Fish Creek Canyon

You never know where interesting geology will turn up. I've been poking around the Twin Cities for years and I'm still coming across places I'd never dreamed were there. Case in point: today's pictorial topic, Fish Creek Canyon. I know the name sounds like a place you might find in Montana or Idaho, where the water is cold, the fish are biting, and the bears are waiting for you to wander away from your cooler, but this particular Fish Creek Canyon is just about where St. Paul, Maplewood, and Woodbury meet. It's not a huge canyon, and I don't imagine the fish are very large these days, but it's the kind of little hidden backyard gem that makes exploring worthwhile. I visited it with a friend back in late November, not long before our on-off winter hit the "on" switch for the first time.

Down in the valley on a great fall day, with Fish Creek in view.

Fish Creek is spread across two city jurisdictions. Maplewood has Fish Creek Natural Area, which is mostly the heights above 494 on the south and east and Highway 61 on the west. If you scout around, you'll find that this is one of a handful of small bluff-top parks between Battle Creek Regional Park and 494 overlooking 61. Adjacent on the north is the actual canyon of Fish Creek, which is within St. Paul and owned by Ramsey County Parks but apparently not organized at the moment, per se. The area is also largely within Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (so I'm also *officially* curious). The bluff-top lands are well worth walking around in their own right. There are no official access points to the canyon from the bluff-top, but it is possible to reach the canyon via social trails, leading to a steep descent into the narrow valley.

The view from the bluff, with the November afternoon sun on a clear day.

The canyon itself is not vast or deep. The water power that carved the original ravine has long since dwindled to a hoppable creek. And yet, what the creek has cut for itself is such a perfect little feature, complete with a miniature waterfall.

You're walking along, and then the creek disappears.

A miniature waterfall.

There ought to be gnomes.

It widens a bit going down (note that this feature was put in by people, presumably for water management, although it's not bad for aesthetics, either).

The rock that has been cut through here is the St. Peter Sandstone in its case-hardened form, producing the steep-sided, narrow slot. If you've driven Highway 61 near here, you may have noticed how the St. Peter sinks out of view for most of the stretch between Battle Creek and Camels Hump in Cottage Grove. It's still there, it just only shows its face sporadically, and this is the most picturesque place to find it. Interestingly, the location of Frederick Sardeson's "Highwood" collecting locality for St. Peter Sandstone fossils was supposedly a little north of here, about a mile and a half south of Battle Creek Park on 61. This works out to about the area where the ravines now occupied by Highwood Avenue and Springside Drive empty out, so our old friend was successfully trying his luck out here back in the 1890s.

Sometimes the St. Peter feels like crumbling, and sometimes it feels like holding a wall.