With four lakes, 30 parks, golf courses, and an arboretum in and around Shawnee, there’s plenty to enjoy outdoors! We welcome all to visit and fish, hike, kayak, swim, or simply be outdoors. To preserve the areas for others and for many years to come, we ask you and those with you to follow these outdoor manners for visiting Shawnee.
• Your goal is to leave no trace of having even been in the outdoors (other than selfies and social media posts!) That means you help keep trash and garbage out of lakes, streams, fields, woods and roadways.
• Take all of your garbage with you after a hike, campout or picnic.
• Remember the adage ‘Leave It Better Than You Found It.’
• Be careful with fire. Only build fires in permitted and appropriate areas.
• When finished using a fire be sure that the fire is cold out. Put the fire out with water and ensure that it is cold before leaving.
• Leave a clean fire ring or remove all evidence of fire.
• Camp and hike on durable surfaces. Hike on the trails provided so there is less impact on our environment.
• Choose camping sites that do as little damage as possible to plants and animals. For example, when you pitch your tent try and not to do it over plants, it will damage the plants and possibly your tent.
• Be conservation-minded and help conserve our environment. Reduce: plan the foods you bring on a hike or campout wisely so you will have very little waste or garbage, Reuse: use a reusable water bottle instead of plastic disposable water bottles; reuse damaged equipment by learning to repair it instead of buying new items and throwing away repairable ones, and Recycle: if you do have a lot of plastic at the end of a camp-out, recycle it so that it does not get thrown into a landfill or left around to find its way into our waterways.
If we all treat the outdoors as a heritage and abide by these outdoor manners, we can keep these fun outdoor areas in and around Shawnee in good condition for ourselves and others so that generations to come can enjoy what God has given us.