(Spirit Lake)– A special event will be held Saturday celebrating a major preservation project on East Lake Okoboji. Joe McGovern, President of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, says the public will be able to get a firsthand look at the Narrows Preserve, located immediately north of Elinor Bedell State Park. It was made possible to the more than $8 million that was raised recently by that group to purchase the last undeveloped land on East Lake Okoboji…
“This wasn’t a government project. There was no government money in this. We’re very proud of our partnership with the County Conservation Board, the Department of Natural Resources. But this was a property that was not one to become a public place. So we knew that the money would have to come completely from private citizens, individuals, groups. It was going to be a lakes effort, and the lakes community really stepped up. So we were able to get an option. We knew that it was going to take a long time. It was a heavy lift. It was a lot of money. You know the lakes property is worth, very valuable, especially shoreline. We were looking at 2,000 feet. So we knew it was going to be a heavy lift but the people stepped up in ways we have never seen in the lakes community, and I think the energy around that is still being felt event today. So in that short period of time people understood that if it was going to happen they were going to have to help make it happen.”
McGovern is urging everyone to attend an open house at the site beginning at 10:00 am Saturday…
“There’s a wonderful shelter here, we’ll have a lot of staff here, there will be a lot of friends here. And we’ll have people stationed around so they can come and quietly enjoy the property and figure out where they want to, how they want to use the trails. So we’re really encouraging people to come out. It’s very casual. We’ll make sure that they know where they’re going. It will be a lot of fun.”
The event will conclude at 2:00 pm. Elinor Bedell State Park is located just off of Dickinson County Road M-56 on the east side of East Lake Okoboji.
