Places to Go: Amarugia Highlands CA

Amarugia Highlands Conservation Area

A tale of two monarchs

Once considered its own kingdom by the fur trappers and other residents of southern Cass County, the area known as Amarugia has evolved from the rule of a monarch to a habitat for monarchs. Instead of a king, it is now home to kingsnakes.

Dubbed the Kingdom of Amarugia in the early 1800s, nearly 1,100 acres of the area is now the Amarugia Highlands Conservation Area. And while the monarchy is gone, the terrain that shapes the area’s name remains, according to Wildlife Biologist Rick Bredesen.

“There’s a whole bunch of hills (Masters, Herrell, and Dorsett) and nearby mounds (Osborne and Christensen) in that part of Cass County,” Bredesen said. “From those hills, you have some scenic views.”

But most visitors come less for the views and more for the opportunity to cast a line in the area’s 45-acre lake, which was completed in 1987 and upgraded a decade ago, he said.

“We drained the lake and renovated it, made it a little deeper along the shoreline for vegetation, and restocked it,” he said.

Later in the year, if the weather’s been generous with rain, the area’s 100-acre wetland also draws waterfowl hunters and birders interested in migratory waterfowl and shorebirds.