(upbeat music) - [Bret] Today we're agate hunting on the St. Croix with Eric Benson.

- [Eric] And what's this by your foot?

It's an agate wannabe.

- [Bret] Exploring the healing benefits of nature with Sara Holger.

- [Sara] People, when we get 'em out into nature, they feel like they're returning to their true self.

- [Bret] And learning about Huellas Latinas, a nonprofit that is connecting Spanish speaking people to outdoor recreation.

- [Luisana] People start asking, "Can I go with you?

Can you teach me how to do that?

- Welcome to "Prairie Sportsman" I'm Bret Amundson, and we got a great episode for ya and it starts right now.

(uplifting bright music) (cheery uplifting music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

And by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a Retreat and Conference Center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org (lively rock music) - [Bret] Eric Benson has spent countless hours fishing the St. Croix River since he moved to the valley 30 years ago.

- All right.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] But when the fish aren't biting, you might find them on the banks of the river searching for semi-precious stones.

(lively music) (upbeat rock music) - Agates were formed a billion years ago when Minnesota was under a lot of volcanoes, all the way up to Lake Superior down to Mille Lacs, and then they were brought dow, and deposited with the Ice Age.

And you can find Lake Superior agates in Minnesota, Wisconsin, down to Iowa, even Nebraska.

You go to stores and you'll see agates like from Madagascar and they're fairly cheap because they're from Madagascar.

They're Lake Superior agates that seem to be worth a lot of money.

Not a lot, but better than a lump of coal.

(lively music) I just like looking for 'em and just collecting 'em and making my pile of rocks bigger.

I started agate hunting with my friend Kevin Simonet about seven years ago and that first summer I didn't find much but I bugged the hell out of him saying, "Is this an agate?"

"Nope, nope."

And when I'd go out on my own, I'd bring back tons of rocks that weren't agates.

But after the first year, I kind of got an eye for it and then I just got obsessed with it (Eric laughs) so...

This is seven years of hiking miles and miles.

But it's fun, it's something to do.

If I'm not fishing on the river, I'm usually out looking for rocks.

- [Bret] Last summer we joined Eric for a morning of agate hunting along the St. Croix.

- It's just all about looking.

You get in the water here and it is pretty clear.

They're tough to see in the water but they are there, there's like four feet of rocks that are always nice and clean as you go out deeper, they're kind of got moss on them, but there's always tons of rocks on the beach.

And what's this by your foot?

It's an agate wanna be, it's not an agate.

Agate wanna be.

It's called leave it right.

Leave it right there.

(everyone laughs) (peaceful music) (water lapping) Ah, first one little guy.

You're kind of looking for a red, reddish waxy rock.

What helps looking at rocks in the water are polarized glasses, really helps.

And then to keep your eyes shaded as much from the sun, just makes things pop more.

And every time it floods, it just exposes new rocks and stir things around, you just never know.

A killer agate could be here anywhere.

The water's this high up here don't even bother.

But every time it goes down it just the waves exposes new rocks, brings more debris down from the side.

And you can tell by these tree roots, you know, the soil was used to be this high.

You know, that's how much it eroded away so all that's left are the heavy rocks.

Better than agate, a lure add to my collection.

My mom always said I could always find stuff, if she lost something around the house, I'd always find it.

So yeah, we're always looking for stuff, always got our eyes to the ground.

I remember coming here one day and I swear there was an agate just sitting right on top of a rock.

A nice agate, it was like, how did that get there and how did no one see it?

Cause I know people walked as you can see other people's footprints.

(calming music) No way!

Whoa, oh wow, there it is yeah.

I'm glad we walked down this far.

That was worth the walk today, that one.

(lo-fi music) - [Bret] With a trophy agate in tow, we headed to Eric's Stillwater home, which he shares with his wife Eileen.

There he displayed his impressive collection of Lake Superior agates.

- I wish these were gold nuggets, I'd be retired a million times over but they're not.

You're actually the first people that really seen them, some of my closest friends and family, and these are some of the agates I found in the St. Croix Valley along the river, out in farm fields, construction sites.

This is one of my favorites, I don't know where I found it.

This one here, I remember where I found that it was sticking on top of a plowed furrow, sticking up like a lantern.

I have found all these agates in Washington County.

Why drive when they you got 'em here?

The ones in the pan here, is this year's collection that I've found so far.

I like to go in the spring before...

Especially in the fields, before the crops are up.

And then again in late fall after crop's been picked.

And every time the fields get turned over, it seems like there's a new collection of agates to be found.

And I do have permission, the fields that I do go to, you don't want to get caught trespassing.

