Calumet’s Wilderness Heritage

The Calumet is a surprising, sometimes tragic — yet unusually rich — place for nature.

by Joel Greenberg

The Calumet region that North American Indians and, later, European settlers knew was one of prolific natural richness, much of it thoroughly wet. Between its many lakes and rivers were vast acreages of marsh and prairie, broken by gentle, wooded ridges and towering lakeside dunes. Early settlers wrote of waterfowl that darkened the sky. In Chicago’s younger days, local guides would take hunters out on excursions yielding hundreds of ducks, geese, and sandpipers.

The 20th century was not kind to the region. It has experienced every abuse to which a wealthy society can subject a locality except significant radiation and warfare. The original 22,000 acres of wet prairie and marsh on the Illinois side — a fraction of the region’s total — have been whittled down to 500. Only about 500 acres of the original beach ridges, known as dune-and-swale habitat, still exist. Of the Lake Plain’s six lakes, Berry Lake was buried, while Hyde Lake is little more than a tiny, cattail-filled declivity.

And yet, the Calumet region is still undeniably, and surprisingly, impressive. Many biologists regard the region as containing more high-quality biodiversity — more rare and special plants, animals, and other organisms — than anywhere else in the Chicago region, especially if one extends Calumet membership to the Indiana Dunes, ranked seventh among national parks in native plant diversity. The region may be the most studied as well, dating back to pioneering ecologists such as Henry Cowles. Twenty-five percent of Illinois’ threatened and endangered bird species nest in the region, including ospreys, common moorhens, and yellow-crowned night-herons. And Indiana harbors some of the highest quality examples of the globally imperiled panne habitat. The challenge for this generation of residents is to maintain and restore this ancient — and still very present — heritage.

01 Yellow-headed blackbirds nest in Hegewisch Marsh, though their numbers are declining.
Photo: Pat Wadecki

02 In some sheltered, secret places, clusters of showy lady’s slipper orchids grow in the dappled shade of black oaks.
Photo: Dan Kirk

03 The rare spotted turtle, a lovely creature at the western edge of its range, has been recorded along the Grand Calumet River.
Photo: Dave Jagodzinski

04 The Indian paintbrush lives in prairies across the region.
Photo: Dave Jagodzinski

05 The Calumet region is home to Illinois’ largest nesting colony of black-crowned night-herons.
Photo: Rob Curtis

06 Patches of lupine (in blue, with sand coreopsis) sustain populations of the rare Karner blue butterfly.
Photo: Joe Nowak

07 Birders consider Lake Calumet one of the best sites in Illinois to spot the state-endangered Wilson’s phalarope.
Photo: Rob Curtis

08 The region’s role as an important breeding ground for wetland birds rests on the success of sites such as this heron and egret rookery at Indian Ridge Marsh.
Photo: Dan Kirk

09 In the swale beside an ancient beach ridge, grass-pink orchids bloom in June. Their survival isn’t guaranteed — without a good fire, the tall stand of invasive Phragmites could overtake this opening.
Photo: Mike MacDonald/ChicagoNature.com

10 Of the 40 species of shorebirds recorded in the Calumet area, the American avocet occurs regularly, migrating through in small numbers near the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Photo: Rob Curtis

11 Any discussion of the biological heritage of the Calumet region must include mention of Thismia americana, one of the great botanical mysteries of the continent. In 1912, the botanist Norma Pfeiffer discovered this plant in a marsh near 119th Street and Torrence Avenue, where the Ford Factory now stands. She last observed the species in 1916 and it has never been seen again anywhere else in the world. Naturalists still keep an eye out for it, in hopes that this odd wonder will again rise from Calumet soils.
Photo: Keith Wilson