On a hot morning in late June, the western shore of Jordan River in Hancock County teemed with wildlife. Osprey and cliff swallows soared over a sea of tall grasses, where bobolinks and savannah sparrows perched atop clumps of alders. Fritillary and crescent butterflies wandered among blooming clover and daisies; deer had worn tracks through the grass. The air smelled of wild strawberries and the salt water that bordered the rolling fields.
Except for the occasional sand pit and numbered granite pillar and low-slung wooden clubhouse at the top of the hill, it would be easy to forget that not too long ago, this land hosted an 18-hole golf course, and before that a dairy farm.
Remembering, and restoring, landscapes into a wilder being. Read “Greens gone wild,” a story on Frenchman Bay Conservancy’s efforts to restore habitat on an old golf course in The Working Waterfront.
Catherine Schmitt 