Our known “to-do” lists might become agonizingly too long, so it becomes easy to join the club of procrastinators. If you can identify with that idea, raise your hand.

Accomplishing things on the to-do list is gratifying. Once done, it hopefully can stay done.

Add into this mix things we do not know about now, that will pop up as unexpected events of time and place, of people and projects, and pretty soon the to-do list grows in a new direction. Checking off the boxes is always possible.

My experience tells me not to become too optimistic about my wishes. Reality hits pretty hard sometimes and will not give an inch in my favor. There will be winners and losers on my to-do list. Somehow everything works out.

Nature and its magnificent moments are a key ingredient for any outdoors enthusiast. Going outside for hikes, visiting natural areas, exploring places that are new to you and learning more about a new fishing, hunting or camping location can fill our to-do list with incentives to check those boxes.

My hope for all of you during 2025 is that you become inspired to get outside to explore a local forest area, to wade through the tall grasses of a native prairie, to canoe silently on the rippling current of the Iowa River, or rest peacefully next to a glowing ember camp fire while hot dogs cook, and frogs serenade your ears with those special musical notes. Nature’s wonders keep on giving.

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Winter in Iowa can guarantee two things: Cold air, wind, snow in varying amounts, and short days with long nights. How will the winter we are just entering compare with the historical facts of past winters, recent or long ago? We will not know until mid April of 2025 how the winter of late 2024 through January, February and March of 2025 will appear in a history book not yet written.

An “average” winter will provide about 30 inches of snow, not all at once of course, but the total of each individual snow squall of minute amounts to a few inches and even the potential for a lock down big time blizzard. We have all experienced these before.

They will happen again. Give it your best guess.

Winter storms are noteworthy because they are a combination of severe cold air temps, winds and lots of snow. From my personal library comes a book titled “A Country So Full of Game” by the author Dr. James J. Dinsmore.

He was a past professor at Iowa State University and I was privileged to meet him and learn from him. His research and writings in the book paint word pictures of Iowa’s past that are intriguing and factual. Following are just a few of his insights.

Iowa had a severe winter in 1856-57. This was about 10 years after Iowa became a State within the Union of the United States in 1846.

People were settling upon the land to attempt to make a living from crops grown on prairie soils. For the most part, Iowa was still a wild place and completely unsympathetic to anyone unprepared for living off this land called Iowa. The winter of 1856-57 was so cold, so full of snow and blizzard conditions, that elk and other wildlife suffered a lot.

The big game changer happened on Dec. 1, 1856. Heavy snow covered all of Iowa and much of the surrounding Midwest.

A few days later, cold air went away. In its place came warmer air and rain falling on the snow surface infiltrated the top few inches and then refrozen.

The thick crust now covering the surface was hard enough for most critters to easily walk across. Even people could make voyages over this snowy ice crust without falling through.

Elk are big animals. When they tried to walk anywhere, their hooves broke through the crust so that they were incapable of traveling very far as they sought relief and sheltered areas.

Shelter was typically found in forested areas along streams or river corridors. If these large cervids did manage to find some elements of safety in numbers in a forest, they were very hesitant to venture out to browse on any exposed dry grasses or woody stems.

They could easily expend more energy than it was worth. So they just stayed immobile and tried to endure and wait out the weather.

Settlers in Iowa during that winter watched how the elk behaved with deep snow and its hard crusted surface. They knew those elk would be easy pickings for killing and thus obtaining meat for themselves and families. Settlers took the opportunity to secure for themselves a source of protein that in any other circumstances was far from easy.

Elk were slaughtered but not wasted. A stranded elk could be killed by a careful axe strike to its brain case.

Knives and axes could remove a hind quarter to drag back to the cabin. Other meat quarters were hung with ropes from tree branches to get the meat off the snow and away from wolves. Coyotes, foxes, and bobcats were more than eager to pick off any morsels they could find, take it quickly and consume it.

By daylight the next day, any portions not within easy reach had been cleaned off all the way to the bone. Settlers came back the next day to see what was left and remove any usable meat left hanging high in a tree. Survival was the focus of the settlers. Survival for the elk was compromised.

On the wind swept snowy landscape of that winter, word spread to every small town and larger cities of the bitterness of the winter weather.

The Iowa legislature’s debates during the session of 1857 took note. They passed laws to have a closed elk season from Feb. 1 to July 15. A fine of $15 was to be imposed for anyone breaking that law and illegally possessing elk meat.

In 1858, the Legislature changed the date of closed elk season to Jan. 1. Elk seasons every year were the subject of manipulation of the laws so that by 1862, elk were not to be taken between Jan. 1 and Sept. 1. Dinsmore noted that there was no evidence of these laws ever being enforced.

The march of time and the effects of settlers changing the landscape of Iowa from one of tall grass prairie to small farm units was too much for many species of wildlife. Elk were a casualty of habitat changes too far reaching for them to overcome in Iowa.

Records in northwest Iowa counties indicate that by the 1870s, elk were extirpated from Iowa. Extirpated means these animals no longer lived in Iowa naturally, but could be found in other states such as the Dakotas, Montana, western Nebraska, and other mountain states.

Complete protection for elk in Iowa came in 1898, 27 years after the last wild elk were gone. Severe winter weather played a part in this story. Habitat changes to the landscape played a much larger role for wild elk.

Now, 124 years later, Iowa has elk on private farms behind tall fences. Even the large fields of the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City have a tall fence around the elk/bison pasture, a mere remnant of Iowa’s prairie past.

To add another big mystery to the story of wild elk in Iowa, recent reports and even a few remote trail camera photos tell of roaming single elk passing through or found wandering about in a landscape so changed that the likelihood of wild elk reestablishing a population is near zero.

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A special guest speaker is coming to the Grimes Farm and Conservation Center on Jan. 7, a Tuesday, over the noon hour from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. His name is Jim Coffey, a DNR biologist.

His program is titled “Iowa Wildlife Oddities.” He will discuss unusual animals from moose, elk, albino deer, black bear and armadillos, plus maybe a few more species.

Come and enjoy his informative program. The program is free. Just call 641-752-5490 by Jan. 3 to tell the staff you plan to attend. I plan to see you there.

Happy New Year.

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Garry Brandenburg is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. He is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology.

Contact him at:

P.O. Box 96

Albion, IA 50005