Porter Beach: clearing invasive trees to bring back a 1917 dune view

At Porter Beach, on the Lake Michigan shore of Indiana Dunes National Park, neighbours and park staff have spent two years pulling out a thicket of invasive trees and vines around the southern parking lot — and then burning what they cut. The aim is a healthier dune community, room for rare species, and a view of the dunes close to what people saw here in 1917.

What has been done

The plants removed include tree of heaven, Oriental bittersweet, Siberian elm, honeysuckle, autumn olive and black locust.

What comes next

• Volunteers and the fire crew keep removing invasive plants.
• Where they sprout again, targeted herbicide is sprayed on the leaves during the growing season.
• Native seed is sown wherever the mix of native plants is thin.

Why it matters

Clearing the invaders improves the health of an unusual plant community, gives rare species more room, and stops the invasives spreading onto neighbouring park, state park and private land.

It also brings back a view. The Dunes Pageant of 1917 was staged near here — one of the events that helped build the case for protecting the dunes, a campaign that ended, eventually, in a national park. With the brush gone, visitors and residents can look out on something like what the pageant's audience saw.

Please stay out of the area. There are no official trails through this unit, and keeping hikers off it is essential while it recovers.

Sources

Written from "Porter Beach Restoration," Indiana Dunes National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.