National Public Lands Day Celebration on September 27th

September 27 is National Public Lands Day and entrance to all National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and BLM lands is fee free. So get out and enjoy your public lands!

A fee-free day is when parks, refuges and rangelands offer free entry or waive the standard amenity fee for visitors.

Along with NPLD, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Veteran’s Day are free entrance days at Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service lands. There are also additional fee-free days specific to agencies, such as the National Park Service providing free entry on August 25 to celebrate their 98th birthday.

What other activities can you do on NPLD? Other examples of activities this year include:

* Humboldt Park – In Chicago, Illinois, NPLD and local partners including the Chicago Park District, Friends of the Parks, REI and Block Club Federation will hold a special two-day event with the community on the 207-acre public land. On Friday night, Chicago youth will spend the night in Humboldt Park for an educational urban campout experience, and on Saturday, volunteers will paint fences and gates, distribute mulch, plant trees, remove invasive plants and more.

* GHS Swamp Rabbit Trail – In South Carolina, Park Heroes, Greenville County Parks, Recreation and Tourism and REI Greenville are teaming up to tackle sightline clearing, trail stabilization, debris clearing, river clean up, fencing installation and more.

* Homestead National Monument of America – In Beatrice, Nebraska, the National Park Service and volunteers will conduct their annual fall deer survey.

* St. Louis River – In Duluth, Minnesota, the Superior National Forest is working with Wilderness Inquiry and local partners to sponsor a public interactive and educational event to celebrate 30 years of restoration for the St. Louis River. This event will provide participants with the opportunity to paddle the river with experienced staff and naturalists.

* Acadia National Park – In Bar Harbor, Maine, as part of Great Maine Outdoors Weekend, visitors will participate in Hawk Watch on Cadillac Mountain. In addition to hawks, observers will keep track of hummingbirds, butterflies and dragonflies. The vantage point of Cadillac Mountain allows observers and visitors to see the phenomenon of migration in real time.