the best work experience I've had in a long time.

Early starts each day leaving our base in Cambridge at 6am and driving to the briefing location in Pine County where we listened to the incident management team go through the action plan and relaying tactics for containing the fire. Grateful they fed us breakfasts and supplied lunches for the long days in front of us.

We were on a J5 track machine so our mission, they said, was to mill through the woods, seek and destroy!

And that's what we did. We worked alongside the Suni Hotshots (all the way from New Mexico) for the first few days. They chopped down trees, dug up burning logs, tree stumps, roots and smouldering soil. We provided the cooling water when necessary.

The J5 is fricking awesome! No tree too stubborn to move, no rock too big to stop us in our tracks. We ploughed through those woods with ease, albeit it was like being on a bucking bronco!

There's a distinct difference in the scent of the smoke that we were chasing. By the end of day one, I knew that scent and how to find a hotspot. Like a sniffer dog, I'd say to my Fire Lead as we drove through the woods, "I can smell smoke", even though we were surrounded by smoky air, burnt trees, white ash and black soot.

We'd stop the J5, scan the woods, and within minutes, sometimes seconds, we would spot tiny wisps of white smoke away in the distance and make our way to the hotspot. Dragging the fire hose, multi tool or pulaski, we would steadily begin to dig up the smouldering soil, spray water and mash it all into a soggy, muddy puddle until it smoked no more. And so it continued, day after day.

Chasing smoke. Smoke chasing. Where there's smoke....

No fire. Now.

#smokechaser #dreamchaser #samesame

Hey, hey, hey!

As the fire season ends until the Fall, I've swapped Smokey Bear for Yogi Bear. Delighted to be a part of the Minnesota DNR Parks team for the summer season.

Who didn't have dreams of being a Park Ranger while watching Yogi Bear all those years ago? I certainly did. The perfect job, working in a park. Just dreams though.

Now, I am living that dream working as Parks and Trails Associate in Father Hennepin State Park.

Greeted daily by grazing deer and their fawns. Birds, chipmunks, squirrels nibbling on the feeder outside the window. A bald-headed eagle peering down at us checking in the campers or issuing permits, and a very real chance of bumping into a real-life Yogi picking up a pic-a-nic basket as we patrol the 320-acre park with 103 campsites sitting on the edge of the beautiful Mille Lacs Lake.

It's a popular park with over a mile long sandy beach, wooded trails, conifer bogs, fishing piers, boat ramps and more wildlife than you can ever imagine. We have Albino deer, painted and snapping turtles, both red and grey squirrels, and a variety of birds. Not to forget the abundance of fish in the lake including walleye, northern pike and bass.

You have to think of another word instead of "work" my friend said. She's always right!

Making the tough decision to move to the U.S. has probably been one of my best decisions in life so far. The opportunity to live the dream doesn't come around very often but when it does, it takes guts to make that first step and follow through.

Sure, Lady Luck had a lot to do with my opportunity but maybe, just maybe...

I'm smarter than the average bear!