By Jim Bloch
The Thumb Land Conservancy has purchased an 80-acre parcel featuring dune and swale forests, which will be added to its expanding Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park in northeast St. Clair County. The proposed park now consists of 160 acres in Fort Gratiot and Burtchville Townships.
The TLC bought the Shorewood Forrest parcel, which lies along the north side of Carrigan Road in Fort Gratiot, from the Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner with funding from the Consumers Energy Foundation.
The tract features a number of unusual species such as Purple-flowering Raspberry, Yellow Lady-slipper orchids, Blue-spotted Salamanders and Eastern Hognose Snakes. The area provides habitat for migratory birds traversing the eastern edges of Mississippi flyway and western edges of the Atlantic Lake flyways.
The new Thumb Land Conservancy’s 80-acre Shorewood Forrest preserve is shown in green on a 1995 aerial photograph. Note the parallel dune ridges and contrasting dark swales.
The purchased took place Oct. 23.
The Southern Lake Huron Coastal Park will eventually protect a 4.5-mile long section of dune and swale forest north of Port Huron, one of a few remaining examples of such a coastal ecosystem between Saginaw Bay and Lake Erie. The construction of Birchwood Mall in the late 1980s destroyed hundreds of acres of the rare forest.
“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,” said Bill Collins, executive director of the TLC, in an Oct. 25 statement.
History of the dune and swale forest
Collins laid out the deep history of the dune and swale forest.
For thousands of years, a two-mile thick glacier overlaid what now is Michigan. As the glacier began melting 14,000 years ago, the land began rising, although at different rates. About 7,500 years ago, the rising land blocked off old Georgian Bay outlet of the early Great Lakes, known as the Nipissing Great Lakes, which caused the water to rise 15 feet above its current levels. Drainage of the lakes shifted to the old Chicago outlet that fed the Mississippi River. About 4,500 years ago, drainage shifted again to the Saint Clair River. The high water rapidly drained, leaving a series of parallel sand ridges separated by mucky wetland troughs or swales that rose and fell one to two 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 with by a mix of Black Oak, Eastern Hemlock, Eastern White Pine, Red Maple, Paper Birch, Northern White-cedar, Tamarack, and Black Ash.
The supporters
“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, in a statement. “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 Drain Office plays an important role in protecting wetlands in the County,” said Bob Wiley, county drain commissioner in a statement. “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’s work
The TLC has worked for 16 years to protect the dune and swale forest in Saint Clair County. 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.
“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,” said Collins. “We could not have done this without their help.”
The dune and swale forest is a big part of what makes the Blue Water Area unique, Collins said. But very few people understand its character and significance because there is so little public access to it.
“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,” Collins said. “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 size of the Port Huron State Game Area.”
Collins hopes the park will attract visitors from all around the region.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
