Chicago Wilderness celebrates 20 years at Congress 2016

It was a stormy day in the Windy City yesterday. A good day to be indoors at the annual congress of the Chicago Wilderness. Not being from Chicago myself, I had never attended a congress (i.e., conference) before. However, I've known about and admired Chicago Wilderness for years. It is an alliance of over 200 member organizations and businesses. Its mission is to "preserve, improve, and expand nature and quality of life" within the Chicago region.

The Chicago Wilderness region includes parts of 4 states, including Southeastern Wisconsin (but just short of Milwaukee.) This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of Chicago Wilderness and that was the theme of Congress 2016: "Celebrating 20 Years: One Home. One Future."

As an outside observer, it was a revelation to me to see so many people and organizations coming together to network, learn from each other, and plan how to make their communities more natural. This in the third largest metropolitan area in the country! There were approximately 600 attendees at the Congress, which was held at the University of Illinois Chicago.

I learned a lot about the organization, about current preservation and restoration efforts, and about the priorities for future improvements to the natural landscapes and wildlife that exist in the region. 

I also got to participate. There was a "story slam" component and I volunteered to read a story relating to a personal experience I've had with urban wildlife. I chose to adapt one of my favorite blog posts from Urban Wilderness, entitled "Seiche: Symbolism and reality in an unlikely urban wilderness." You can read the original version here. 

One of the takeaways from the experience for me was a desire to see a version of Chicago Wilderness formed for Milwaukee. We have a lot going for us already. In fact, several times when I mentioned to people that I was from Milwaukee they told me with respect verging on awe, "You have the Urban Ecology Center!"

Millennium Reserve: visiting Chicagoland's ambitious urban wilderness project

Did you know that the land surrounding the southern edge of Lake Michigan was once one of the most important ecosystems on the continent? I learned that last week at a public hearing I attended in Park Forest, IL. The subject was the Millennium Reserve initiative, which is a huge and ambitious undertaking that will involve--among other things--trying to bring back some of the ecological resilience and biodiversity of that region.

The wetlands of this area are located at the precise point where the eastern forest, central prairie and great lakes ecosystems meet, making it unique and irreplaceable. Of course, it's also where Chicago and Gary, IN created an industrial powerhouse that obliterated much of the natural environment. But, in the current post-industrial climate, there is encouraging new interest in saving what's left and restoring what's possible of this remarkable native system.

The Millennium Reserve is located in the Calumet region of Cook County, IL. Last week I spent two days touring some of the parks and natural areas that already have been established. Here is what I saw, one photo from each of the parks I visited.

Thorn Creek Trail, Glenwood

Glenwood Woods, Glenwood

Sauk Trail Woods, Chicago Heights

Osprey, Powderhorn Marsh & Prairie

Egger's Grove, City of Chicago

Controlled burn, Big Marsh, Chicago

Jurgenson Woods, Lansing

Indian Ridge Marsh, Chicago

Wampum Lake, Lansing

Brownell Woods, Thornton

William Powers State Rec. Area, City of Chicago

This is my second visit to the Millennium Reserve and second photo essay. To see the previous one, click here.

More images in my Flickr album.

City Creatures: adventures in Chicago's urban wilderness

City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness is a lovely new book published by the Center for Humans & Nature. The book consists of essays, stories, poetry and art and it is very much in the spirit of urban wilderness. I went to a reading today by co-editor Gavin Van Horn, Director of Conservation for the Center for Humans & Nature.

The reading was held at the Hal Tyrrell Trailside Museum of Natural History in Thatcher's Woods, River Forest, IL. Thatcher's Woods, which straddles the Des Plaines River, is part of the Forest Preserve system of Cook County.

I took advantage of the beautiful day to get to there early enough for a walk in the woods before the presentation.

The pond behind the museum was at flood stage following recent rains.

The leafless trees and swampy conditions made it easy to imagine wilderness today. But the sunshine was bright and cheerful and there were plenty of folks out enjoying it.

Des Plaines River.

The museum is barely visible through the trees.

Yes,  it's an urban wilderness.

I've forgotten his name, but the red-tail hawk lives at the Trailside Museum, along with a coyote, a couple owls, snakes and turtles. This poor guy was rescued, having lost one of his eyes.

A wonderful photo of another hawk graces the cover of City Creatures. I recommend it. If you're interested, check it out at the Center for Humans & Nature website.

There is also a City Creatures blog and--full disclosure--my work has been published on it.

A study in contrast: Joliet Arsenal and the Tallgrass Prairie

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie was established in 1996 on 19,000 acres of the Joliet Arsenal, which once manufactured munitions for the army. It was the first national tallgrass prairie in the U.S. It is also the southwestern-most corner of Chicago’s Millennium Reserve, which is being developed as the nation’s largest network of urban parklands and natural areas.

Restoration of the native prairie landscape is a long-term project. On a recent visit in early spring I found evidence of this effort as well as obvious remains of its former life as a military installation. Here is my photo essay.

To see a previous photo essay on the Millennium Reserve click here.

Reverie: Riverside Park, Springfield, IL

Roughly patched macadam leads past vacant ball fields, broad and Illinois prairie flat. A tree line hides the river until I reach where the pavement ends and a sliver of concrete tilts, continues down into the brown water. The Sangamon River flows languidly. Rays of rising sun burst into the canyon between its tree-lined banks, illuminating exuberant spring greens in the overhanging crown of the forest.

I walk the length of the pocked dirt road, skirting puddles, river on my right. From the shadows ahead a squad car slowly approaches. The officer and I exchange waves through window glass as he rolls by. Soft crunching of gravel diminishes, leaving behind stillness, then birdsong. The only other sound is the distant rumble of early morning traffic, muffled by the trees. I walk between twin silences, river and forest.

A piercing mechanical roar disturbs the peace, tapers to a hiss, ceases. Where the road ends a railroad cuts through the forest, crosses the river on a trestle bridge. The source of the roar isn’t revealed. I head away from the still silent river into the deeper, darker silence of the forest. Black earth leads me, a trail cut precisely through luxuriant undergrowth. The soles of my shoes gather mud until I am an inch or two taller and ungainly. I stop to scrape on a log. This process is repeated again and again, though I’m careful to accumulate only mud and not any of the horse manure that occasionally blots the trail.

After a while the silence, punctuated with the cheerful warbling of unseen birds, suddenly gives way to an enormity of fervent amphibian utterances. The sound grows nearly deafening as I approach a woodland pond. Sunlight pours into the opening in the forest, glares off the murky surface of the pool as if to cast a spotlight on the cacophony. The pond is unapproachable, the frogs imperturbable, the din unwavering in its intensity. In my mind hear my wife’s voice penetrating the solitude: “That’s the sound of sound of sex,” she invariably comments with an impish grin, hoping to get a rise out of me.

I am not lost. One could not get lost on this wide path. But where it is taking me has become a mystery and a concern. I have passed numerous forks and alternative routes, always choosing one that leads towards the ever higher sun, which I’ve assumed would take me back to the road. Now, as my deferred breakfast beckons and the mosquitoes thicken, I wonder. At the next fork I cut north. A white tail deer plunges off the trail ahead. Before the rumbling in my stomach grows uncomfortable I see the bright line of the open field through the trees.

I’ve overstayed the early morning tranquility. Three mowing machines crisscross the fields, buzzing distantly like mechanical mosquitoes. The corral near the entrance, empty when I drove in, now holds a whole herd of horses. The sun blazes down on the wide-open playing fields, flat as the Illinois prairie.