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to document the grand opening – the grand reawakening.
With the ribbon cutting over, everyone disperses to explore and read the new interpretive signs that tell the story of the site’s history and the ongoing efforts. Some of these signs are stretched below pavilions and embedded in repurposed concrete formed into sitting-height walls that Mayor King calls “artwork.” Many of the photos incorporated into the panels were taken by members of the Emiquon Corps of Discovery, a group that has been documenting the Emiquon transition through the arts – writing, painting, sketching, photography.
Other people are departing from the new canoe launch aboard a 20-person craft provided for the celebration by IDNR, and others stand with binoculars or look through the spotting scopes from the Wetland and Lakeside Observatories, seeking closer views of the birds that so recently were the stuff of legend.
Tharran Hobson, the Illinois River program restoration manager for The Nature Conservancy, has worked at the preserve to create a mosaic of habitats and states that there are now 212 species of birds documented here – woodland, wetland and prairie species. “Every wetland bird that you can imagine and some you couldn’t imagine show up here,” he states. “I’ve seen a lot of my firsts here.” He tells of seeing Common Loons, a species he had not seen before in Illinois. And his first sighting ever of a Red-necked Grebe occurred at Emiquon.
Many of us shuttle to other places of interest surrounding the Emiquon Preserve, such as UIS’s Therkildsen Station. The station, funded in part through an endowment by Alfred O. Therkildsen, is located on the other side Illinois 78/97 across from the preserve. The faculty at the station provides training for students while conducting research in the field of floodplain ecology and restoration and management strategies. “Some of us started collecting even when there were little ditches out there,” states Dr. Michael Lemke, the station’s
director. “I have been tracking the microbes, and in the last four years we have seen dramatic changes in the communities.” The station’s research is combined with that of other researchers in an effort to build a comprehensive study of the Emiquon restoration and to assist in its management.
Then it is on to the Dickson Mounds Museum where we find new displays and then, finally, to a nearby bluff called Morton Ridge where we witness an ongoing archaeological excavation. “We want people to get the sense that this is a region now, which has a variety of opportunities that include everything from education programs and folk music on the weekends [at Dickson Mounds Museum] to fishing and waterfowl hunting,” states Wiant.
It seems a resounding success, yet the story is not over. And today is but a snapshot in
