Before I moved to La Crosse, I spent several years in New York. Most of that time, my husband and I lived on the fringes of Manhattan, but for a very precious year and a half, we moved upstate an hour or so, to an area nestled between the Hudson River and the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, a range known as the Shawangunks.
It was beautiful.
I grew up in the farmlands of northern Wisconsin, where the geography is pretty, but fairly flat. Every day of the year and a half we spent in the “Gunks” took my breath away. I’d rise early in the morning and drive my husband over the Hudson to Poughkeepsie, where he caught the train that took him into the city. The drive home was my favorite part of the day. As I wound my way uphill and down, around gentle curves and hairpin turns, the mountains were an ever-changing panorama before me, steadily shifting as I maneuvered through many points of view. I was always filled with an expansive feeling on that drive, and I’d arrive home in awe of the beauty of the place, and believing that anything was possible.
Then we moved. “Home” for my husband was the Coulee Region, and that’s where we went. I’d been to La Crosse before, and I liked it just fine, but I was brokenhearted to leave the mountains and the river. As we settled in, however, I was surprised to discover I hadn’t left my beloved landscape behind—not at all. Driving over the Mississippi River into La Crosse, the bluffs soared before me, and I discovered that wherever in town I drove, they were there, like good friends, with a spirit and a majesty all their own.
So began my love story of the bluff country. I am sure you have your own.
This issue is full of such love stories, celebrating the love of nature—and specifically, the love of our nature—here in the Coulee Region. Join us as we go “all natural,” and prepare to meet women whose business is nature, whether protecting it, working with it or exploring it. You’ll see how nature calls to us most when we’re immersed in it—while swooshing down snow-covered mountains, when escaping to its quietest corners, even in the intimacy of birth.
You’ll find this is a very hands-on issue, too—we beckon you outside with an outdoor adventure guide, into the kitchen with recipes focused on sustainable eating and into the sewing room for an afternoon of repurposing clothing. Let’s go au naturel—there’s nothing like it!
Betty Christiansen
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