Indian Creek Nature Center — Attraction in Iowa

TLDR: "Indian" Creek Nature Center is an organization built on whyte supremacy and land exploitation.

I grew up next to this park. I was asked to email a "Sarah Halbrook" at the center about decolonization, land back, and to consider a name change like Wanatee park after I mentioned it on social media.

It was a sham tactic to silence any critique of the name and practices. If you have a complaint of any sort Sarah will make sure to silence you and steal your voice.

I was immediately blocked from their social media when I asked where to send the invoice for my consultation. When I inquired why I was blocked with the director they just said I broke their invisible rules and would not elaborate further on where I could find such "rules"... this act of covert racism is called "tone policing"... how dare I become upset about cultural appropriation and value my intellect monetarily.

Literally, how do you rock the name "indian creek nature center" while erasing indigenous voices, having zero enrolled indigenous members on your board and no plans or initiatives to return stolen indigenous lands??? The audacity. Honestly. They have a tipi on site but no indigenous consultants... it's tokenizing and performative to lean on the image of "indians" while committing violent erasure of natives who question the motives of an organization that will use you but not hire you because being accountable to the harm that non-profit colonization does is too much for the humility of the board.

Refusal to pay indigenous consultants after you ask them to email and spend time educating you is racism even if the ask to email was disingenous to begin with. Erasing them because you dont want to pay them is also racism.

"Environmentalism" that erases indigenous knowledge and respect is not land stewardship it's land supremacy.

Sarah Holbrook remains the director of development and marketing and there is still a GLARING lack of diversity within their staff which shows in their rude at best interactions with POC. In a town as diverse as Cedar Rapids having an all white staff is a concerted and concerning choice.

It used to be a more naturally beautiful place but development without indigenous consultation has absolutely ruined the vibe. A nature center doesn't need more giant ugly buildings built by friends of the board and it doesn't need a tokenizing name celebrating the genocide that took place to make it so.

They destroyed a natural prairie ecosystem to build a new educational building to teach about the nature they bulldozed... the building is not sustainable and lined the pockets of friends of the board. It shouldn't even be. called a "nature center" at this point. It's just exploitative.

I was sucessful in starting the change of "squaw creek" to Wanatee Park through thoughtful discussion and community engagement.

10 years down the road when they finally change the name they will pretend I never existed.

Moral of the story: stop donating land to whyte led organizations and give it to indigenous tribes who actually care about land stewardship and food sovereignty. They care about their image, not for the land. It's big wasicu energy.

The board's lack of attention to indigenous sovereignty is holding it back in its name, the volunteers it has available, in the inability to communicate with concerned community, and it its nature destroying building practices.

There has to be a way to honor the indigenous Meskwaki people next door who were swept away during the trail of tears era and organized to buy their land back beyond tokenism and a canvas tipi (Meskwaki and Sauk are woodland communities and their homes were less hide tipis and more wood covered wikiup and lodge style homes). Including us in land ownership and development decisions is the very minimal first step but the lack of humility on the entire board will not allow them to relinquish land or power to anyone who might change the profitibility of development contracts.

I gave my heart to guide them into a more ethical relationship with the land but they...

What a wonderful spot! If you'd like to sit in air conditioned comfort and learn about the uninterrupted prairie that used to be RIGHT WHERE THE NATURE CENTER BUILDING AND PARKING LOT ARE, come to the new nature center. You'll park in what used to be twelve acres of the last remaining prairie in Iowa! You'll get to watch confused monarchs search for the field which countless generations had flocked! OH, and no trip to nature without your kids getting a chance to play the xylophone! Plus, the new center allowed the board members to line the pockets of their developer friends. Basically a win-win for everyone. Oh, except nature.

The motto of of the project was “leave your footprint” and I guess they succeeded that. But whatever happened to “leave no trace”?

150 years ago there were 30,386,208 acres of prairie. Today there are 35,748. The prairie portion of ICNC (both sides of Bena Brook) was approximately 35 acres. What that means is that the ICNC, steward of one of the rare parcels of a vanishing habitat, put in a giant parking lot and "nature center" on 12 acres in the dead center.

That's one third of their prairie destroyed, if you're keeping count. But hell, who wouldn't want THIS on their prairie? Well, I guess monarchs wouldn't. Or bluebirds. Or coyotes. Or the the hundreds of other plants and birds and bugs and creatures that used to call it home. But it's State of the Art. It's NET ZERO baby. Nothing says nature like a Shell recharging station.

C'mon darling, let's go get a pumpkin spice latte. The Hummer is warming...

Less than 5% of Iowa's original prairie lands remain, and the Indian Creek Nature Center had about 10% of that. You could walk into a sea of grass, stand at its center and be transported back to the land as it was. A magical experience I enjoyed for years, and the careful stewardship of such a precious resource did the community credit. But no more. A giant, ugly building now squats in the center of it. The building's design has no historical or architectural significance to the region and sticks out like a neon sign. Construction devastated the delicate plain and made it resemble a WWI battlefield for almost a year. Now that it has somewhat recovered, it resembles a shopping mall. Car traffic, machine noise, people. It's an obscenity. The point of a nature center is not to defile it with an expensive project (that incidentally was contracted to affiliates of the board members, throwing the shade of backroom dealing on the whole thing). The point of a nature center is to enjoy what nature remains. This is like going to a bird sanctuary, killing all the birds and turning them into taxidermy, then hanging them from wires against a painted sky. The new "stewards" should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I...