Day 20, Monday, May 11, 2020

The formation of the Indiana Dunes is just a blip in geologic time. It's only been in the last 10,000 years that Lake Michigan waves and currents have driven sediment southward toward the Dunes. The high open-sand dunes that exist now are even more recent, created just in the last 4,500 years. 

The forces of climate and geology have left Indiana Dunes with one of the most unique ecosystems on the continent. The biological diversity of the Dunes ranks fourth among all national parks. Dunes, oak savannas, swamps, bogs, marshes, prairies, rivers and forests are all found here. The place is a nature fan's delight. 

The Nature Conservancy's Matt Beatty joined us from West Beach in the Dunes to share a few highlights from a recent visit. Arctic Bearberry is an evergreen trailing shrub, found regionally only on Lake Michigan dunes. It's a much more northerly species, found mostly in places like the boreal forest of Canada. However, it persists in Indiana and a few places in Illinois, where it is state endangered. 

For a few moments, at a place like Indiana Dunes, our imaginations can take us many thousands miles away and several millennia back in time.  

Arctic Bearberry, West Beach, Indiana Dunes, photo by Matt Beatty