The fall color in the park is past its peak, and we can't help but wax poetic for its splendor. Most trees have already given their leaves of every color to the wind, but some are just getting started as the weather turns and the winds chill, especially the oaks. Actually, it is more the shortening of the days than the temperature that triggers the trees to stop maintaining the photosynthetic pigments in the leaves and the green chlorophyll pigments degrade and give way to the more stable carotenoid and anthocyanin pigments. Science has given us this rather drab answer, but the Iroquois and many other Northeast American Indian Nations told of "The Hunting of the Great Bear" that relates how four brothers were hunting Nyaghwaheh, an enormous malevolent bear with supernatural powers they finally struck down after a long and hard chase to the top of a mountain. It was there that the tired brothers made a fire and cooked and ate the bear only to find that when they were done they were surrounded by small twinkling lights. They were no longer on the mountain, but in the sky. No sooner did they notice, when the bones of the bear came back to life and started to run. The four brothers couldn't believe this and gave chase, spears in hand following him across the skies. Each year the chase is played out again as the constellation of the Great Bear, Ursa Major, which also constitutes the Big Dipper moves across the sky. The brothers continue to chase, and as the fall approaches the dipper tips and spills the bear's blood that rains from the heavens and turns the maple leaves red. Later, as the brothers cook the bear the hot fat melts and falls to the land as snow.

~Rick Frantz