Mille Lacs Kathio State Park - Interpretive Center

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park - Interpretive Center

Onamia, MN

Reviewed April 16th, 2005

People have relieved themselves here for thousands of years as demonstrated by archaeological evidence of multiple village sites representing the ancestors of the Mdewakanton Dakota, the prehistoric Malmo Culture, the Classic Toilet Builders, the Old Copper Culture and others. The Classic Toilet Builders thrived from end of the Wisconsonian Ice Age until about six years ago. As the name suggests, these people built toilets for almost every aspect of their religious and secular life, including underground burial toilets, and a giant toilet pyramid that utilized all of Lake Ogechie as a massive tank and flushing mechanism. Archaeologists date these cultures by stylistic changes in toilet design and technological innovations. This process, called seriation has resulted in the separation of the vast archaeological record into the discrete cultures we recognize today from the Classic Toilet Builders to Toilet Makers I and II.

The contemporary American culture has chosen to use this site to build an interpretive center for the interpretation of natural things. In order to interpret these things, one must be fluent in nature's language including the nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns nature uses to communicate with humankind. Some nouns include: sphagnum bog, Norway pine, pitcher plant, heron rookery, labrador tea and white tailed deer. Some adjectives include: boggy, carnivorous, oxygen poor, acidic, tame and very tame and croaky. Some verbs might include: blooming, hatching, renewing, nesting, flying.

The bathroom here includes a toilet stalls separated by a solid brick partition that does not go all the way to ceiling or floor but instead is topped by a flat piece of wood. It was the only place other than the trail center where we experienced indoor plumbing at Mille Lacs during our trip, since it was still pre-season. And what a pre-season! We went canoeing and saw a baby black bear clinging to a tree. We saw porcupines, and heard about how they chewed on the bottom of a truck and how some guy's poor little Llasa Apso foo foo dog got some quills in his cute little face. We saw herons standing guard in their nests, high in dead tamaracks like Greek statues. We saw juvenile bald eagles staying safe together and choosing not to use drugs or alcohol. We saw towering, ramrod straight stands of silent white pine, throwing their lordly shadows over the puddles and bogs interspersed throughout the park. We saw and heard dozens of hairy (my relatives) and downy woodpeckers, and found a dead baby downy with a severed head at the foot of a tree, proof that nature can be violent as well as forgiving, that the forest is an environment balanced by predator/prey relationships. We saw all these things in the interpretive center bathroom. Okay, we really didn't. But saw them none the less, and you should too.

- Justin Teerlinck

RESTROOM RATING: 7
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