Sierra Club plans to bring Nearby Nature to Milwaukee’s inner city

A program to generate interest in the outdoors dovetails with 30^th Street Industrial Corridor redevelopment

When two members of the Great Waters Group, the local chapter of the Sierra Club, offered to take me on a hike along Lincoln Creek near 35^th Street I didn’t quite know what to expect. But I never would have expected to see a great blue heron. It is December 23, officially winter. The heron would have been a surprise even in summer here in Milwaukee’s 30^th Street Industrial Corridor. It certainly doesn’t belong here now! I watch it rise, circle slowly over the neighborhood like a protective spirit, then slide silently off to the northeast, following the watercourse.

The appearance of the heron, although surprising in itself, represents something truly revelatory: sufficient natural habitat to sustain it in this unlikely setting. West of 35^th Street the formerly channelized Lincoln Creek runs straight and narrow between rows of neighborhood houses. It’s easy to imagine the concrete that once controlled the flow of water. But we walk east—and north, where the creek bends and the greenway, now decked in wintry shades of ochre and rust, widens.

The land slopes into a shallow valley. We thread our way through tall thickets of Japanese knotweed, beautiful but invasive. Stands of trees rise on either side of the stream. When they leaf out again in spring they might even hide from view the line of black tank cars that frames the eastern horizon. The ever-present railroad still defines the industrial corridor, even as the factories have disappeared, leaving behind brownfields and blight. 

This story was published in my column at Milwaukee Magazine. Click here to read further.

Milwaukee Celebrates Earth Day in Style

As the crowd looked out at Lake Michigan, Dale Olen, the featured speaker, described the mile-thick glacier that would have filled the view, had anyone been around to see it. The wind, symbolized for the event with the figure above, was off that ultramarine lake on this beautiful, sunny Earth Day. When Olen asked us to imagine the glacier, it was not too difficult: I was stamping to keep warm and still my feet felt encased in that great block of ice. A typical April day in Wisconsin!

Except for the arctic temps, the event was wonderful. The program promised and then delivered an ambitious variety of activities, speakers, and special features.

John Clifford, a Lakota leader from South Dakota, introduced one of the most eclectic interfaith blessings I've witnessed. He opened by explaining his belief that "things happen not by planning or design, but by synchronicity." The Lakota do not believe, he went on, that everything is relative but that "all things are relatives," with a dramatic emphasis on the plural.

"Ommmmmm..." began Urmila Bharadwaj, representing the Hindu Temple of Wisconsin. She gave a litany of peace: "May there be peace on the land..." peace on the water... and then "May all the divinities bring us peace."

Sharon Lerman, of Congregation Shir Hadash read from the Torah: "We live in a world that we do not own...," an ancient Jewish echo of the Indian assertion that we live in community with the earth and the many speakers who lamented the common contemporary view of the earth as a commodity and resource for the accumulation of wealth. Jan Rutkowski, a member of the Buddhist Soka Gakkai International followed with "If the mind is not pure, then the earth is not pure."

There were Christian and Islamic participants as well; a truly ecumenical gathering, as is appropriate. Care for the earth is clearly not a sectarian issue, nor should it divide people.

The imaginative program included singing and speakers who impersonating Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, and John Muir. Antler, the esteemed former poet laureate of Milwaukee, carried off the latter with appropriate gravity. One of the highlights was when another "earth poet," Suzanne Rosenblatt led the group with a kinetic and onomatopoetic rendition of water.

Congratulations are in order for Dianne Dagalen of the Sierra Club-Great Waters Group, the event sponsor. She pulled off this remarkably complex event with grace and aplomb.

My feet finally started to thaw during the Native American round dance that concluded the festivities.

Milwaukee Celebrates 40th anniversary of earth day

Come celebrate Earth Day, which, despite turning 40 this year, shows no signs of being over the hill. Going strong; even becoming mainstream.

The Sierra Club has put together a terrific and varied program for the occasion. I say that because, although I am honored to be one of the featured speakers, there are many other fun and informative activities planned.

Click here to go to the Sierra Club pdf with details.