Now if I had access to quarries, I'm sure that'd be the number one spot to go but I don't have access to quarries.

Other spots to find 'em are along roads, housing developments, and in landscaping like landscape, rocks, river rocks, especially on older properties.

You'd be surprised if you dig around your neighbor's, he has river rock for landscaping, you will find agates if you look hard enough.

This is a cool agate that I found before it got buried into development it's an eyeball agate.

People kind of go crazy after that one there.

They're all unusual in a way, like that one's like a kind of a neat one, it's like a flat tablet type.

And the lines weren't really profound until I polished it up really good and it turned out to be pretty cool.

I've taken hammers to 'em, broken 'em open and turned a dull rock into a kind of nice ones, you know?

It wasn't much of an agate until I... Like this one that's what it looked like outside and I split it in half and that was in the center.

That's another one I broke in half, took a chisel to it, see what's inside and that's what I found inside that one.

This what they call a water level 'cause the lines going across.

I found this in a field not too far from here, it's been polished down.

When you polish agates, you usually lose about 30% of the rock.

(cheery music) This is a tumbler that I use to polish agates.

It's a simple tumbler's tumbler, if you do buy a tumbler, get a good quality one.

Don't buy a cheap one 'cause it'll fail on you.

There's four stages there's a course one, which is the first step and each cycle takes at least seven days.

And generally you fill the barrels up two thirds with rocks add your measured grit and add water just to cover the rocks, put the lid on tight, and you just let it spin for about a week.

You take 'em out, clean 'em real good, clean the barrels real good.

Do step two for a week, take 'em out, clean 'em up good.

And then you're onto step three, which is a pre-polish.

Every step you'll see your rocks get smaller and smaller but that's all right.

I mean that's just the grit wearing down on the rocks, like a million years of being in the dirt to make 'em nice and shiny.

I don't know if polish 'em devalues 'em like furniture when you strip the old finish off, but it doesn't matter to me, I just like looking at 'em and collecting them.

And then the final step, you wanna make sure your rocks are real clean, and add the final step.

And after four weeks you'll have some nice polished agates.

(cheerful music) 30 years of fishing and seven years of agate hunting and I hope my knees keep up so I can do both of 'em until I'm well into my eighties or whatever.

I have no idea where I want my collection to go.

I got no kids, maybe you can throw 'em in the grave with me.

(cheerful music) - [Sara] It was a way to be intentional in nature and take that moment to just appreciate it.

- [Luisana] We start offering program for Latino community and in the process we learn more about what kind of barriers in this specific target Latino community have.

- [Sara] People when we get 'em out into nature, they feel like they're returning to their true self.

There's power, there's so much power in it.

I think it can change lives.

(pondering music) - [Narrator] Sara Holger says nature saved her life.

Years ago, the state park naturalist experienced depression and a divorce.

- When my kids would go to their dad's house, I would go to Whitewater State Park and I would sit on this bench by the river, that was my favorite spot and I would just sit there and I would look at the cliffs, look at the rocks, and I would think about, wow, you know, nature.

These rocks have been here for hundreds of millions of years and I'm just this little speck, you know, on the timescale.

I'm lucky if I get 80 years here And I started thinking, you know what, I don't be sitting here crying for those little 80 years that I have.

I wanna live my life, I wanna enjoy life, I wanna be happy.

- [Narrator] Sara turned the healing power of nature into a vocation, she founded Project Get Outdoors, a nonprofit afterschool program that connects kids to the natural world.

Then in 2021 she went through intensive training to become a certified nature and forest therapy guide.

- It had a profound impact on me.

- [Narrator] Sara wanted to bring forest therapy to local communities as she did with Project Go.

- How we can get more people certified was the thing, cause that's a barrier it's $4,000 at least to the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides, which is the organization that I went through and they are an international leader in this training.

And then also find candidates who work with youth, work with BIPOC youth and youth experiencing trauma.

This project has been supported by a mix of funders, most of them are coming from the healthcare realm.

We spend about a year recruiting folks.

So we reached out to different community organizations, a mix of clinics, mental health organizations, nonprofits that work with youth and underrepresented communities.

- [Narrator] 11 professionals from Southeast Minnesota and the Twin Cities signed up for a six month training course.

After completing 125 hours of online coursework, they agreed to lead at least six forest bathing walks with youth over the summer.

- It is a really a powerful way to engage with people.

We have some folks who are Spanish speakers and some folks that work with different communities.

