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New superintendent at Effigy Mounds

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Hiking trails, unless considered hazardous, will remain open at Effigy Mounds National Monumentfor winter sport enthusiasts to enjoy. (Photo submitted)

By Caroline Rosacker

Effigy Mounds National Monument, located at 151 Highway 76, Harpers Ferry, is over 2500 acres and has approximately 14 miles of walking and hiking trails. Within this area there are over 200 burial mounds. Out of respect for the mounds, visitors are asked to remain on the trails. 

Superintendent Susan Snow

The National Monument has recently hired Susan Snow as their new superintendent. 

She comes to the position with nearly 23 years as the archeologist and cultural resource manager at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. There she had the privilege of coordinating the inscription of the San Antonio Missions as the 23rd World Heritage site in the United States.  

Prior to her work in Texas, she spent nine years working at the Iowa Office of the State Archeologist as a project archeologist.  "Some of my larger projects were the archeological investigations for the expansion of Highway 151 from Springville to Cascade, and the proposed bypass around the city of Dubuque as well as portions of the Avenue of the Saints in southern Iowa and northern Missouri," Snow noted.  

Snow earned an undergraduate degree in anthropology at University of Chicago, a master’s degree at University of Calgary, and completed her doctoral studies at University of California, Los Angeles.  

Iowa roots

Snow was born in Mt. Pleasant and raised primarily in Cedar Rapids. Her mother’s family comes from the Cresco area. She shared her inspiration for becoming an archeologist. "I spent my summers at my aunt and uncle’s farm outside of Cresco and loved looking for 'pretty rocks' with my aunt," she said. "I intended to become an astronomer, but when I got to college I found out that I first had to get a degree in physics and found that I wasn’t very interested. I then had to think about what I really liked and remembered a book that my parents’ got me when I was in junior high called Secrets of the Stones. The book was about archaeo-astronomy or ancient sites with astronomical meaning and I realized I was more interested in ancient astronomy.  After my first field school in northern Arizona on an ancient Puebloan site, I was hooked." 

Winter hours

The Effigy Mounds Visitor Center is open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Thursday-Monday and closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.  All of the trails will remain open throughout the winter. Please check out the park’s website at www.nps.gov/efmo to access the park map.  A more detailed map of Sny Magill is available at the Visitor Center.

If trails are considered hazardous, they may be temporarily closed in the winter. Otherwise only those areas of the park that are always off limits (e.g. rock shelters) are still off limits.  See the Superintendent’s Compendium at the website.

Winter activities

"Nature enthusiasts and families are welcome to hike, snowshoe or cross country ski on the trails," Snow commented. "We do not groom our trails for skiing, however, so be prepared to 'break trail.'" 

Although programming is currently on hold, check the park's Facebook page for upcoming events. "Our new interpretation lead, Fred MacVaugh, just arrived at the end of September as I did, so we are getting our 'feet on the ground' and will keep activities updated there," she explained. 

Snow enjoys all the hiking trails and likes to run on the north unit trail to Little Bear mound and beyond. "Like us on Facebook to keep up with what’s happening here, and look for us at events around northeast Iowa in the spring!" she concluded. 

Tribal Sister Park relationship

The National Park Service Effigy Mounds National Monument and leaders of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska recently signed a first-ever agreement establishing the first Tribal Sister Park relationship between a U.S. national park and a Tribal Nation's National Park. Look elsewhere in this issue for the complete story.

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