National Parks 2021

National Parks 2021: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/ 

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

In extreme southern Arizona that shares a border with the Mexican state of Sonora.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Hohokam people’s culture existed in this area from the first years Common Era (CE). through CE 1450.

There are eight groups of indigenous peoples currently in the Sonoran Desert area. The Mayo, Yaqui, Pima, Seri, Cucapá, Papago and Guarijio are native to the Sonora region. The eighth group, the Kikapú, immigrated to Sonora but have maintained a presence in the state for more than 100 years, so they are considered to be indigenous Sonorans.

When was it established?

April 13, 1937

Why is it amazing?

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, an International Biosphere Reserve, reveal a thriving community of plants and animals. Human stories echo throughout this desert preserve, chronicling thousands of years of desert living. It is the only place in the United States where the senita and organ pipe cactus grow wild.

Why did we choose these colors?

If you flip through the images on the NPS website, you’ll see the rich diversity of colors in this desert landscape, which inspired our colorway.

For more information:

National Parks 2021: Cesar E. Chavez National Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/ 

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

Keene, Kern County, about 32 miles away from Bakersfield, California.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Tejon Indian Tribe of California is a tribe of the Kitanemuk, Yokuts, and Chumash indigenous people of California. Their ancestral homeland is the southern San Joaquin Valley, San Emigdio Mountains, and Tehachapi Mountains. Today they live in Kern County, California.

When was it established?

October 8, 2012

Why is it amazing?

Under the leadership of César E. Chávez and others such as Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong, along with support from millions of Americans, the farm worker movement joined forces with other reform movements to achieve unprecedented successes that greatly improved working and living conditions and wages for farm workers. During the 1970s the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) grew and expanded from its early roots as a union for farm workers to also become a national voice for the poor and disenfranchised. The enduring legacies of César E. Chávez and the farm worker movement include passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first law in the U.S. that recognized farm workers’ collective bargaining rights.

Why did we choose these colors?

We based the colorway on the gardens and growth that make up the 108-acre park. There are both manicured gardens and native growth, all of which adds up to create a lovely strollable park with lots of information on Chavez’s activism.

For more information:

National Parks 2021: Nez Perce National Historic Park

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/ 

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

The Nez Perce National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park comprising 38 sites located throughout the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, which included traditional aboriginal lands of the Nez Perce people.

Whose land does it reside upon?

Since time immemorial, the valleys, prairies, mountains, and plateaus of the inland northwest have been home to the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people. Extremely resilient, they survived the settling of the United States and adapted to a changed world. Nez Perce National Historical Park consists of 38 places important to the history and culture of the Nimiipuu.

When was it established?

May 15, 1965

Why is it amazing?

The homelands of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) have seen continual human use for at least the last 11,000 years. Nez Perce National Historic Park is a kind of living museum to the Nez Perce tribe, which was almost completely decimated/driven out of their ancestral lands by white colonizers in the 1800s. The lands that encompass the Nez Perce National Historic Park are still partly taken care of/administered by people from the Nez Perce tribe, in concert with the United States Government and other Tribal groups.

The Nez Perce homeland is filled with unique and special places that since the beginning of time have defined who they are. Three of these story sites are: Ant and Yellowjacket (https://www.nps.gov/nepe/learn/historyculture/ant-and-yellowjacket-history.htm), Coyote’s Fishnet (https://www.nps.gov/nepe/learn/historyculture/coyotes-fishnet-history.htm), and the Heart of the Monster (https://www.nps.gov/nepe/learn/historyculture/heart-of-the-monster-history.htm). Each of these sites involves the trickster god Coyote and other spiritual entities.

Why did we choose these colors?

Our Nez Perce colorway is inspired by Indigenous regalia we saw in our image searches. 

For more information:

National Parks 2021: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/ 

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It hugs the northeast shore of Lake Michigan and includes South and North Manitou islands.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa were called the “three brothers” of the Algonquin family. As the Potawatomi migrated south, the Chippewa and Ottawa co-mingled peacefully in northern Michigan. They shared several hunting and fishing territories including the Sleeping Bear area.

When was it established?

October 21, 1970

Why is it amazing?

