The South Shore

We had another special outdoor field trip today, joined by Jeff's parents as we celebrated Mother's Day with an outdoor picnic and an exploration of another piece of land preserve in the Calumet Region. This is a new parcel of wilderness, recently added to the National Park called the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which has bits and pieces of land next to and between and within the steel mills and oil refineries and railroad tracks and dune-side neighborhoods along Indiana's Lake Michigan Shoreline.

It is called the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, and a little tricky to get to, but worth finding. The day was a bit chilly so hats and extra layers were required, but the sunny, clear conditions meant a beautiful color on the lake and a clear view to Chicago's skyline. The building was locked up, but it was stunning to look at from every angle on the outside. There were surfers and bikers and day explorers like us who were quite happy to be enjoying the outdoors on this little spot of beach.

We had a picnic meal on the ledge overlooking the beach, then explored the beach and dunes and pier for an hour,
and then we found the loop hike that goes halfway along the "river" (Burns Ditch) and then loops back through the dune landscape. It is a beautiful spot, and though you can see a huge factory quite clearly east of the parking lot,
once you get into the dune, it is easier to imagine you are in the original wilderness of the beautiful dune and cottonwoody south shoreline of Lake Michigan.


We explored this part of the region for the next hour or so, and came upon a new harborside resort community that is built upon a marina and across Rte 12 from the Ogden Dunes stop on the South Shore commuter train line. We found the public marina that is relatively new (built in 1996.)
We drove through a tiny town built in the dunes called Ogden Dunes and played in the park for a few minutes. We checked out downtown Portage, then headed back west to our own homes in Lake County.

Jeff and I both got much more curious about the local geography after today and last week's outings, and spent about two hours before bedtime looking at our Calumet Beginnings book by Ken Schoon and a couple state maps, especially to try to make sense of the rivers around here. It is very confusing because just about every river or waterway in this area has been very much impacted, to the point of flow reversal, by the building of new water outlets and ditches, the filling in of wetlands and swamps and moving of dirt and dunes. Many of the towns in this region have their origins as a sand mine or a clay mine or a limestone quarry or a gravel mine, so a lot of land has been moved and "improved." We had a major river flood in our next-door town of Munster two years ago, and so we weren't surprised to read that once upon a time, our own Little Calumet River, which is quite small now and actually flows different directions at different towns, used to be a mile wide in some places, and has a very wide natural flood plain.