Keith Diakiw deftly wraps a red-striped Métis sash over my winter coat and around my waist, tying it loosely on the left to signify that I’m taken and not single. One of my fellow “geo-explorers” opts to have her sash tied in the middle as a hard-working Voyageur would have during the fur trade era. Another chooses to be a Métis princess with the sash wrapped over her left shoulder across her heart.

Yellowstone National Park recently awarded an approximately $118 million construction contract to replace the structurally deficient Yellowstone River Bridge on the Northeast Entrance Road near Tower Junction. Funded by the Great American Outdoors Act, this project will preserve year-round public access to and from the park’s Northeast Entrance and communities of Silver Gate and Cooke City, Montana.

Two years after volunteers embarked on the path to plant 100,000 native plants at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California, the task is nearly complete.

Lying on a beach gazing at stars, spotting the Milky Way during a cruise, or scanning the universe through a powerful telescope is how you can celebrate International Dark Sky Week at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina.