Seymour Simon Preserve: Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness

On a Sunday afternoon recently I drove down from Milwaukee to pick up my wife at O’Hare. Her flight was due to arrive in the late afternoon when traffic tends to pile up as travelers return to Chicago from their weekend in Wisconsin. I’ve been in this position before. I like to avoid potential backups on the Interstate by going early and taking the time to stroll in one of the Forest Preserves along the Des Plaines River near the airport.

I happened upon a sign for the Seymour Simon Preserve and pulled into the nearly full parking lot next to a large open field. Large groups of people were using the shelters provided there. I found the Des Plaines River Trail and headed south along the river. Maybe it was the heat—somewhere between 80 and 90, depending on whether you were in shade or sun—but the trail was uncharacteristically busy that day. So was the river itself. I saw canoers and kayakers going upstream and down.

Here is a short photo essay from my stroll that afternoon. As you will see, wildlife is represented, but most of my encounters were of the human variety.

The Scent of Summer

It is something that I cannot photograph, alas, that moves me the most on my solitary walks in the forest: the scent of the earth and the newly burgeoning grasses, shrubbery, and trees. It is the scent of summer.

This evocative aroma is as potent an elixir as any I’ve encountered and it is as potent in the Chicago wilderness along the Des Plaines River as anywhere I’ve been.

The forest preserves along the Des Plaines, though narrow, are a natural wonder, which is fitting for an urban river, I think. The name Des Plaines derives from French voyageurs who traveled beneath overhanging trees (probably sycamores and maples) that they mistook for their native European plane trees.

Once again I found myself dropping my oft-traveling wife at O’Hare airport just as the rush hour starts to make the freeways impassable. What a treat to have the Forest Preserve so nearby, a place of tranquility where I can pause for an hour or so in relative solitude while the crush of cars gradually thins.

I quickly leave the wide, well-used bike path with its packed earth and mown margins for a more inviting, narrow track towards the river. I am quite alone in one of the largest, most densely populated metropolitan areas of the country. The constant drone of traffic is faint, no more distracting than the buzzing of a mosquito would be if it were safely outside a screened porch.

The regular roar of aircraft passing low overhead on their flight path towards O’Hare is a bit more distracting. But as each fades off, the quietude deepens. I gaze up at the place where a jumbo jet just zoomed over on its inflexible trajectory and I spy a hawk making slow, lazy circles in the sky.

The soft ground of the river’s flood plain has become an even softer carpet of cotton.

The wind shakes loose a steady stream of cottonwood fluff, like gently falling snow.

Perhaps eventually it will cover up the intrusive marks left in the drying mud by an errant motorbike.

Although I’m aware of the pressures of society and the compulsions it creates towards conformity and consumption, I am constantly mystified by the contrast I find when I venture off-road, so to speak, and into an urban woodland. Why do I not meet more like-minded lovers of nature? It is a curious conundrum, that I myself relish in the peaceful solitude of an urban wilderness like this one and at the same time despair for the fate of humanity because so few find equal pleasure in it.

This is far from a new or unique observation. In a journal entry, dated 1854, Thoreau wrote, “The true poet will ever live aloof from society, wild to it, as the finest singer is the wood thrush, a forest bird.”

A Tale from the Chicago Wilderness

Lost! What a peculiar sensation; one made more than a little surreal because I can hear traffic from...some direction. And I could set my watch by the planes that rumble low over me as they throttle down to land at nearby O’Hare airport. How can I be lost in the woods and still be so obviously surrounded by civilization?

I dropped Lynn off at the airport around 7:30. Then, not wanting to drive in rush hour traffic anywhere near Chicago, I picked the nearest green spot on the map to explore for a while. Cook County has a marvelous series of forest preserves along the Des Plaines River. I pulled into one with a rather aristocratic-sounding name: Catherine Chevalier Woods. Three cars were parked in the long, curved lot carved out of the trees. Their occupants sat inside them. I headed into the woods.

A wide gravel path led towards the river. A thunderstorm had left standing water that mirrored the foliage. I disturbed a flock of mallards waddling in the puddles. Just me and the ducks out here in the wet woods today. Oh, and the deer. Every couple hundred yards heads pop up from browsing to stare as I pass. The only thing more regular than the deer are the jets flying overhead.

The river is high and the water gray-brown. It moves silently, massively, inexorably. The water tugs at the lower tree branches dipping into it. Sodden logs and buoyant plastic bottles sweep swiftly past. Trees that normally anchor the bank now stand in the river. When the gravel path veers away into the woods, I leave it for a narrower riparian track. The earth, though wet, is still hard. The night’s downpour did not last long enough to soften and melt the cracks in the mud—or the innumerable animal tracks.

So, I’m walking farther and farther, wondering when I’ll get to the bend in the river I’d seen on the map, thinking maybe I should turn around. But I prefer completing a loop to backtracking, so I venture on into ever wilder surroundings. Finally, just as I reach the expected bend, the sun bursts through lingering clouds. Its rays dapple the forest floor, highlighting fresh irises, and surprisingly colorful mosses. Another of the endless cast of deer stands in a spotlight. An enormous blue airbus, visible in snatches through the tree canopy, shrieks and shudders as it slowly descends.

The faint trail that I’ve been following peters out entirely as I reach a flood engorged slough that curves away from the river back in the direction I know the car must be. Trusting my intuition, sense of direction, and memory of the map that I neglected to bring along, I plunge forward. Tangles of driftwood deposited by greater floods than today’s create an obstacle course. Here, finally, is my wilderness: hot, humid, muddy, choked with obstructions, and throwing a cloud of mosquitoes in my face.

I begin to doubt. The traffic I’ve been ignoring seems louder, but directionless, all around, like the mosquitoes. So predictable until now, the planes are flying the wrong way, too. Have they switched to taking off? I misjudged the distance; what else? Suddenly I realize, I’m lost. Later, when I’m not tired, sweaty, and swatting mosquitoes furiously, I will laugh at my predicament. Me, lover of the urban wilderness, lost in one. It’s fitting, really—and strangely satisfying; even beautiful. I try to savor the feeling, for I know it won’t last. I will find the river and the parking lot and the city that surrounds me. As I drive home I will also try to preserve this dizzying sensation of wonder, this uncommon experience—a gift of Chicago’s wilderness.

Every city needs its wildernesses.

To see more photos go to my flickr page.
To learn more about Chicago area parks go to Chicago Wilderness, where you'll find that June is Leave No Child Inside month. Nice.

Dawn at Des Plaines River forest park, near Chicago

The wide, bare flood plain is deep umber in the pre-dawn mist, crusted with dried mud, split with a mosaic of cracks. The wood is silent. My footsteps crush pieces of the mosaic but do not disturb the stillness. I reach the river, flowing but equally silent.

Downstream a single goose utters a low tentative cough. The somber colors of the fresh spring foliage begin to brighten, imperceptibly at first. Then the edges of individual leaves begin to glow, as the low, rising sun pierces the uniformly cropped lower reaches of the forest canopy. Sunlight streaks through and the far side of the river blazes with the dawn.

I walk along the uncluttered riverbank, feeling the river flow next to me. I startle four deer. Their heads pop up simultaneously from foraging for new shoots in the mud. Although they stare, they do not run. I may be out early, but they’re well accustomed to people wandering their domain. I reach the bridge just as a train, briefly breaking the silence, rushes overhead toward downtown Chicago. I can almost feel the silence it leaves behind like a presence in the cool riparian air.

Across the water, the lone goose appears, framed in the arch of a concrete culvert, as if standing guard. Then I see its mate abruptly rise from its hiding place on the dirt bank. I recognize the pair’s one-two attempt to divert my attention from the concealed nest, which likely contains eggs at this time in April.