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THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2022
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Hikers celebrate Centennial Hike at Jens Jensen Preserve
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HCH President Pat Fisher (right) discusses the nature of the preserve
HCH President Pat Fisher welcomes the hikers
The hikers enter the preserve
The hikers enter the preserve
HCH President Pat Fisher discusses the variety of trees at the preserve
HCH President Pat Fisher (right) discusses the nature of the preserve
BY FRANCESCA SAGALA
ll Pat Fisher wanted to do was share his fascination with the widespread species and their respective ecosystems that blanket southwest Michigan with residents and visitors to the area. “I’d been doing a lot of hikes on my own and decided all the unique things I’d seen – I wanted them to see it too,” he said. He caught the attention of Bob Mueller, who went on a few hikes on the series of trails behind New Buffalo Elementary School with Fisher, HCH president, and heard his series of talks at the New Buffalo Township Public Library. Mueller approached him about starting a hiking club – which would later be known as the Harbor Country Hikers. “I thought, ‘This is really cool, more people ought to know about this stuff,’” he said. Nearly five years later, that hiking club was celebrating its 100th organized hike on the balmy afternoon of Saturday, March 5, at Jens Jensen Preserve. Mueller, who’s now HCH treasurer, said the first hike was held May 20, 2017, at New Buffalo Public Beach with member Janet Schrader. In the approximately five years it’s been in existence, the group has accumulated a little over 200 members. Currently, hikes average around 30 participants – a far cry from the fewer than 12 hikers who showed up for that first one. A little over 50 hikers (52 people and four dogs, to be exact) had gathered for HCH’s March 5 hike. The organization runs several service projects as well as nature hikes for students through New Buffalo Elementary School’s Bison Afterschool Enrichment (BASE) program. The group has also worked on bringing signage to the area’s various trails. Fisher has worked with Chikaming Open Lands (COL) and the Three Oaks and Chikaming Township parks in getting the trails organized and maintained. Through COL, he’s become the steward of Turtle Creek Nature Preserve in New Buffalo as well as the steward of the Nature Study Trails behind the elementary school (next to Turtle Creek). The organization has also expanded its hiking area to include spots outside of Harbor
Country and even Michigan, including the Indiana Dunes National Park. For the 100th hike, though, the group had chosen to stick close to home – at the Jens Jensen Preserve, located in Sawyer. The preserve was named after Jens Jensen, who many claim invented landscape architecture. After moving from Florida to Chicago in the 1800s, he got a job in the West Park Commission, one of 22 park districts in Chicago. In 1835, he rose to being superintendent of Humboldt Park. Legend has it that Jensen planted some exotic flowers in a park garden early in his career that later died. As a result, he started using native plants and “never looked back.” In the first decades of the 20th century, he “guided the creation of the Forest Preserve Act of Illinois,” which became law in 1913 and led to the creation of the Cook County Forest Preserve. Jensen, along with Henry Cowles, founded the Prairie Club in 1908. “The Prairie Club is an offshoot of the Playground Association, a group that sponsored educational walks all over Chicago – not too much different in principle than the Hikers, I’d like to think,” Mueller said.
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or Fisher, he hopes to educate the public on how the various ecosystems must coexist. “If you destroy one of them, you destroy both – you destroy a wetland and an upland, it no longer has the reptiles it has today because it takes the wetland to breathe and grow the reptiles,” he said. According to Fisher, the area (which includes the Indiana Dunes) has been classified by the National Park Service as one of the “most biodiverse parks in the country Seeing how many hikers had shown up for the trek through Jens Jensen Preserve that day, Fisher said he was pleased to see he was well on his way to achieving his goal – which was made possible by taking Mueller up on his offer to start Harbor Country Hikers. “I’m glad I did it - it has brought a lot of people out and into the area,” he said. For more information on Harbor Country Hikers, visit www.harborcountryhikers.org or follow them on Facebook.
