Our Places | Connecting People and Nature
Nature is a part of you. You are a part of nature. Our shared experiences with nature inspire us to connect, care, and act ...
Where is your special place?
A special place connects you to nature and fills you with happiness, energy, or memories. Special places can be far away, or they can be just outside your front door.
Special places can inspire community members and scientists to discover, explore, manage, and protect the wonders of the natural world together.
The interactive map below shows previous visitors’ special places. Click on a point to learn about it.
Add YOUR special place by filling out the form below the map.
Reconnecting on the Land
Spending even a few minutes in nature improves mental, emotional, and physical well-being. But there can be barriers to enjoying nature that create inequitable experiences.
Equitable access to nature provides equitable health benefits and improves our shared quality of life. Some communities are working to strengthen their identities and connections to the special places that bring joy and sustain their cultures.
“Community and belonging are about valuing people for what they bring, not what they lack.”
Perry Cohen
Founder and Executive Director, Venture Out Project
“I grew up in Southern New Hampshire, where I discovered the outdoors and fell in love with it.
I was young, so I didn't understand at the time, but part of what I loved most about the outdoors was that it let me be free of gender. I could just be myself.
When I realized I was trans, I did what I always do when I want to figure something out—I went hiking. Atop that mountain, I felt genuine appreciation for my physical self in a way I hadn’t before. And I thought: Wouldn’t it be incredible if more queer and trans folks could feel what I’m feeling now?
Often, it's not the outdoors that feels unsafe—it's other people in the outdoors that feel unsafe. On Venture Out trips, we’ve got a group that has a shared lived experience and understanding.”
“Nature refuels us, so we can do what needs to be done.”
Ashley Lyn Olson
Founder and editor, wheelchairtraveling.com and Access 2 Parks Project
“I’ve used a wheelchair since I was injured at 15. While recovering at hospitals and rehab facilities, I’ll never forget the trees outside my windows.
Trees, birds, the wind on my face, the smell of rocks—I love being enveloped by a park. Maybe it’s because my dad was a park ranger.
After I became paralyzed, my first mission was to get back into the outdoors. I’d go to park visitor centers and ask about accessible trails. Usually, they wouldn’t know what to say, so I started wheelchairtraveling.com as a way to compile and share information with others like me.
My website shouldn’t be needed. Instead, accessibility information should be clearly communicated online and onsite, so visitors can decide what’s physically possible.”
“I work to repatriate, or return, sacred objects and human remains to tribes, because of a sense of responsibility to the people and to the ancestors.”
Dr. Dorothy Lippert
Choctaw Nation Archaeologist and tribal liaison National Museum of Natural History
“I grew up in Texas, and when I visit my sister there, we return to the rivers where we swam together growing up. The blue sky, gnarled mesquite trees, fields of grass, and creamy-colored limestone are home to me.
I felt a similar sense of reconnection attending a repatriation conference at an ancestral site of the Choctaw and other tribes called Moundville, in Alabama. The site is dotted with mounds constructed by our ancestors around 1,000 years ago. A Choctaw group started dancing, and we all joined in. We were all present in this ancient place, with the footsteps of the dancers and the drum’s rhythm going back down into the Earth.
My experiences are testaments to the survivance of the Choctaw people and our connection across thousands of years. Dancing in that place represented joy—because we're still together as a community, we still have our traditions, and we are continuing our cultural practices on the land.”
“I hope that we will work together to help save our Mother Earth for the future generations.”
Ernie LaPointe
Lakota Great-grandson of Hunkpapa Lakota leader Tatanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull)
“What the Americans call nature, the Lakota people call Ina Maka, Mother Earth. I appreciate the whole country, but the place I feel most comfortable is the Black Hills – the heart of our country. You can feel the wind blowing through the pine trees or hear a moving brook, and they are talking to you.
As a Vietnam veteran, I experienced the spiritual wounding of war. I got back to myself through my ceremonies. I go to one of the most sacred areas on this Turtle Island to do a healing every month. The whole country is beautiful, and what hurts me is that people don’t respect her and how sacred she is.
Human beings must work together to preserve Ina Maka, because she is in pain right now. If we do not work to save her, she will die. I hope that we will work together for future generations.”
The natural places many of us enjoy today have been home to Indigenous communities for thousands of years.
Native people sustain ties to their ancestral homelands and protect these connections through their traditional languages, oral traditions, ceremonies, and other forms of cultural expression.
Consider the long, complex history that has brought each of us to the places we love.
Want to learn about Indigenous communities in your area? Check out Native Land Digital — an Indigenous mapping project — below.
Restoring Along the Water
Are you drawn to the water? People have been building communities along the water for thousands of years.
While waterways have informed cultural identities and provide energy, irrigation, transportation, and food sources , human actions have profoundly impacted the health of these critical ecosystems. Healthy waterways support healthy people.
