Ep. 152 - Murder of the Grand Kankakee Marsh

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring

Zack Williams

Outdoors, Wilderness, Sports, Fishing, Outdoor, Hunting, Sports & Recreation

4.6 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2023

⏱️ 103 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 152: Murder of the Grand Kankakee Marsh

“I have never yet found a place that equaled the Kankakee swamps for the variety of game to be found there.” – J. Lorenzo Werich, 1920.

Few know the history now. None who experienced it are still alive to tell us the tale. But it was once known as The Everglades of the North, a million acres of marsh and swamp in Indiana and Illinois, with thousands of people living on the wealth of its fish and game, flocks of waterfowl darkening the skies, passenger pigeons, deer and black bear, beaver and muskrat and otter. For decades it was the so-called “pantry of Chicago,” providing wild game to markets and restaurants, furs to the garment and hat industries, tons of cut reeds for packing materials, and millions of board feet for lumber for houses, including fueling reconstruction after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Then the huge steam-powered dredges came, and the murder of the Grand Kankakee Marsh began. Can we ever put to rights what we once so thoughtlessly sundered? Join us for a conversation with Hal and two of Indiana’s finest storytellers and conservationists: Jeff Manes, a former steelworker turned columnist for the Chicago Tribune who grew up fishing and hunting the swamp, and Jim Sweeney, of the Porter County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League and Friends of the Kankakee.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Where we live is an amazing place, you know, people act like, what a boring, but within an hour, you got the beautiful dunes of Lake Michigan, you got the what's left of the Grand Kankakee March.
0:14.4	And because we're in the middle of country, we get Laura and Bauna from east and west. We get a little bit of everything because it gives people an idea like
0:27.4	And it's not about disaster and oh how bad people are it's about this is what happened and what can we do now you know.
0:35.4	Well this guy spent it most of his life doing good good things right here.
0:41.1	Let's do it right we've got the time and we've got the reasons. We have
0:45.6	we've got flooding and erosion and water quality issues. We still have
0:49.9	whole kinds of extirpated species and endangered fish
0:52.8	and wildlife and plants.
0:54.1	Let's do a big restoration along this river.
0:56.1	We can put a big dent in that
0:58.4	and create a local tourism economy.
1:14.0	Hey everybody, Hal hearing, backcountry hunters and anglers podcast and blasts. Thank you. Thank you. Without Philson, I don't get to do what I want to do with it.
1:18.0	And I've had a mighty good time over the last couple years,
1:22.0	thanks to their support. So I'd ask everybody to check
1:25.8	out Filson.com or your local outdoor retailers. If you know the history is for 125 years,
1:34.0	Philson's uncompromising commitment to quality has defined their brand
1:38.0	and their authenticity.
1:41.0	They have built trust within that community to become more than just a clothing brand.
1:45.0	They are the stewards of an American outdoor tradition.
1:49.0	So if you look at old photos of the Alaskan Gold Rush and on through the 1900s, you'll see that
1:57.4	Filson has always produced some of the best wool products available anywhere. And that tradition is carried on. Check it out. There's
2:06.8	new versions of the old proven wool cruiser jackets, the wool vests. They got the old jacket shirts or jackshirts,
	...

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