Today was a toss-up as to which was more fun — talking to folks about the George Fell biography or taking a guided tour of one of the natural areas that George protected first by buying it and then designating it as an Illinois Nature Preserve: Volo Bog.
First of all, how cool is it that a bog has its own book group: Of Bogs and Books. That’s due to Stacy Iwanicki, a long-time naturalist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. According to an article published last year in the Lake County News-Sun she started the book group back in 1994. Since then, they’ve read more than 233 books. Some books, including Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, they’ve read several times.
I was flattered to be invited to talk to this group about my biography of George Fell. It’s a great group of folks, who share a deep passion for nature. Not only do they enjoy reading about it, but many of them roll up their sleeves as volunteer stewards, to help keep our natural area gems healthy for future generations to come.
Even more exciting was when Stacy popped in a video she had made many years before — featuring George Fell. I never met George. He passed away several years before I started writing about him. I had seen him in a 1989 documentary entitled Saving Nature, in which he voiced his signature brand of determination: “If one person is determined that something is going to be saved, it can be done. It will be done. If there isn’t that determination, it doesn’t happen.”
When Stacy first arrived at Volo Bog, she had had the foresight and wisdom to gather George and others who had been involved in saving Volo Bog, and to record them reflecting upon their past experiences. Seeing George talk about the history really brought the book alive for all of us. It’s a moment I’ll savor forever — thanks, Stacy.
But Stacy wasn’t done. After the book group, she gave my wife and me a personal tour of the bog. This was my first visit to the bog, after having written about it fairly extensively in the book. George had had a direct hand in negotiating the acquisition of both Volo and Wauconda Bogs on behalf of the Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy — this was just a few years after he had taken the leadership role in transforming the Ecologists’ Union into The Nature Conservancy. More than a decade later — after he spearheaded the establishment of the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission — he championed the dedication of Volo Bog as the 25th Illinois Nature Preserve.
Bogs are exceptionally rare in Illinois. They are also one of the most dramatic reminders of the glaciers that once covered northeastern Illinois in ice a mile thick. When they retreated, among the landforms they left were large lakes. The vegetation in some of these lakes decomposed and turned into peat mats, which in turn support unique assemblages of plants, including tamarack trees. Volo Bog is the only one remaining in Illinois that includes “all the stages of classic bog succession,” from the open “eye of water at its center to the forested bog around its perimeter.
Just as amazing as the bog was Stacy’s enthusiasm for the site. As she guided us along the floating walkway, she stopped and talked to every other visitor we met along the way, sparking their imaginations with interesting facts and insights into the landscape surrounding them. If George Fell was a force of nature in protecting our natural lands, Stacy Iwanicki is the equally necessary next generation force of nature who helps steward and interpret these sites. Again, thanks, Stacy. Susan and I look forward to a return trip to the bog soon.
This past March, Susan and I visited the site with Jerry Paulson, former executive director of NLI, who worked many years with George. We were too early see pasque flowers — one of the first bloomers on the gravel ridge prairie. And by the time I was able to return in July, the pasque flowers long since had gone to seed.
Fittingly, Liberty Prairie Reserve is anchored by 
So, too, am I OK with the fact that the main entrance to 
Susan and I recently enjoyed an Illinois Nature Preserve-alooza while getting a good workout. Pedaling our bikes along the Old Plank Road Trail, we cruised through Old Plank Road Prairie and Dewey Helmick Nature Preserves. The third site was the Butterfield Creek Headwaters Land and Water Reserve. A few weeks later, we returned to the trail and took the spur to Hickory Creek Barrens Nature Preserve.
It took more than 20 years to acquire the right of way, raise funds and overcome certain local opposition, but in 1997 the first segment of the Old Plank Road Trail was opened to the public. At the ribbon cutting in 1997, 
That same year, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission named one of the two new nature preserves in his honor. Dewey Helmick Nature Preserve and Old Plank Road Nature Preserve are prototypical railroad prairies. They survived because they remained relatively untouched since the rails were laid more than a century and a half ago — aside from periodic fires set by sparks from passing trains. But that was a good thing, since prairies are dependent upon fire to keep their soils healthy and to keep invasive trees and shrubs from encroaching.
preserve. More than a quarter of it — 575 acres — was dedicated in 1998 as the 
The online history also tells how the other man for whom the site is partly named — Mel Hoff — was appointed the Volunteer Steward in 1982 and formed the West Chicago Prairie Stewardship Group. It took 24 years of sweat equity to remove invasive species, abandoned cars and all kinds of other debris. But eventually, the diverse site — containing freshwater marsh, mesic silt loam savanna, and at least three different kinds of prairie communities — returned to health and was designated as the Truitt Hoff Nature Preserve in 2006.
