November 2025
Posted by Penny Musco onPARK NEWS
November is Native American Heritage Month, chosen because it’s the traditional harvest season. I’ll be doing my Native American Sites in Our National Parks program several times in November. Let me introduce you to a couple of park sites relating stories of our country’s original inhabitants.
Remember studying the French and Indian War (also called The Seven Years War) in American history class? Not much, right? Most of us have probably forgotten this conflict between France and Great Britain, which set the stage for the American Revolution.
The two countries both claimed large tracts of land in North America, and each wanted supremacy in the continent. Most colonists sided with the British, and encouraged the natives to ally with them. Here is a young George Washington trying to persuade them to join their cause.
The British did gain the support of the Catawba and Cherokee, as well as the Iroquois/Six Nations Confederacy (now called the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) of upstate New York and Canada, composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. These six tribes helped built Fort Stanwix, now a national monument in the Park Service, constructed on traditional Oneida land.
The British also recruited Indians from the Ohio Valley to fight for them there. This is American colonel George Rogers Clark persuading them to switch their allegiance from the French to the British. That story is told at Indiana’s George Rogers Clark National Historical Park.
Fort Necessity National Battlefield in Pennsylvania, where the first clash of the French and Indian War occurred, is the only park site dedicated to that war.
Great Britain was the victor when the 1763 Treaty of Paris ended the war. King George III declared a swath of land west of the Mississippi River, won from France, an Indian reserve. The British also signed a treaty with the Six Nations formally establishing their boundaries. However, white colonists eagerly settled in both these places, setting the stage for future conflict.
Great Britain’s win came at a high price. And who would pay off that tremendous war debt? Why, the American colonies, of course, through a series of taxes. Those levies on the colonists—you know, taxation without representation in Parliament—stoked the flames of rebellion.
During the American Revolution, an estimated fifty-five hundred African and Native American men served on the colonial side. Many more allied themselves with the British, Blacks lured with promises of emancipation, Indians with guarantees of keeping their land.
Captain Louis Joseph Cook, the English name of a Six Nations member, was the highest-ranking soldier of Black and American Indian descent to be commissioned by the Continental Congress. He’d teamed up with the colonists in the French and Indian War, and even went on to serve America in the War of 1812, where he died in battle. Cook was buried with full military honors, and you’ll learn more about him at Valley Forge National Historical Park.
How the federal government shutdown is affecting the parks
Not only is the National Park Service losing tons of money, especially from entrance fees, but people are engaging in dangerous stunts in the parks because they think they can get away with it since less rangers are on site. BASE jumping, the sport of jumping from fixed objects like buildings, antennas, spans and earth (like cliffs), is illegal throughout the Park Service, and a trio of BASE jumpers were caught and convicted in Yosemite National Park recently.
November’s Subpar Parks review
“Not really what I thought” is the assessment of Craters of the Moon National Monument. I don’t know exactly what the reviewer meant, but this park has lava tube caves, formed by scalding rivers of molten rock underground, hollowed out to allow them to be explored. Other features include spatter and cinder cones (the former are mini-volcanoes, the latter is made up of lava fragments thrown out when a volcano erupts), and a trail through hardened and ropy pahoehoe (pah-HOEE-hoee) lava (the other type of lava is a’a—pronounced ah-ah—which is thick and chunky)
NEW BOOKS
Yay, grandparenting!
My husband and I became grandparents this year, and we love it! That’s why I’m excited about a new book coming out by Lori Wildenberg, a member of the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association like me. Grandparents Make Grand Partners: How to Have an Eternal Impact on Your Grandchild's Life can be pre-ordered now, but its official launch date is November 11.
Annie (but not the ones you might be thinking of)
From fellow Pelican Book Group author Jody Day comes a historical western, Annie True and Brave. It’s due out November 7, but you can pre-order this one, too.
STILL THE BEST-SELLING BOOK IN THE WORLD
In 1940, a group of business and professional men founded the National Bible Association as war raged in Europe. Their purpose was to encourage Americans to look to Scripture for hope, encouragement, strength and guidance, especially during the tumultuous time.
The Association launched a National Bible Week campaign to celebrate the reading and studying of Scripture the following year, from December 8-14, with a kickoff reading of the Bible on December 7, 1941 to be aired on the NBC radio network. That plan was interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet the Bible reading continued throughout the day, as our nation faced another world war. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Today, National Bible Week coincides with Thanksgiving week, the Sunday before to the Sunday after (November 23-30 this year). The way to observe it is, of course, to pick up a Bible and read it, as well as share a favorite verse or two. Here’s one of mine, which I reference every time I sign one of my books: “You will make known to me the path of life: in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures forever” (Psalm 16:11).
If you have a cat, you know they specialize in bad behavior. Take as an example Rayne Beau (say the name out loud and you’ll get its meaning), a cat who shot out of her owners’ truck and disappeared into the forest surrounding their campsite in 
• I just finished reading Erik Larson’s 
• The “Angel of the Battlefield” during the Civil War, at right, is remembered at 