Boys Totem Town: Foundation and Vision report released!  Feb 2, 2021
The report includes an initial property history, an architectural and cultural landscape assessment, and an archaeological assessment. The Boys Totem Town property may be historically and culturally significant for numerous reasons and associated with key topics and resources.  [Read More]

Mission

We are a group of people who believe in:
  • the importance of open/green and natural spaces for the good of the community and the people in it
  • preserving and/or restoring important environments such as old growth Oak Savannas
  • preserving historic and culturally important spaces (specifically Dakota and BTT itself - and the generations of boys who went there)
  • using the "building area" for building community with space for a community center, nature center, community gardens, market place, nature classes, family activites, and more.  [click the More button below for more information on this]
 
We are working together to preserve the land once occupied by Boys Totem Town (located in St. Paul, MN -- see MAP) as just such a space.
“Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
—John Muir, Our National Parks
Picture
Old Growth Oak - circumference 11' 7"; 220+ years old, ~1776!
Oak Savanna: An oak savanna is a community of scattered oak trees (Quercus spp.) above a layer of prairie grasses and forbs. The trees are spaced enough so that there is little to no closed canopy and the grasses and forbs receive plentiful amounts of sunlight.     ...   Once common in Minnesota, the oak savanna is now a rare ecosystem. ​      
--  National Parks System
Large urban parks can provide important buffers to the stressors of city living (Hartig and Kahn, 2016; Wood et al., 2018). Such effects have been shown in even some of the largest cities of the world, such as in New York City (Sain-Baird, 2017) and Beijing (Hongxiao et al., 2017), and fit within a growing body of research that show that interaction with nature benefits people physically and psychologically. These benefits are not trivial. As reviewed by Frumkin et al. (2017) and Bratman et al. (2019), interaction with nature has been shown to reduce stress, depression, aggression, ADHD symptoms, rumination, and obesity, and to improve immune function, eyesight, mental health, and social connectedness.
 ~ Relatively Wild Urban Parks Can Promote Human Resilience and Flourishing