At the trailhead, the stewardship group had posted its most recent newsletter, that helped me better see and understand the site. Out in the field, I found brush piles, evidence of the clearing reported in the newsletter. I also encountered lusher grasses yet fewer wildflowers than anticipated, which the newsletter chalked up to a wet spring.
The grasses were so dense and lush, in fact, that they all but obscured the narrow footpaths, which reminded me of a question raised at the annual luncheon — about public access to nature preserves. I acknowledged that George Fell was more of a nature-for-nature’s-sake kind of guy. Whereas most of his Illinois Nature Preserves Commissioners preferred wider, more inviting trails to encourage people to explore nature, George was adamant that trails be kept to a minimum, and that visitors should walk single file, like the “Indians” used to do.
Following The Conservation Foundation annual luncheon, I headed out to visit three Nature Preserves in DuPage County. My first stop was 
The 65-acre Churchill Prairie Nature Preserve actually consists of a “complex patchwork” of different kinds of natural area community types, including a couple different kinds of prairie, sedge meadow, mesic upland forest, dry mesic upland forest and savanna.
Earlier in the day, at Truitt Hoff, I was blown away by the diversity of dragonflies patrolling the site. At Churchill Prairie, it was all about birds. Adult bluebirds and Baltimore orioles — flashing blue and bright orange against the green canopy of the savanna — were far too busy gathering insects to feed their nestlings for me to get a good picture. But a downy woodpecker was a little more cooperative.
I had a great time talking to supporters of 
Like several of the Nature Preserves I’ve visited thus far, Belmont Prairie survived by accident, or because someone hadn’t yet gotten around to developing it before it was “discovered.”
In my quest to visit 50 Illinois Nature Preserves this year, I could almost make the case for adding a whole bunch more to my list from having spent this past weekend at a single site: 
My fellow writers offered books on a wide range of subjects — from historic bridges to presidential biographies, from Maxwell Street to labor history. My good friend Rich Cahan and his 
Also there was Mike MacDonald, whose exquisitely handsome 
Mike features 28 nature preserves in his book, from 
According to Google Maps, the preserve was accessible via a frontage road to I-55. However, turning onto the road, I immediately came to a closed gate, beyond which lay an unpaved, overgrown two-track.
To most folks, speeding by on the highway, then and now, Grant Creek Nature Preserve — if noticed at all — probably seems a fallow farm field at best. A weed patch at worst, waiting for some better use to come along. But, according to the 
As it turned out, it seemed only fitting to be talking about George Fell at 
The preserve is described as the Wisconsin Desert, which technically might be true but grossly undersells the beauty of the site. True, as a sand prairie its soils drain quickly creating a hot, droughty environment that is home to relatively sparse vegetation, including the likes of prickly pear cactus — and lots of it. But, this cool, misty, late April morning, following a recent prairie burn, it is carpeted with bird’s foot violet and early buttercup, and dotted with spikes of cream white indigo.
The thousand-acre site is filled, too, this morning with a chamber concert of birdsong. The four-note descants of eastern meadowlarks echo off the adjacent bluffs, while blue birds and yellow-rumped warblers harvest the low vegetation for a breakfast of bugs. The lark sparrows are in a more amorous mood, the males splaying their distinct tail feathers in the hope of attracting a mate.
As it turns out, Spring Green Preserve also has has an indirect but distinct connection to George Fell. 
Ironclad protection for natural lands and farmland alike is what the Driftless Area needs right now. Attending the talk at Arcadia Books was David Clutter. Years ago, he used to work for the 
For those who may not know, the Driftless Area — primarily southwest Wisconsin, but also parts of southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois — derives its name from the lack drift. Drift is the gravel, sand, clay, rocks, etc. left behind by retreating glaciers. There isn’t any drift in the Driftless Area because, for a combination of reasons, the glaciers that once blanketed the midwest didn’t cover this area. The Driftless Area — unlike the flat, glacier-scoured lands surrounding it — is one of exceptional beauty for the rolling hills, rugged bluffs, deep valleys, bucolic farmsteads and world-class natural areas.
To help fight the good fight, the 