(lively music) - [Narrator] One of those cohorts, Luisana Mendez is a St. Paul Civic Engineer and the founder of Huellas Latinas, a nonprofit that organizes outdoor activities for Spanish speaking communities.

- I was doing a partnership with Minnesota Parks and Trails, a friend in common, Veronica, she told me, "Oh I know Sara and she do forest bathing.

You know what is forest bathing?

I was, "What is that?

What's mean be in the forest for a shower?"

Or something like that?

We traveled to meet Sara and Whitewater State Park and we did the forest bathing and was a great experience even it was so new for me, I am always very active and the forest bathing require you calm down a little bit.

The next year we partner again and we did another forest bathing walk.

After that she offered me the opportunity to become a forest bathing guide and that changed my life completely, and gimme another knowledge and skills I can share with the community.

(happy music) - [Narrator] Besides youth programs, Sara is introducing forest therapy to the medical community, including the Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester where she invited physicians on a nature walk.

- Forest bathing is a practice that originated in Japan.

It started in the 1980s, what we saw at that time in Japan then was a massive shift of people who were living in rural settings moving into the city.

So they were losing that connection to the countryside and the nature there.

And then also they were becoming more overworked.

People were literally working themselves to death, suicide rates were skyrocketing, all sorts of health problems and it was to the point where the Japanese government intervened and started looking at prevention strategies, and what they found was the nature-based strategies had the biggest impact.

So the idea of using your senses to soak in nature, thus the bathing term.

(peaceful music) You can adapt forest bathing in so many different ways, so if we would've had people in wheelchairs today, we maybe wouldn't have even moved.

We might've stayed under the gazebo the whole time.

So we're gonna be doing some slow activities where we use our different senses to just immerse in the nature that is around us.

(cheerful music) We usually do a series of like four or five invitations where I invite them to do a sensory activity.

We take 15, 20 minutes for each activity.

After each activity we gather together and share what we're noticing.

It takes a while for our minds to kind of just transition and let go and just be present.

- I found it very stressful because... (everyone laughs) Of that range, like we're walking so slow, I know this group of people and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing to these people?"

I finally, I took a deep breath and I was like, "We are okay, we are fine.

We are all learning."

We had a certified nurse midwife, we had a certified nurse practitioner who specializes in women's health.

We had our family medicine physician.

We also had our OB GYN physicians that were there.

Being an obstetrician gynecologist, it's a wild career that we have all chosen.

At any given moment, I could be doing a delivery, I could be doing a cesarean section, I could be going through a really hard time with a pregnancy loss.

I could be seeing a 60-year-old woman talking about what is happening to her body.

We're very focused and driven on taking care of our patients and sometimes when we're trying to take care of our patients, maybe we don't do the best job of taking care of ourselves.

- I have worked at Olmsted Medical Center for several years just right across the street and I had no idea that this space even existed before today, it's very peaceful here.

This is my first time forest bathing, I wasn't really sure what to expect today.

Really kind of embracing that sensory experience was was really interesting.

- I thought it was really great.

It was a way to be intentional in nature and take that moment to just appreciate it.

I felt very calming, relaxed afterwards.

- I definitely see us trying to figure out how to integrate this into our practice, especially here in the Women's Health Pavilion.

- [Narrator] The Minnesota Department of Health also recognizes the importance of nature in promoting mental health.

- Trauma really is stored in our bodies and when we ground ourselves and access all of our senses, it can help us to feel grounded and create that experience of mindfulness and that's what forest therapy can help us practice and experience.

can help us practice and experience.

MDH was able to sponsor several people to complete their forest therapy certification.

They were people mostly from BIPOC communities They were people mostly from BIPOC communities who had some connection to children and youth.

We know kids who are connected to nature, they're healthier, they're happier, they're more focused, they do better in school.

They're champions for the natural world.

- It's healing for everybody and it's a great experience.

(calming music) (uplifting music) I hear stories about people who feel lonely, who don't have friends and they comment how difficult is to make friends in a new place and they found it in Huellas Latinas a safe place to become a new friend or make new friends.

- [Narrator] Luisana Mendez founded the nonprofit Huellas Latinas in 2021 to connect LatinX communities to the outdoors.

When she immigrated to Minnesota from Venezuela six years ago, she found the familiarity of nature helped her feel at home.

- In Venezuela, I grew up in a very beautiful state, surrounded mountains the Andes mountains and my father, actually he is a forest engineer.

Since a young child, I remember my father talking about the importance of the tree, the flowers, the nature, the environment.

Venezuela, I get my bachelor degree in civil engineer and my master degree in urban planning.

The political and social situation push many of Venezuela go out from home.

