Meet Julia Kanne: Wildlife and Wetland Field Fellow
Maintenance Field Fellow 2025: Julia Kanne
2025 Field Fellow cohort (Julia, far right)
This past summer, Julia Kanne joined Voyageurs National Park as a Maintenance Field Fellow, gaining hands-on experience while helping care for the park’s essential infrastructure. Through the Voyageurs Field Fellowship program, Julia supported behind-the-scenes operations that keep the park safe, accessible, and thriving for visitors and wildlife alike.
Julia recently completed her first year at community college and is transitioning her studies to environmental and sustainability studies. Growing up on a small farm in Iowa shaped her strong work ethic and interest in land stewardship, making the Field Fellowship a natural fit as she explores a future career in conservation.
Installing bear lockers was one of Julia’s summer projects.
As a maintenance fellow, Julia’s days often began early. She and her crew met at the Kabetogama Visitor Center around 7:00 a.m. before heading out to projects across the park. Her work included trail maintenance, equipment repair, power washing with the park’s decontamination unit, and maintaining comfort stations, including work at Kettle Falls.
Through the fellowship, Julia developed valuable technical skills in welding, construction, and equipment operation—experience that will benefit her across many environmental and land-management fields. Each task played a role in ensuring that Voyageurs’ facilities remain functional and welcoming while protecting the park’s natural resources. One of her favorite projects involved working on a comfort station, where she learned to operate a mini excavator for the first time. A lesson that stuck with her throughout the summer was simple but meaningful: “Respect the machine and it respects you.”
Before this fellowship, Julia had never been to Voyageurs National Park. In fact, her only experience in Minnesota had been visiting the Twin Cities. Experiencing northern Minnesota’s lakes and landscapes for the first time was a major highlight.
What made the park truly special for her, though, was the people. Becoming close with her crew and feeling part of a team gave her a strong sense of belonging. She also gained a new appreciation for how much work happens behind the scenes. “There are a lot more levels to the park than people realize,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a maintenance crew, or how many caretakers it takes beyond the visitor centers.”
Julia encourages future Field Fellows and students interested in environmental or outdoor careers to ask questions, and take pride in their work. “It’s okay to ask questions,” she says. “And work hard. You don’t want to do a project half-done.”
Learn more about the Field Fellow experience by watching our “Field Stories” webinar from earlier this year!
Support Field Fellows:
The Conservancy’s Voyageurs Field Fellows program seeks to increase accessibility and professional development opportunities at Voyageurs National Park. The fellowship offers students and recent graduates a stipend-paid internship to engage in real world, hands-on work in areas such as preservation, natural resource management, environmental education and more. If you’d like to support future Field Fellows and their important work, please consider becoming a member with a gift today.
Funding for the Voyageurs Field Fellowship program is generously supported by Voyageurs Conservancy members, the Fredrikson & Byron Foundation, Elmer & Eleanor Andersen Foundation, and the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
