BEAVER HOLLOW
NATURE-BASED EDUCATION AND RECREATION
Scientists have known for decades that a walk in a forest has multiple benefits for a person’s mental, emotional, and physical health, including lowered blood pressure and heart rates, decreased anxiety, and improved short-term memory. Time spent in nature is a key ingredient for our collective well-being, and connecting with nature shouldn’t require an out of town trip.
We need to expand opportunities for people of all ages and physical abilities to experience nature-based exploration where they live.
The Friends are meeting this community need for close to home, quality outdoor experiences, by providing a safe, fully ADA-compliant venue for nature-based educational and recreational activities at our newly established Beaver Hollow Outdoor Education Area. The Friends utilized a previously developed upland portion of their Conservation Area property as the focal point of this outdoor education area. Beaver Hollow offers visitors a close to home, unique, nature experience. Visitors can walk on the 1,100′ fully accessible boardwalk that leads into the wetlands, and view an amazing variety of wildlife from the safety of the multiple viewing platforms with bench seating. Guiding visitor foot traffic above, not through, sensitive wetland plants and soils protects the environment and the microhabitats utilized by numerous organisms.
Additionally, the facility is open year-round for schools, and for other groups, to hold classes, meetings, conservation projects, field trips, and demonstrations.
The Beaver Hollow Outdoor Education Area provides consequential benefits for people, while protecting the fragile environment for wildlife.
Beaver Hollow Location
88850 Compton Road
Bayfield, WI 54814
If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. ~David Sobel
Educational and Recreational Use
The Beaver Hollow Outdoor Education Area is open to the public year-round for non-motorized, nature-based recreational and educational activities, such as walking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, nature appreciation, birdwatching, wildlife viewing, photography, classes, meetings, field trips, speaker events, and demonstrations. Please email info@northpikescreek.org to reserve the pavilion for your class or group.
The Resource
The Friends’ Beaver Hollow Outdoor Education Area is a unique, fully ADA-compliant resource in our region. Features include:
What We’re Working On at Beaver Hollow
Site enhancements planned for Beaver Hollow include the installation of additional interpretive signage. We are currently engaging our members in stewardship projects, such as underplanting trees in the wetland forest, planting native shrubs and flowers in open areas, and building additional wood duck nest boxes and installing them in the marsh. Engaging students and community members in educational classes and stewardship projects at Beaver Hollow is a high priority in the coming year.