Ralph Frese: Urban Voyageur

For more than half a century, Ralph Frese has paddled the same waterways that carried the canoes of Native Americans, explorers, and the founders of Chicago. They paddled to travel. He’s doing it to save the rivers themselves

By M.G. Bertulfo

It's a perfect summer afternoon and canoeing legend Ralph C. Frese is in his element — namely, water. We’re paddling the North Branch of the Chicago River, on the “water trail” named for him. Frese anticipates every bend. He reads the water adeptly, subtly. He talks easily about how to find the direction of the current; how ripples betray the hiding places of submerged rocks, branches, and logs; the best way around logjams (usually through them). Dragonflies and damselflies dance low on the water. Spheres of fragrant, feathery, white flowers nod on bank-side buttonbushes. A great blue heron with a three-foot wingspan glides overhead, like a guardian of the river. A reverie seems to come over Frese. In hushed tones, he says, “Nature has given me so much. That’s why I have to give back. That’s why I do all I do.”

Over the last 50 years, Frese, popularly known in the paddling community as “Mr. Canoe,” has championed the conservation of Chicago-region rivers. He has received awards from the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the federal EPA, and the Bureau of the Interior. (“All three on the same night,” he says.) In 1994, he was the first recipient of the American Canoe Association’s “Legends of Paddling” award. Last year, he was inducted into the Illinois Outdoors Hall of Fame.

“As a kid when I got my first boat, a little 14-foot kayak, I began to realize that there was more nature to be found along the waterways,” Frese says. “Every river has a story to tell. The more I read, the more intrigued I got. That’s how I got deeply involved in the history of the waterways, the natural history. That, of course, led me to the environmental problems.”

Starting in the 1960s, and for the next 40 years, Frese was actively involved with the Clean Streams Committee, widely regarded as the first volunteer stewardship organization in Cook County. Citizens patrolled the Des Plaines River, the Chicago River, Salt Creek, and their many tributaries. According to John Elliott of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, volunteers brought their first-hand observations to bi-monthly meetings with water and land management agencies.

Frese’s canoe literally became a vehicle for change. He patrolled the watershed from Foster Avenue north to the county line. “Because I live here, this is what I canoe,” he says. “Lotta times in the winter months we’d walk it. Walk on the frozen surface. Walk on the shore.” Frese and the committee witnessed a barrage of problems affecting Chicago rivers: septic systems that drained into streams, leachate that leaked out from the landfill. People dumped picnic tables, garbage containers, and debris. Encroachment was an issue, too. People built directly on floodplains, says Frese, “right into the river.”

Roland Eisenbeis, then superintendent of conservation for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, organized the Clean Streams Committee. He recalls with a note of fondness, “Ralph was one of the real ardent supporters — and very knowledgeable…He was not only well versed in the Chicago River, but he knew the others. It was from the experience he had [paddling] on the river.” Frese, Eisenbeis says, had a “good sense of observation.”

One time, Vinton Bacon, then a reform superintendent for the Sanitary District, accompanied their patrol into Niles. “There was oil coming out from a storm drain into the river,” remembers Frese. “Thick, viscous oil got all over our canoes, our paddles, and clothing.” They discovered that an industrial company had an underground fuel storage tank — and the tank had a leak. “The company didn’t know about it…so they were happy it was discovered,” he says. “It was just an accident. There will always be accidents.” With approval, Frese points out that Superintendent Bacon had his department help with the clean-up efforts.

Frese’s legwork and that of the Clean Streams Committee helped transform Chicago-area rivers. “No question about it,” says Eisenbeis, “the quality of Chicago rivers improved tremendously.” Years later, they would even “find isolated spots where there were fish that came back.”
The Des Plaines River was one of Frese’s earliest and most enduring successes. A fourth-generation blacksmith, he used his craftsmanship to teach local Boy Scout troops how to build their own canoes. “After I got all the kids in the area building kit canoes, and taught them to explore local waterways, I thought, ‘Hey, let’s have a little fun competition. Let’s have a race!’

So, in 1958, he launched the first Des Plaines River Canoe Marathon. “Let’s focus on a stretch of the river that needs protection,” he decided. During the 1950s, he says, “there was no Lake County Forest Preserve District,” so he started the marathon at Oak Spring Road, in Libertyville, Illinois, and ended it 18.5 miles to the south, “in Cook County where we had a forest preserve district protecting the river. To show the difference, get the message across….With no protection, all that area could’ve been subdivided and Lake County would’ve lost a great deal.”

On May 20th, 2007, the Des Plaines River Canoe Marathon celebrated its Golden Anniversary. The Des Plaines River Association issued a proclamation expressing gratitude for Frese’s efforts. Citing an average of 1,000 participants each of the marathon’s 50 years, the proclamation tallied almost one million miles paddled because of the race. Such hearty participation has helped Frese raise money for river conservation groups and forest preserve studies of dams and safety signs. He’s introduced paddlers, their friends, and families to the cause of river conservation.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the Upper Des Plaines River Ecosystem Partnership worked with Frese and a host of agencies to turn the Upper Des Plaines into an interpretive trail. They distributed River Tales, a booklet of historical stories and facts about the Des Plaines and its wildlife. “Ralph was so full of wonderful stories,” says Alison Cook, coordinator of the partnership. “He knows so much about the river and its history and colorful characters. He’s spent a lifetime helping people fall in love with rivers.”

