I’ve spent many months at Marian Byrnes Park- mostly doing research and botanizing. It’s where my favorite slag wetland is, a secret garden hidden behind a lovely woodland stroll. Just a few years ago, this park was pretty overgrown and inaccessible. Now it’s such a gem, with great shaded walking trails in a narrow savanna-esque strip, right off of 103rd.

Out on the slag, we see a human-modified ecosystem, just like the woodland (which of course is a highly managed park) but it’s such an unfamiliar landscape. You see remnants of its recent past as a flydumping mecca and plants that looks like weeds on concrete.

But with little human intervention for several decades in the management of this ecosystem, one could argue it’s more “natural” than the familiar tall trees and open understory along the path.