I have to learn new things like how dress properly and how to take the bus or the properly way to interact with the police.

That many things looks like basic for people who live and grow out here but very new for immigrants.

(calming music) I found nature, my passion and I just attached to the nature to living this process in a healthy way and now I feel I belong here and this is my new home.

I start making research about hiking, the hiking skills, different hiking skills and I found a different challenge and I sign up for the challenge.

- [Narrator] Luisana signed up for a 52 hike challenge.

One hike a week for a year.

- 52 challenge in a year looks like impossible to me to achieve.

impossible to me to achieve.

So I just, I start going the park learning in the process.

When I come to the park, like on winter, I never hike in the winter, I learned the trail change the use.

- [Skiers] On your left, excuse us, coming through.

- But I come and try to walk the skis come and pass, and say, "Get out the way, get out the way."

And I get lost and I dunno what to do.

And all that kinda things give me the sense, the lack of information, immigrants or Latinos, or people who never do this kind activity before have.

And I just start sharing that with my friends and I just start sharing with the community and social media too.

People start asking, "Can I go with you?

Can you teach me how to do that?

I feel scared, I don't want to go the parks alone."

I work for the City of St. Paul in the Public Works Department in the Traffic Engineering Division, I am Engineering Technician II.

For two years I worked very hard with different kind park agencies.

like Dakota County or St. Paul Parks Recreation.

We start offering programs for Latino community and in the process we learn more about what kind of areas in this specific target Latino community have in order to visit the park.

In Venezuela, I have a project called Jueves de Ciudad or City Tours Day.

When I promote the sense of belonging in the city, for me it's the the sense feeling like, "Hey, now you have a new home."

It's not just, you know, go to school or go toward or be a robot.

You can also know where you live and with the sense you know where you live, you will naturally development the sense of the belonging.

Don't just live in a place, be part of it.

(Luisana speaking in Spanish) So I decide to become a nonprofit, call for board members and make the transition.

My experience with Huellas Latinas, I meet people who live in Minnesota for more than 20 years, more than 50 years and they never visit the parks, they never know how to explore the lakes because they don't have the information.

The information is only in English or because they dunno, is the park safe, if they have to pay.

Another thing they share, they feel they don't belong.

It's just a perception and overall it's building a bridge between parks, and people, and the community.

And also change perspective, share with the community, everybody is welcome in any place.

(bright music) Through Huellas Latinas, we have in general like four programs.

One of the program is more for beginners when we introduce people with nature like walks and this kind of walks is a short walk, easy walk.

- [Narrator] Last summer we joined Luisana at Lebanon Hills Regional Park, one of her favorite places for introducing Spanish speaking people to nature hikes.

- This is the first time I can like know what we have a lot of parks in Minnesota.

I'm here for almost 25 years.

I start learning about the nature and learning about how you can take care of the nature and that's how they can help you to be more healthy.

And I bring my kids too, they love to be around the nature and be outside instead of the inside.

Me gusta estar en la naturaleza, conocer más gente y estar involucrada en algo que me gusta con la comunidad.

Que a veces no nos tomamos ese tiempo para entrar en contacto directo con la naturaleza, con los árboles, con el agua, con las flores, incluso con los animales más pequeños.

Y esa experiencia te lleva a reconectar con todos.

- The other program is a little more challenge and we bring people for camping and backpacking, and get the experience in multiple days so it's a a little more immersion in nature.

For a camping trip, we usually have more than 30 people, between 30 and 40 people.

We offer all the equipment, people don't have to have the equipment or any knowledge, it's for beginner.

After that, families get their own equipment and ask me for more camping trips because now they have the equipment.

The third program is more about mindfulness.

In this program we offer forest bathing, the combination between hike and yoga.

And the last program is more about the adventurous, based on the season of the year.

So for example, if we are in winter time, we do cross country ski, snowshoes, but if we are in during summer, we kayak or canoe, or fishing.

All our activities is most in Spanish, is for all age, for families in general and the depend of the activity, they can bring pets too.

The participants from different countries, Argentina and Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru.

We have mixed families and everybody's welcome.

We just say people, "Hey, don't worry, you want to learn Spanish?

You want to practice your Spanish or you want to learn about culture?"

So everybody's welcome.

I feel myself lucky with the people I meet here, with the institutions I work here.

And everything was doing very good for me and my personal development, professional development, and in this new time become an immigrant.

I want to pay back with myself, with the community, all the good things I receive that is important for me.

(inspiring music) (uplifting music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Prairie Sportsman" is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

And by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm.

A retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org (inspiring music)