Dakota Nature Park — Attraction in Medary Township

Beautiful trails to bike or walk on paved and crushed rock trails. Peaceful and lovely bridges. Kids liked the activities in the nature center, canoeing, and kayak rentals. We also checked out the mountain bike trails and pump track. Good signage for Mt. Bike trail loops easy vs hard loops. Grandpa & son experienced riders. Lots of cool bumps, and some jumps. Myself and 5yr old did loop in woods and easy track on regular bike. The pump track was fun and to try. There are easy loops for strider bike or kid's scooter, intermediate, and advanced pump tracks. However, no signage to indicate levels or the start point. We found this difficult as newbies. Great course, but city is letting an asset like this go neglected due to poor maintenance and no signs for loop levels or starting point. It also was very difficult to find the entrance to the Mt. Bike area. I suggest parking in the outdoor activity gravel lot them follow the treeline by the baseball outfield to find the entrance. We are from St. Paul MN and did like all the offerings for...

Dakota Nature Park is located on the south edge of town, so it can be accessed quickly and without much of a drive for residents of the Brookings area. I like to stop here on my way out of town to gather my thoughts after visiting my mother's home. Lol. No offense Marcia. This little sanctuary is my best kept secret weapon of stress relief to get me back home without a headache, or a speeding ticket, each time I pass through. On some occasions, I stop before my visits AND after. Regardless of my reasons, or how often I visit, this tiny, non-concrete obstructed view pitstop, gives me, my truck, and my lovely child a nice place to breathe in some fresh air, shake off our days schedule for a bit, have some nature talks, and give our four legs a walk, before we head south to Harrisburg. Which is where our usual and customary sanctuary is located. We like to call it home. ...

Overall nice park with a good network of trails throughout. A few little ponds are found about on the reclaimed landfill, and although they advertise fishing, it’s quite rubbish as I have never caught anything more than a small sunfish as an experienced angler. It is not a bad place to go long boarding, although you need to have your balance just right or else you may crash because of all the branches and twigs everywhere and then at night with the frogs and toads everywhere, it’s a bloody minefield. The ponds will always freeze, but in a snowy year, don’t expect to do any activity such as hockey or skating, because they aren’t shoveled and Brookings is not a hockey town by any stretch, so unlike Minnesota the snow will stay on all of them all...