We're getting ready to put together our 2025 Nature Up North calendar. Submit you're nature photos, like this photo from Azure, for a chance to earn a spot in the calendar! Winners receive a free calendar!

We're getting ready to put together our 2025 Nature Up North calendar, which means we need your photos! Submit your photos of nature, animals, landscapes, and people enjoying the outdoors to our encounters page, and your photos will automatically be included in our search for each month's calendar photo. Photos from October 2023 to present day will be considered.

If your photo is chosen, you'll get a free calendar as a thank you!

Fall trees along a lake's shoreline Just Our Nature

Recent studies show that trained dogs can sense Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, many forms of cancer, and other serious ailments long before symptoms show up. We may not be able to match such an impressive feat, but it turns out we’re not entirely inept when it comes to prescient diagnostics. There are two simple ways to detect grave illness in trees before they start looking overtly ill.

Goldenrod flowers in bloom Just Our Nature

Please don’t blame late-season allergies on goldenrod. Well, not unless you’ve discovered bees going up your nose lately. It turns out that pollen from goldenrod, which is in glorious bloom throughout the region right now, is too heavy to waft on the wind. These plants rely on bees and other pollinators to convey their sticky pollen grains from one flower to another, which is why goldenrods don’t cause hay fever, even if they wanted to.

Are you looking to spend more time in the backcountry? While spending days or weeks away from civilization is a great adventure, you may have some worries about safety. Garmin in reach and other devices allow for backcountry communication but come with a large price tag. Still, there is something else that allows for 2 way communication and is a fraction of the price. It's traveling through the air all around us.

When I was young, what fascinated me most about the outdoors was discovery. The unveiling of a whole teeming world right outside always kept me coming back. One moment I remember fondly was my father showing me a Crayfish for the first time on the shore of Lake Ontario. I couldn't believe that such a strange and fascinating creature with huge pincers and strange long antennae was dwelling in the same place I would go swimming with my family.

A bee sits on a yellow flower. Just Our Nature

Gardening in the North Country presents unique challenges and opportunities. With its distinct climate, soil conditions, and ecosystem, the North Country is the perfect place to embrace native plants in your garden. Native plants are species that have evolved to thrive in this specific region, making them an excellent choice for sustainable and low-maintenance gardening.

Events Up North

September 14, 2024

Join us for a plant walk and illustration workshop in partnership with Sara Lynch and Nature Up North.

September 15, 2024

Join us Sunday, September 15th at Eel Weir State Park to learn about and interact with our Native St. Lawrence County Crayfish.

September 21, 2024

Recently, the DEC built a new observation platform for Indian Creek Nature Center (ICNC) in Rensselaer Falls, and we're going to go check it out!