Frese has long found creative and fun ways to draw people to the water. He organized a 3,000-mile reenactment of the historic Jolliet-Marquette Expedition to emphasize the important historical role of rivers, and he contributed birchbark replica canoes to the La Salle II Expedition. Each year he leads about 200 canoeists and kayakers on a New Year’s Day Paddle of the Chicago River. (His wife, Rita, only goes when the temperature is above 35 degrees.) More than 50 years ago, he founded his own business, the Chicagoland Canoe Base, where he could continue to blacksmith, fashion handcrafted birchbark replica canoes, and support the growing paddling community. Through his business, which he is finally selling this year, Frese has encouraged countless customers to experience his philosophy: “The canoe and the kayak offer the only trail through nature that leaves no trace of your passing.”

Another part of Frese’s philosophy involves regularly inviting decision-makers into his canoe for a personal tour, to give them a water-level view of their local rivers. “I had the pleasure of having Larry Suffredin, county commissioner, in my canoe, as well as Tony Peraica, also county commissioner, on the New Year’s Day trips. I have had Alderman Mell in my canoe on the Chicago River through his ward. There were many more on a state level.” Bill Koenig, the last chairman of the Clean Streams Committee, adopted Frese’s strategy in his own environmental work. “One of the best ways to get politicians and officials to understand about rivers is to get them on a river,” he says. “Before you can excite people about conserving urban wilderness, you have to get them involved in it. Get them excited about the places themselves.”

Occasionally, Frese’s advocacy gets downright cantankerous, and he admittedly gives business leaders and officials “an earful.” But it’s attitude born from compassion for the rivers he’s protected his whole life. “There’s been so much talk of restoring prairie and savanna, and not enough emphasis given to restoring the river and the vegetation along it,” he says. “The rivers — the North Branch and the Des Plaines, the Salt Creek — they’re the umbilical cords that tie our string of forest preserves together.”

In our highway-dependent culture, waterways are often overlooked and neglected. Ders Anderson, greenways director for the Openlands Project, credits Frese with raising awareness among roughly 100 planners and paddlers at their 1996 People on the Water conference, a meeting to develop water trails in northeastern Illinois. Anderson estimates there’s 500 miles of paddleable streams, rivers, and lakefront. “Ralph gave a very inspirational speech,” he says. “It opened up everybody’s eyes that we had this huge potential recreational, educational network in our backyards. And we were ignoring it.”

Strong and feisty at 80, Frese continues to champion river conservation today. His current passion is the Lower Fox River in LaSalle and Kendall Counties where he sees development as the imminent danger. “The Lower Fox is more threatened than ever,” he says. “Land along the river is super valuable. If it isn’t preserved now, we’re going to lose everything.”

Like most of his important conservation projects, Frese’s work on the Lower Fox began decades ago. In 1965, he wrote a paper urging the State of Illinois to create a state scenic river program and to focus on the Lower Fox, “one of the few remaining scenic and relatively unspoiled streams we have left.” Over the years, the paper generated the interest of legislators. According to Frese, five bills were introduced to the State Senate but “were killed by the State Senate’s subcommittee on Conservation and Agriculture.”

Undaunted when he couldn’t bring the people to the river, Frese changed tactics: he brought the river to the people. In the 1990s, his Chicagoland Canoe Base became a member of the Lower Fox River Coalition (now the Fox River Ecosystem Partnership). In showman’s style, Frese presented slides on the Lower Fox to interested organizations. “I used to give three- to four-hour lectures just on that stretch of river,” he says. The most vibrant Lower Fox River scenery comes in October. “The color you see down there is fantastic,” he gushes. A boyish enthusiasm twinkles in his eyes. “You have these low flood plain elevations, and the high cliffs. Then you got the high prairie upland. All the different trees and vegetation give you a kaleidoscope of colors. It’s awesome!”

Frese and the Chicagoland Canoe Base developed a Historic Fox Valley Canoe Trail map with photos, a list of canoe access sites, and 26 points of interest. “Tributary streams to the Illinois [River] have carved these beautiful, deep narrow valleys,” he says. “That’s where you find this scenery.” He lists it off: St. Peter sandstone bluffs. A 30-foot-high waterfall. Shelter caves along the river. Natural springs. Tremendous wildlife, flora, and fauna also flourish in the Lower Fox Valley, says Frese, including nesting eagles, Christmas ferns, white cedars, purple cliffbrakes, pagoda dogwood, and twayblade orchids. “There’s everything down there.”

Even a 1,000-year-old red cedar tree, once. Frese attributes this unique discovery to his longtime friend and fellow explorer Dick Young. Young, the noted ecologist who authored the Kane County Wild Plants and Natural Areas field guide, estimates he discovered this rare eastern red cedar in 1949 or 1950. Then state forester Bud Werhane later took a boring of the trunk. There were, according to Frese, “87 rings per inch of wood suggesting a possible age of 1,044 years.” Sadly, this ancient tree was cut down.

What other wonders are tucked among the sandstone cliffs? True to form, Frese encourages people to seek the answer for themselves. “Now, the Lower Fox is a simple trip. Anyone can do it. The scenery, fauna, flora, and its history make it one of the most spectacular stretches of river in Illinois.”

It’s a rare moment when this normally outspoken outdoorsman isn’t cracking jokes or hooking you with a story. But on this perfect summer day on the Ralph C. Frese Canoe Trail, the late afternoon sun slanting dramatically through the cottonwood trees, Frese pulls his paddle out of the water. “Stop paddling!” he whispers. He sits still as a marble statue. Silent. He’s just spotted a green heron, which hops into the underbrush. The Chicago River’s current pulls us lazily along. Frese is completely absorbed in his world. “Is there anything more peaceful?” he asks as he stares at the length of smooth, green river before us. “Can you imagine a better way to entertain your whole family?” His voice is filled with wonder, hypnotic. It is like having the conscience of the river stand lightly on your shoulder. He is a voice in the wilderness, reminding generations that our precious, historic waterways are still here, and worthy of our attention.