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Recreation areas add charm to state
BURWELL – Public parks and recreation areas, as well as privately owned vacation destinations, offer a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities such as camping, hiking, river trips, tanking, canoeing, trail rides and star gazing.
Calamus Outfitters owner Sue Switzer said her family business near Burwell is more than a hunting outfit. Visitors come to tank, tube, kayak or canoe down the Calamus River. They also hike or ride horses through trails of varying levels of difficulty.
Visitors can bring their own horses or use the outfitters.
“We also have a lot of people who come to our bird watching,” Switzer said. “Grouse and prairie chicken mating draws a big crowd, and we have had people this year from Alaska to New York to come and watch that.”
Switzer said 60 percent or more of her business comes from eastern Nebraska and areas outside the state. She said out-of-state visitors like vacationing in Nebraska because of the relatively cheap cost.
“Our prices are probably half that of other places,” she said. “And we have water for boating and the Sandhills, which visitors like because then they can get the Western vacation.”
In addition to cost, Switzer said Midwest charm and a variety of available outdoor activities help draw tourists.
Angell said some of Nebraska’s 86 state parks and recreation areas, such as Lake McConaughy, are designed to accommodate people who seek high activity levels. Indian Cave State Park in southeast Nebraska, however, is more rural and quiet. And while tourists at many of Nebraska’s parks have to bring their own recreational equipment, vendors at some lakes during the summer rent out equipment, including jet skis and boats.
Angell said Nebraska’s rivers and lakes offer some of the most diverse scenery in the nation, and he hopes property fences that span some of the state’s bodies of water do not discourage boaters.
“Nebraska law says water belongs to everyone, so legislators have really made the state boater friendly,” he said.
He said landowners only own land on both sides of the water, not the water itself, so they can construct fences across the water to keep cattle in, but they can’t stop you from crossing through the fence.
Angell said the fences are a nuisance to some vacationers and probably deter some people from floating down some rivers, but ranchers have to have a way to keep their cattle in.
“Paddlers can get out of their watercraft and walk on the land and through the fences and get back into the water, and they are not trespassing,” Angell said, adding that state law protects boaters who have to use land to go around fences.
Angell also addressed the development of state parks on South Dakota land bordering Nebraska.
“South Dakota does an excellent job of marketing themselves and making sure that everyone knows about them and their parks,” Angell said. “And although we market ourselves, I’m not sure we do as excellent of a job as South Dakota.”
Angell said South Dakota’s excellent marketing has been successful at drawing people to the area, allowing officials to spend more money to make the parks more attractive.
Chris Hull, communications specialist for South Dakota Fish, Game and Parks, said the state has a marketing budget of about $55,000. Although Nebraska Game and Parks Commission doesn’t have a set marketing budget, it spends about $30,000 to $50,000 a year on marketing and advertising.
Angell said the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission works with the state division of travel and tourism to promote Nebraska’s hunting, fishing and parks. Game and Parks also markets itself through its Web site, mailing lists, Nebraskaland Magazine, press releases and hunting literature.
– By CYNTHIA MCCALL
