Wahkeena Nature Preserve, Ohio – Notebook and Images

Needed a solid dose of nature after the three flights (and two delays) that brought me from Nice to Columbus, Ohio, just before midnight the night before, and after a quick search, was compelled to stop at the Wahkeena Nature Preserve for three reasons: it was easily accessible off of US Route 33 on the way to Athens; I never visited there during the time I lived in southeastern Ohio in the 1980s and early 1990s; and I liked the name.

Like other states, Ohio is good at honoring indigenous peoples who had been ethnically cleansed from the region by using words and names from their native languages. In Cleveland, I grew up on Mohawk Avenue on the city’s east side. That sat between Pawnee and Muskoka. Further south were Arrowhead, Cherokee, and Kildeer. Chickasaw, Kewanee, and Shawnee followed, with Mohican rounding out those ten streets between East 185th and East 200th streets. Outdated, earmarked, and faded elementary school ‘History of Cleveland’ textbooks we were given in elementary school in the early 1970s didn’t say much about the local Indians, other than categorizing them as heathens, godless, and savage.

Southeastern Ohio alone was once a meeting point of more than 40 native tribes including the Shawnee, whose warrior leader Tecumseh led one of the largest resistance movements to the European westward expansion in the early 19th century. From a 2020s perspective, Wahkeena sounded promising.

It turns out that the preserve’s name isn’t from the language of any of those Ohio tribes, the last of which, the Wyandot, were forcibly moved from the state in 1843. (A sparesely populated county in the northwest part of the state is named after them.)

According to the preserve’s website, “Wahkeena” means “most beautiful” in the language of the Yakama people from the US Pacific Northwest. The preserve was given the name by Carmen Hambleton Warner, who was given the 94-acre future preserve as a wedding present from her husband. Warner, the story continues, likely “chose the name after a waterfall along the Columbia River gorge in Oregon”.

Warner oversaw a comendable restorations of the land, planted tens of thousands of trees and later gifted the site, which sits in Sugar Grove, Ohio, to the Ohio History Connection, and for that we should be grateful. It is a beautiful preserve in a lush and serene setting.

There are no waterfalls at Wahkeena but there is water. Lake Odonata, which forms the preserve’s southeastern boundary, is actually a pond, named for the order of insects that includes Dragonflies and danselflies. A Dragonfly is above. The area was teeming with them. From the proper angle, their translucence frames the very attractive pond setting beautifully.

Two species of butterfly were also abundant on the early August morning I was there: the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and the prolific Monarch. A few shots of each are below.

There are a handful of walking trails that bring you close to or take you through most of the preserve’s habitats, from the low-lying pond and marsh to the higher forested areas where oak and maple dominate. The ridge runs higher than it initially appears from the pond area. Not steep or difficult, but a nice shift in elevation.

Birds: in the woods I spotted (and briefly chased) my first Hairy Woodpecker, some American Robins and Northern Cardinals, an Eastern Wood-Pewee and a few Mourning Doves. Turkey Vultures hovered on high. The only birds I managed a few shots of was this lunching Gray Catbird

above and a pair of Wood Ducks on the pond, below.

Visit: it was a Friday morning so I didn’t expect a crowd. Those expectations were met. For the 85 minutes I was there I crossed paths with a young family (mom, dad and three young kids), two bicyclists taking a brief break, a lone hiker circling the pond, and a sixty-ish woman sitting beneath the open hatch of her monstrous SUV. She comes to the preserve to paint she said, and handed me a card that mostly consisted of religious verse. Her front passenger side door was open; inside sat a large stuffed bear wearing a Donald Trump t-shirt and baseball cap, surrounded by small MAGA signs, flags, leaflets and other such gup.

We didn’t chat long. I took a few more photos of a butterfly and left.

Photos from 15 August 2025.