Nederland’s Wild Bear to open new nature center in 2025

NEDERLAND — Located in a small-town shopping center, Wild Bear Nature Center has big plans to move into a wilder, net-positive space in 2025 that will be more reflective of its mission.

“We’re powered by nature while giving back to nature,” said Jill Dreves, founder and chief vision officer of the Wild Bear Nature Center, located at 88 Indian Peaks Drive in Nederland. “All the nature centers give back by connecting people to nature. We’re doing that one level up at a high elevation, and that’s a big deal. If we can do it at this elevation, we can do it anywhere.”

The mission of Wild Bear Nature Center, founded in 1995 as Wild Bear Science School, is to inspire a lifelong connection to nature and community through a creative exploration of the outdoors. But the current space has issues. It’s too small at 3,000 square feet; the programs for children can’t be held at the same time as visitor access; and access to nature is limited from a downtown location. 

“We’re busting at the seams. We’re growing. And people love us,” Dreves said. “It’s a case for us to build a nature center, a very cool one.”

The new space for nature-based education will be 8,500 square feet at an elevation of 8,250 feet, providing more room for programming, exhibits and outdoor play. But to get there, Wild Bear had to go through more than two decades of planning and fundraising, so far raising nearly $8 million of its $13 million campaign.

Dreves, a public school teacher for nine years in Nederland, originally wanted to start a nonprofit to engage children and adults in nature, starting it with $500 from her savings account. She housed her nonprofit in various places, including the Nederland senior center and elementary school, before moving into the shopping center 14 years ago. Her nonprofit group also went through a couple of name changes, becoming the Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery in 2003 and the Wild Bear Nature Center in 2015.

Currently, the nature center, which includes a state-licensed child care facility, offers hands-on nature programming for kids, bringing in an average of 50 kids a day when school’s not in session, plus has adult and family workshops, a public exhibit space with mountain ecology exhibits, local trail information and tips on being safe and careful nature stewards, and a gift shop. For the kids, there is a snow school focused on winter ecology, snowpack and Boulder County’s watershed, plus aquatics and terrestrial studies. The options for adults and families include snow shoe tours and hikes, birding groups, and classes in wild herbalism and mushrooms, as well as art- and nature-integrated programs. All of the programs have waiting lists, and each year, the nature center logs in 25,000 visitors. 

As Wild Bear grew, it got involved at the governmental level to help expand what it could offer. It partnered with Boulder County Parks & Open Space and the Town of Nederland in 2000 to preserve Mud Lake Open Space. Volunteers from the nonprofit removed 30 tons of trash from 260 acres, turning it into one of the healthiest wetland habitats in Boulder County. 

Nederland annexed 60 acres and sold 10 lots at $100,000 each for a total of $1.5 million toward the purchase of the 260 acres. Boulder County contributed another $400,000, and Wild Bear Nature Center gave $100,000, raised through donor funds. In 2000, a ballot initiative sought public approval for Wild Bear to build a new nature center on five of the acres along the Peak-to-Peak Scenic Byway in western Boulder County. That placement allows the nature center to serve as a gateway to nearly 3,000 wild acres and 16 miles of trails, giving visitors more of an opportunity to engage directly with nature and connect with the environment.

“Twenty-four years ago was the beginning of this process,” Dreves said. “We’re a very small nonprofit. It’s a miracle this happened.”

In 2019, Justin Gold, founder of Boulder-based nut-butter brand Justin’s LLC and chief strategy and innovation officer for Rudi’s Organic Bakery, gave Wild Bear a sizable lead gift to begin building the new nature center. 

“I was able to discover success in my life because of an early foundation in nature, and Wild Bear creates those same experiences for other people, and I want to be part of it,” Gold said. “Wild Bear Nature Center is a perfect place for other people to develop a relationship with nature. … Wild Bear is the only place people could discover nature year-round and (that’s) free and open to the public.”

So far, Wild Bear’s capital improvement effort has the support of 108 donors with the funding coming from individual donations, foundations and grants.

“It’s been an incredible journey of people who are so generous,” Dreves said. “They donate, volunteer and care.”

Wild Bear hired an architect and was able to break ground on the new building in May 2023 and start framing in early August 2024, planning to close in the building by this November. The next phase of the project will include interior finishing, installation of renewable energy components and landscaping. 

Once completed, the building will be a net-positive, year-round nature center with most of it underground to reduce energy leakage. The building will be powered by the sun and produce more energy than it consumes, sending energy back to the electrical grid.

“We took the commitment to do what’s right for nature,” Dreves said. “This can be done anywhere.”

With a proposed opening date of fall 2025, the nature center will have space for exhibits, community programs, a gift shop and three classrooms, with everything Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible and all the programs free. There also will be a large community program space with a stage and a drop-screen, an observation deck for viewing the Continental Divide and a wildlife viewing window. Plus, there will be a kitchen and workspace that can be turned into a workshop area.

In future phases, the grounds will be outfitted with an amphitheater with a stage, native landscaping and a nature playscape providing children opportunities to play in the wild. A second campaign will be launched to support the additional work.

“It’s a really wide open space where children can build a relationship with nature through play,” Dreves said. “Our impact is going to be massively expanded.”