Powderhorn Lake

South Central Wolf Lake, IL • January 2023

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A boat launch at Wolf Lake and a hydrological connection to Powderhorn Lake are new initiatives by the Forest Preserves and State Park. The connection between these bodies of water is an important one in reconstituting the wetland complex that has characterized the Calumet Crescent in the last 10,000 years.

Looking south towards Powderhorn, this new naturalized channel was constructed in an empty, perennially flooded lot. This green infrastructure is beneficial to the surrounding human community (decreasing local flooding) and connecting the animal communities.

Walking north, a buckthorn protected path affords coverage for waterfowl hunters (remember there is a gun club close by and hunting is legal in William Powers State Park) or coyotes, flanked by the transition zones between land and lake.

The real action though comes from the beavers. We’ve seen beaver dams around Powderhorn Lake in the past – I wonder if these beaver clans were already connected overland, or if the coming months will be first contact between the populations! I hope someone is using this behavioral, range, and host tree preference data to learn lots about these local ecosystem builders!

With no one else around, there was a liminal feeling to the masses of Phragmites topped with a cloudy gauze covering the winter afternoon sun.

Powderhorn North, Chicago IL • March 2020

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Walk south from the southern end of Wolf Lake, past the roads that peek into residential pockets, past what was overgrown vacant lots — it’s all being rewilded, connecting Wolf Lake to Powderhorn Lake (fig 1). It expands the local wetland complex, but in a different direction than the historical baseline. Why? Because Powderhorn Lake is human-constructed, so there was never a connection between these bodies of water before.

Fig 1. red box denotes green infrastructure enhancement between Wolf Lake and Powderhorn Lake

We started in the greenspace north of Powderhorn Lake (though quite brown this time of year).

We came out from the buckthorn and Phragmites to a railroad track on the north side of Powderhorn Lake.

The dune and swale that you see on the map, looking like a ridged swamp, to the west of Powderhorn Lake- that dune and swale is still there! This is a long finger of oak savanna heading to the southeast.