Today, communities are beginning to restore previously submerged historical narratives and building connections to the water based on reciprocity and respect.
“We must share this planet with our non-human relatives and each other.”
Dr. Bonnie Newsom
Penobscot Indigenous Archaeologist Anthropology Department, University of Maine
“There’s no place on Earth I feel more connected to than the Penobscot River. It’s our namesake and has sustained us for 12,000 years. Being there evokes a sense of responsibility because I want my grandchildren to experience those connections, too.
I work along Maine coasts, and one topic I’m interested in is examining how Indigenous peoples in North American sustainably harvested and managed oysters for thousands of years before colonists arrived. This work helps us, as Indigenous peoples, to rebuild relationships with our ancestors and our traditional foods that were interrupted by colonization.
Highlighting the technological sophistication of past lifeways and seeing Indigenous young people interpreting their heritage is empowering. I hope community-engaged archaeology can be that little spark to get communities thinking about all the ways our ancestors sustained themselves and to apply those practices in fisheries work.”
“When we steward the land and water, it can have global ripple effects.”
AlexAnna Salmon
Igiugig Tribal Council President National Museum of Natural History Advisory Board Member
“I grew up at my grandma’s fish camp, where our people have caught salmon for thousands of years. I’ve always felt connected to the Kvichak River, but I didn’t realize how deep that connection was until I became a mother.
In our culture, you plant your baby’s umbilical cord where you want your child to be connected. Now my children are also tied to the fish camp and the river.
The Kvichak is our highway, our only source of drinking water, and our main source of food, supporting the last great salmon runs on Earth. We’re fighting against climate change and a proposed mine that threaten this ecosystem—all while our communities are reclaiming what’s been taken.
We’ve healed in unique ways, like creating one of Alaska’s first tribally designated protected areas. We’re very ambitious for a tiny village. We want to show that, if we can do it here, in remote Alaska, it can be implemented anywhere.”
“In a midden, the landscape comes alive with all the people who populated it.”
Dr. Torben Rick
Anthropologist, National Museum of Natural History
“I love the Chesapeake Bay, the complex estuaries and dynamic landscape. I love the massive forests that run right up to the water’s edge, and the marsh grasses and all the life within that sulfur smell.
I study middens, which are a form of human history written into the landscape. A shell midden is an accumulation of material left behind where people once lived or spent time. These middens contain the oyster shells Indigenous people managed and harvested here for thousands of years before colonists arrived.
Sea-level rise and erosion are threatening middens literally everywhere on the coasts. Before we even know about sites, they’re disappearing.
Archaeology can be a powerful tool for working together to empower Indigenous people’s connections to and stewardship of their traditional territories—including coastal ecosystems. We can collaboratively look to the past to help understand how we arrived at the present, and how we can better prepare for the future."
“It’s important for communities to know their history and move forward with it in hand.”
Dr. Ayana Flewellen
Assistant professor, Stanford University Co-founder, Society of Black Archaeologists Board Member, Diving with a Purpose
“Archaeology makes history tangible in very exciting ways. I can hold the smooth porcelain of dolls enslaved children played with, or buttons once used to tie clothes together.
I work with Diving with a Purpose, a nonprofit organization dedicated to marine archaeology, oceanic conservation, and the preservation of submerged historical and cultural artifacts, like slave shipwrecks.
Our goal is to empower communities, especially overlooked communities, by putting the preservation of history in their hands and supporting their efforts.
Marine archaeology can be healing for divers and the communities connected to archaeological sites. Healing takes place through the physical experience of diving and the emotional experience of exploring submerged histories.
Everything transforms underwater — temperature, colors, and even you. You develop a new sense of connection to the ocean. These connections spark a desire to take better care of our planet.”
Thriving Close Together
Do you connect with nature close to home, during your normal daily routine? It can be easy to feel disconnected from nature, especially in densely populated places. But nature is all around us, even in the busiest cities. The natural world adapts to urban life alongside humans.
Noticing and protecting urban nature brings incredible benefits, not only to local wildlife but also to the people who live, work, and play in cities.
"Resiliency isn’t convenient. But it’s about being a citizen of the world.”
Michael S. Martin
Pastor, Stillmeadow Community Fellowship
“There were always ‘the woods’ out there on the church property. But in the last five years, we’ve rethought them as a place for beauty and refreshment and created Stillmeadow PeacePark.
It’s an ongoing delight to see people walk up to the entrance and realize that there are trails. At first, you can hear the traffic from Frederick Avenue, but as you get further in, it becomes a kind of sweet white noise. You hear birds, the creek. City people can get freaked out being too far from things. Here, you get the best of both worlds.
Both our teenagers and our older crowd are getting comfortable in the park. There are no urban dangers inside. We’ve seen a few, ‘I’m not crying, there’s a bug in my eye,’ moments in there.
Being open for Sunday services isn’t enough. We need to be more connected to our neighborhood than ever before.”