Sleeping Bear Dunes is as old as continental ice sheets. The immense sand dunes that give the National Lakeshore its name are “perched” atop the towering are glacial moraines, at up to 400 feet above Lake Michigan. The park has 65 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan, as well as numerous inland lakes, streams, and bogs. The long and narrow Lakeshore contains several northern hardwood and conifer forest types as well as fantastic examples of glacially caused landforms.

Sleeping Bear Dunes is so named from an Indigenous legend (https://www.nps.gov/slbe/learn/kidsyouth/the-story-of-sleeping-bear.htm):

Two different versions of the story are commonly told. These stories are an Anishinaabe (Odawa/Ottawa, Ojibway/Chippewa and Potawatomi) oral tradition of a sacred place within their homelands in the Great Lakes.

Once, long ago, in the land called Wisconsin across the great lake, there was terrible hunger and many people died. A bear and two little cubs were trying to leave that place and come around the lake where there would be more food.

They walked for many days on the beach together, but after a while the two little cubs began to whimper with hunger, and so the bear decided to swim across the rest of the lake.

They waded into the water, one cub on each side of the bear, and they swam off into the lake a long way. After a while the cubs began to get very tired, and so the bear said, “Try hard, the land is not very far.” And very soon they did come in sight of land.

But gradually the cubs got weaker, and only ten miles away, one cub sand into the water. Soon after, the other also drowned.

The bear’s heart was broken, but she could do nothing. She waded ashore and lay down, looking out on the water where her cubs had died. Eventually, both of them came to the surface as two little islands, and so the bear still lies there atop the dunes, looking after here children.

Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The bears swam for many hours, but soon the cubs tired. Mother bear reached the shore first and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. The cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the eternal vigil of mother bear.

Why did we choose these colors?

Our Sleeping Bear Dunes colorway brings all of the components of the lakeshore together: you’ve got the deep blue of Lake Michigan, the sandy brown of the dunes themselves, and the greens of the forests.

For more information:

National Parks 2021: John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/ 

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is a U.S. national monument in Wheeler and Grant counties in east-central Oregon.

Whose land does it reside upon?

Many groups of Indigenous peoples lived in the area surrounding the John Day Fossil Beds, including the Northern Paiute (who were the main Shoshonean speaking culture in Oregon) and the Bannock people. Tenino and Northern Paiute appear to be the most closely connected with lands comprising John Day Fossil Beds National Monument during the protohistoric (about 1730 to 1810, or the time between the acquisition of horses and first contact with non-lndigenous people) and historic periods. Much of the land that comprises the National Monument falls within the territory ceded by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in the 1855 treaty.

When was it established?

October 8, 1975

Why is it amazing?

Colorful rock formations, including distinctive rock layers, preserve a fairly comprehensive record of plant and animal evolution, changing climate, and past ecosystems that span over 40 million years. Each layer shows fossilized remains of plants and animals, both familiar and strange. It is unlikely that a more complete and well-preserved record of Cenozoic terrestrial life exists anywhere in the world. Examining the differences between each of the geologic strata helps researchers better understand how the region has changed through time. As knowledge about each of the layers grows, fundamental questions pertaining to the environment, climate, and the ancient life in western North America can be answered, providing a more complete understanding of part of Earth’s history.

Why did we choose these colors?

If you look through images of the Fossil Beds, you’ll see these colors echoed in the rock formations.

For more information:

National Parks 2021: Women’s Rights National Historic Park

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

  • National History – Eastern USA
  • National History – Western USA
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

Women’s Rights National Historical Park covers a total of 6.83 acres of land in Seneca Falls and nearby Waterloo, New York, United States.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Seneca were the largest of six Native American nations which comprised the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations, a democratic government that pre-dates the United States Constitution.

When was it established?

December 28, 1980

Why is it amazing?

Women’s Rights National Historical Park tells the story of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19-20, 1848. It is a story of struggles for civil rights, human rights, and equality, global struggles that continue today. The efforts of women’s rights leaders, abolitionists, and other 19th century reformers remind us that all people must be accepted as equals.

Why did we choose these colors?

While gold was the only color used by all US suffrage organizations (though white also became widely adopted once parades started), the purple, white, and gold combination was used only by the National Woman’s Party in the United States. The organization described the meaning of these colors in a newsletter published December 6, 1913: “Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”

For more information: