Finding great outdoor recreation spaces in Illinois often involves a sort of mission… quest… thing. At times you stumble upon great opportunities and other times you just need to take some good advice. A few years ago, I took some good advice about visiting the Shawnee National Forest. The story behind my adventure reminded me of the beginning lines from the Biblical tale of Job.
Job 1:6-8 “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
Fast forward to my own storyline circa 2009. Friends from the Christian and Jewish faiths, forgive my simile as I make my connection.
One day the students came to class (shocking, I know). The first year masters student (me) struck up a conversation with a second year masters student.
Second year masters student: “Where have you come from?”
Me: “From the lakes and hills and forests of Wisconsin. I’ve been roaming all over Illinois, searching for places like no where else on earth.”
Second year masters student: “Have you considered the Shawnee? It’s forests are faultless and its canyons are upright.”
And the connections continue as the story progresses. Job is struck by Satan and loses everything. His wealth, his family, and his health. The forests of the Illinois Ozarks were seen as a prime real estate in the early 1800s (See the Shawnee National Forest story here). The forest lost everything to the farm. After much suffering and lamenting, God visits Job. We see “then, that Job’s suffering has a twofold explanation: its purpose at the outset was to demonstrate God’s value and glory, and its ongoing purpose was to refine Job’s righteousness.” In the early 1900’s the people of southern Illinois began to face the depression long before the rest of the country could fathom what was happening. Erosion, the lack of soil fertility and poor farming/logging practices led to terrible poverty and suffering. At the same time, the US Forest Service recognized there were hardly any national forest sites east of the Mississippi. In response to this two-fold need a New Deal project was created through the CCC to purchase converted forest acreage and declining farm tracts to restore and reestablish forestlands. This brought much needed cash and jobs to declining regions of Illinois. A little over two thousand workers found work preparing the land, collecting seeds and nuts and slowly replanting the forest. You’d never know the difference as you walk the trails of the Shawnee today. However, the Shawnee’s value and purpose are both a little more sweeter now that you know that the forest was once lost and now has been restored.
So, I ask you the same question, once posed to me by a wise sage: “Have you considered the Shawnee?”
Visit: The Shawnee is full of micro adventures around every corner. Listen to this sage’s advice and start your own quest with the Pomona Natural Bridge.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/shawnee/recarea/?recid=10678
Consider: You need to get out of this town? Go some place warm? Go to a place where the beer flows like wine, and the hikers instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a place called Blue Sky Vineyards and the Southern Illinois Wine Trail.
