By The Thumb Land Conservancy
Fort Gratiot, Michigan – On October 23, the Thumb Land Conservancy (TLC) added an important piece of dune and swale forest to the Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park in northeast Saint Clair County. The 80-acre Shorewood Forrest parcel along the north side of Carrigan Road in Fort Gratiot was acquired from the Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner with funding from the Consumers Energy Foundation. The Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park will eventually protect a 4.5-mile long section of dune and swale forest north of Port Huron, a rare coastal ecosystem, and one of only a few examples remaining from Lake Erie to the Saginaw Bay. Plans are to route a trail on the main dune ridges from near the Fort Gratiot Nature Park at Carrigan and Parker Roads, up to Lakeport State Park.
The new Thumb Land Conservancy 80-acre Shorewood Forrest preserve is shown in green along on a 1995 aerial photograph showing parallel dune ridges and contrasting dark swales. The conservancy also acquired 27 acres to the north in 2023. Adjacent preserves owned by the Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner, Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, and Shorewood Forrest are also shown in green.
Last November, the TLC acquired a 27-acre parcel of the dune and swale forest on the west side of Shorewood Forrest subdivision with major funding from The Carls Foundation of Bloomfield Hills. Two days later, the TLC was notified of another major grant award of $100,000 from the Consumers Energy Foundation. TLC Executive Director, Bill Collins, says, “We are very grateful for the support of The Carls Foundation and Consumers Energy Foundation in funding land acquisition and sharing our vision for the Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park. We could not have done this without their help.”
“The protection of Michigan’s natural resources has an important impact on the future and quality of life of Michiganders,” said Cathy Wilson, Secretary/Treasurer of the Consumers Energy Foundation. “We are proud to support the Thumb Land Conservancy’s Shorewood Forrest Preservation project to conserve and sustain sensitive natural resources along the Great Lakes shoreline while assuring public access benefiting residents of St. Clair County and across the region.”
The Consumers Energy Foundation is the charitable arm of Consumers Energy, Michigan’s largest energy provider. The Consumers Energy Foundation enables communities to thrive and grow by investing in what’s most important to Michigan – its people, our planet and Michigan’s prosperity. In 2023, the Consumers Energy Foundation, Consumers Energy, its employees and retirees contributed more than $11 million to Michigan nonprofits. For more information about the Consumers Energy Foundation, visit: www.ConsumersEnergy.com/foundation.
Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner, Bob Wiley, says, “The Drain Office plays an important role in protecting wetlands in the County. I’ve worked with DEQ, EGLE, and the EPA, to preserve existing high quality wetlands as mitigation for permitted projects, rather than buying mitigation credits or trying to build new wetlands. This provided a substantial cost-savings to taxpayers in the drain districts. The County has a lot of wetland and this is one way that everyone can benefit.”
The TLC has worked for 16 years to protect the dune and swale forest in Saint Clair County and now owns over 160 acres of it in Fort Gratiot and Burtchville. In 2010, the TLC acquired 11.5 acres of the dune and swale forest in Fort Gratiot as a donation from Dr. Syed Hamzavi and the Peltier family. In 2014, the TLC assisted the Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner in acquisition of about 180 acres of dune and swale forest in Fort Gratiot as mitigation for county drain projects. In 2020, the Consumers Energy Foundation, The Carls Foundation, and other supporters funded the TLC’s acquisition of 42 acres of the dune and swale forest along the north side of Metcalf Road in Burtchville. In 2023, the TLC acquired another 27 acres in Fort Gratiot with funding from The Carls Foundation, and also assisted Presbyterian Villages of Michigan in finalizing protection and management plans for a 42-acre conservation easement at their Lake Huron Woods assisted living facility in Fort Gratiot.
Wetland swale west of Shorewood Forrest subdivision. Photo by Bill Collins.
For thousands of years, the land in Michigan was depressed by the weight of a roughly 2-mile high layer of glacial ice. As the last glacier began melting back in Michigan about 14,000 years ago, the land began rising and is still rising slightly. As the land rose at different rates, the old Georgian Bay outlet of the early Great Lakes was blocked about 7,500 years ago, causing the waters of early Great Lakes, known as the Nipissing Great Lakes, to rise about 15 feet above the present elevation. This early stage of the Great Lakes was still draining out the old Chicago outlet to the Mississippi River, but about 4,500 years ago, drainage redirected to the old Saint Clair River outlet which quickly down-cut. The high water rapidly drained, leaving a series of parallel sand ridges separated by mucky wetland troughs or swales from about 1 to 2 miles inland from the present shoreline. The ridges were wind-blown dunes and the mucky swales were shrub swamp for decades if not centuries before becoming forested and covered largely by a diverse mix of Black Oak, Eastern Hemlock, Eastern White Pine, Red Maple, Paper Birch, Northern White-cedar, Tamarack, and Black Ash.
Despite many impacts over the past 200 years, the dune and swale forest is still an amazing place and supports many unique and uncommon species like Purple-flowering Raspberry, nearly identical to Thimbleberry of the Upper Peninsula, Yellow Lady-slipper orchids, Blue spotted Salamanders, Eastern Hognose Snakes, and a great variety of migratory birds that move and nest along Lake Huron.
Yellow Lady-slipper orchid west of Shorewood Forrest subdivision. Photo by Bill Collins.
Purple-flowering Raspberry on a sand ridge west of Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, Lake Huron Woods. Originally known from only 7 shoreline counties in Michigan. Photo by Bill Collins.
Collins, says that the dune and swale forest is a big part of what makes the Blue Water Area unique, yet few understand its character and significance because there is so little public access. “I’ve known it for over 50 years, first as a kid near my grandparents’ house, and then working as a wetland consultant from the early 1990s. Routing a trail through this coastal forest, some of the largest forest tracts remaining in the Blue Water Area, will provide a great opportunity for recreation in a small wilderness. What we are protecting here is approaching the scale of the Port Huron State Game Area.” He believes the Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park will be a regional attraction when completed.
