Shawnee National Forest

It's full of deer.

So, you know, there's a lot of reasons why something would take up residence at a stripper pit in a remote area, and it was only 20 miles, um, north of Shawnee National Forest.

Oh, yeah, big one.

That's a well-known Sasquatch place.

Let's, let's d- let's do it," you know? So, um, uh, that's how we got ahold of that whole situation.

And you know, for people that don't know, Garden of the Gods is, like, probably the most visited site in Illinois as far as, like, Shawnee National Forest.

And so Jason and I are both thinking, "Garden of the Gods," like, what are you talking about? Like, there's a...

It's not like a million people go there, but there's enough people that go there to where you're like, "Why would anything be there?" But it's not Garden of the Gods Observation area.

Most beautiful part of the state.

I'm going to say Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois.

It's got so many different landscapes from rock formations to cypress swamp that you can hike or paddle through wineries.

Yeah, I think it's very beautiful and different than the rest of

It's gorgeous.

One Illinois place that everyone should visit?

OK, Shawnee National Forest, because I think I think that if you haven't been there, it's just you.

There's nothing else like it in Illinois.

On a single track

... on single track [laughs] in the middle of the Shawnee National Forest.

And I'm just wondering at what point in that journey did he say, "I'm on the wrong route"?

Yeah.

Yeah,

like Shawnee National Forest area.

That's where the farm's over at in that direction.

But, yeah, so, I mean, you know, we shot that video and everything.

Um, because he'll get, um, whooped at, uh, he'll, he will hear, uh, like mimicked owl sounds like a 700 pound owl.

Um, even the train, there's a train track that runs through the farm now to goes to the coal mine.

And it attaches to an old set of tracks that eventually lead down into the Shawnee National Forest.

And I don't know how old they are, but I know they're really old.

And that's just kind of a thing in Southern Illinois.

We have really pretty, like the Shawnee National Forest, Garden of the Gods, like hiking areas.

And so all these wineries have built In the middle of all of that, where you can sit on patios and overlook just beautiful land.

And it's a it's a big tourist thing here.

Illinois.

Trump Admin's Logging Rule Would Expose Shawnee Forest, written for us by Kate McCann, um, uh, Capital News Illinois.

Golconda, in a remote corner of the Shawnee National Forest along the Ohio River's northeastern banks, 73-year-old Mark Dunham peered up at the handful of remaining trees in the newly sun-filled forest canopy.

Two enormous piles of freshly cut timber, a mix of hardwood species but mostly pine, lay on the ground below.

Shawnee.

Shawnee National, baby.

Yeah, I can't wait to get the invite sometime.

Would love that.

And so I honestly have barely been able to find anything about tribal presence or what the actual tribal stuff was in Southern Illinois.

The only stuff I found was in correlation to the Shawnee National Forest down here, and that's through the National Forest Service, because there's just no resources.

Like...

It's so hard to find anything.