“This park is about safe freedom.”
Brenda Lee Richardson
Vice-chair, Friends of Oxon Run Ward 8 resident
“I refer to my community as disfavored. We are showered with collective trauma. We’re always in fight-or-flight mode.
Oxon Run is 2.7 miles long—it’s the biggest park in the District. It’s so lush, so green. But getting people in here to activate the park has been hard. There are so many trees here, and our community associates trees with hidden dangers.
During the pandemic, we hosted outdoor learning and ‘trauma breaks’ for people to gather and talk. We’d get 15 to 30 people, and that mass really changed things.
We’ve created a Mother’s Peace Garden and are growing a “memory forest.” Families plant a tree to remember a lost loved one. They become invested in those trees and keep coming back.
The real beauty of the park is that it’s not going anywhere. I take the little free time I have to sit on a bench, breathe, and feel connected to Mother Earth.”
“We create change agents.”
Ronnie Webb
President and Founder, Green Scheme
“I was born and raised in Ward 5 in DC, but I went to North Carolina A&T State University. College was formative for me. I gained a lot of experience with plant science and animals, and it really took off my blinders.
I started Green Scheme to help city kids embrace eating vegetarian, learning from the land, and growing things. We meet the community where they are and create gardens, outdoor classrooms, and programming.
We visit stores and talk about the food options, and teach people about legislation that can affect their health, like the sugary beverage tax.
I’ve now got kids talking about why they’re drinking milk for lunch and asking for more spices. We have kids who never wanted to get their tennis shoes dirty, and now they’re hopping into the creek. They go home and advocate for their parents to eat more vegetables and live healthier lives.”
“It’s rewarding to see how nature recovers with your help.”
Jorge Bogantes Montero
Natural Resource Specialist Anacostia Watershed Society
“I grew up in an urban area in Costa Rica, and I used to play in a creek that was biologically dead. To me, urban waters meant dead waters. When I moved to D.C., I was surprised to find urban waters with biological communities. On the main stem of the Anacostia River, you're surrounded by forest; you forget you're in D.C.
Historically, people called the Anacostia the ‘forgotten river’ because it was so polluted. It’s still polluted, but it’s improving because of our and others’ work. Since 2018, we have grown and released over 30,000 mussels, which filter the water and reduce pollution.
Now, the river has become a community asset. People are jogging, hiking on trails, and bringing their dogs. We need restoration like that in my hometown creek. The landscape is changing, but we still need those green spaces, whether it’s marsh, forest, or desert.”
“Humans are not ‘other.’ We are part of the natural world.”
Dr. Floyd Shockley
Entomologist Collections Manager, National Museum of Natural History
“I grew up on a farm in Missouri and spent all my free time outside in the woods. That’s where I first started connecting with nature. I have an affinity for large, old, native trees—it’s where my wife and I both find our spiritual renewal.
I study insects, and as humans, we need insects. They’ve been performing the same essential ecological functions for millions of years. The insects in and around our homes are recycling nutrients and pollinating plants. We are the introduced species, not them.
You don’t have to be a scientist to appreciate the interconnectedness of life. You can look more closely at your habitat, and learn the names of organisms you see. Replace even a small section of your lawn with native plants that support pollinating insects. And treat your clothes with an insecticide—not your entire neighborhood.”
Cultivating Community
Look around you. How close to nature are you right now? No matter where you are, you are always connected to nature.
Your clothes, food, water, air—it all comes from nature. We need a healthy and thriving natural world.
Individual choices matter, but the biggest impact comes when individuals come together to find a solution that improves both communities and nature.
“There is something so beautiful and healing about working in the soil. Every day, I was so incredibly amazed by the plants and their ability to grow.”
Elise, former Homeless Garden Project trainee
The Homeless Garden Project
Santa Cruz, California
The Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz, Calif., provides job training and transitional employment on a 3.5-acre organic farm for people experiencing homelessness. But the garden also provides dignity, an emotional home, and a sense of purpose.
Many trainees have become profoundly isolated during their experiences with homelessness. The garden is a safe place for productive, paid work in nature, as well as a first step toward a more hopeful future.
"We live in this rich country that makes enough food. Why is there still this two-tiered system for food access?”
Karen Washington, Founder
Garden of Happiness
Bronx, New York
Long before community gardens became glorious staples of unused lots in communities across the country, the Garden of Happiness was sprouting in the Bronx, New York.
Founder Karen Washington began planting in 1988, inviting neighbors with diverse backgrounds and life experiences to join her in growing healthy food the community could enjoy together.
We are all connected to nature through the places where we work, play, recreate, and live. Nature supports our communities, our cultures, and pastimes. We hope these stories inspire you and your community to protect the places that matter most to you.
To read more stories about connections to nature, visit the previous version of this StoryMap.
If you are in the D.C. area, come visit the Our Places exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History to learn more.