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'Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore' is a U.S. national lakeshore located in northwest Indiana. The national lakeshore runs for nearly 25 miles (40 km) along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, from Michigan City, Indiana on the east to Gary, Indiana on the west. The park contains approximately 15,000 acres (61 km²). A part of this area, 2,182 acres (9 km²) is located in Indiana Dunes State Park and managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was authorized by Congress in 1966.

Contents

Lakeshore activities

Wildlife

Lakeshore history

Lakeshore landmarks

Cowles Bog

Hoosier Prairie

Mount Baldy

Pinhook Bog

External links

References

Lakeshore activities

The park contains 15 miles (24 km) of beaches, as well as sand dunes, bogs, marshes, swamps, fens, prairies, rivers, oak savannas, and woodland forests. The park is also noted for its singing sands. More than 350 species of birds have been observed in the park. It has one of the most diverse plant communities of any unit in the U.S. National Park System with 1418 vascular plant species including 90 threatened or endangered ones. The Indiana Dunes area is unique in that it contains both arctic and boreal plants (such as the bearberry) alongside desert plants (such as the prickly pear cactus).
First-time visitors to the Lakeshore often go to the Dorothy Buell Memorial Visitor Center at U.S. Highway 20 and Indiana Route 49, near Porter, Indiana. This brand-new center (2007) offers standard visitor-center amenities, including a video, brochures, hands-on exhibits, and a gift shop. It is free to the general public.
Camping is available at the Dunewood Campground on U.S. Highway 12 and Broadway, in Beverly Shores, Indiana. The campground includes an RV dump station and two loops of trailer accessible sites (some with pull-through drives). All sites have grills, a picnic table, and access to restrooms with running water and showers. There are a limited number of walk-in sites in the Douglas Loop.
The park provides opportunities for bird watching, camping, 45 miles (72 km) of hiking, fishing, swimming, horseback riding, and cross-country skiing. Cycling is available on the Calumet Trail, a crushed limestone multiuse trail which runs through the eastern section of the park, providing access to the Indiana Dunes State Park, as well as to the communities of Beverly Shores, Indiana; the Town of Pines, Indiana; and Mount Baldy (Sand Dune) on the edge of Michigan City, Indiana. The park had more than 2 million visits in 2005.
Rules state not to feed any of the wildlife, including seagulls, deer, or raccoons.

Wildlife

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is full of wildlife, including White Tailed Deer, Red Foxes, Common Raccoons, Oppossums, Cottontail Rabbits, Canada Geese, Ring Billed Gulls, Red and Gray Squirrels, Red Tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures, Many Songbirds, many small rodents, garter snakes, Mallards, and Great Blue Herons.

Lakeshore history

The Indiana Dunes area first came to prominence in 1899 when Henry Cowles did some of the pioneering work in American plant ecology there. Despite attempts to protect the area from threats such as the nearby Gary steel mills led by groups such as the Prairie Club of Chicago, the area continued to be exploited. The tallest dune in Indiana, the 200 foot (60 m) high Hoosier Slide, was hauled away and turned into glass by Pittsburgh Plate Glass and canning jars by Ball Brothers.
In 1916 there was talk of making the site the "Sand Dunes National Park". Indiana State Park's founder Richard Lieber toured the site with then NPS Director Stephen Mather on October 31, 1916 to gauge its worthiness.^[1] In 1926, part of the area became the Indiana Dunes State Park. A few years after, the Indiana Dunes Bathhouse and Pavilion was erected just north of the park entrance. The bathhouse continues to be widely used today and remains in its original form.
Lobbying continued to expand the area and in 1963, the Kennedy Compromise linked the construction of the Port of Indiana to the development of a National Lakeshore. The Lakeshore was created in 1966 and expanded in 1976, 1980, 1986 and 1992.

Lakeshore landmarks

Cowles Bog

Cowles Bog, a National Natural Landmark, is a fen wetland named in honor of biologist and ecologist Henry Cowles. Located south and west of Dune Acres, Indiana, Cowles Bog is the sole remaining remnant of the ''Central Dunes'' where Cowles performed his pioneering field studies of plant succession and species diversity. A National Lakeshore trail runs from Mineral Springs Road into Cowles Bog.

Hoosier Prairie

Hoosier Prairie, a National Natural Landmark, is a 430-acre (1.7 km²) tallgrass prairie adjacent to Griffith, Indiana. It is a geographically isolated unit of the Lakeshore, owned and maintained by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources as a state nature preserve. 574 separate species of plants have been observed growing in this patch of prairie, or more than 1 species per acre.

Mount Baldy

Mount Baldy is a sand dune located west of Michigan City, Indiana. At 123 feet tall, it is the tallest sand dune on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. It is a wandering dune that moves an average of 4 feet every year, and so is called a "living dune." Mount Baldy is accessible from U.S. Route 12 (also known as Dunes Highway) between the town of Pines and the western border of Michigan City. Visitors can hike 0.7 miles up the dune and from the top, on a clear day, can view Chicago's skyline and the south shore. North of Mount Baldy is a swimming beach.

Pinhook Bog

Pinhook Bog, a National Natural Landmark, is a geographically isolated unit of the National Lakeshore. The quaking bog is located near U.S. Highway 421 approxiamtely 9 miles (14 km) south of Michigan City. The bog formed from a postglacial kettle moraine left behind about 14,000 years before the present by the melting of the ice sheet during the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. The acidic bog is noted for pitcher plants and other wetland species. Access to the bog is restricted to ranger-led guided tours.

External links

★ Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore official site

★ Indiana Dunes State Park

★ Indiana Dunes Tourism

★ Dunes Nature Preserve

★ Save the Dunes Council

★ Friends of the Indiana Dunes

★ The Prairie Club

★ Mount Baldy

★ More Pictures

★ Friends of the Indiana Dunes Photo Album

References

1. http://home.nps.gov/applications/hafe/hfc/npsphoto4h.cfm?Catalog_No=hpc%2D000862