Chicago - Boating Unlike I Have Known
August 30, 2023
Hey everyone. I arrived to Chicago, IL last week and with one hiccup, I find myself hold up in Hammond, IN.
First, let me tell you about Chicago. Once it became my next destination, I tried to book a marina spot. That proved difficult because ‘da Bears’ had a pre-season game (who knew you boat to football), and the famous Chicago Airshow was the next weekend and slips had been reserved since spring. I got a booking at the 31st Street Marina which seemed good, just a few miles from downtown. It was a Saturday and as we approached the beautiful city skyline on a sunny day, the swarm of crisscrossing power and sailboats grew intense. The number of boats on the move and anchored randomly along the city waterfront was almost immeasurable. In addition, there were the boat wakes and the heavy lake swells in the very shallow southern Lake Michigan. I hadn’t experienced this intensity of mashed up wave action hitting us from every direction since I left stormy Lake Erie. It took two people to slalom us through the boats and waves. At the harbor, we encountered a steady two lanes of boat traffic that took some maneuvering to insert ourselves into. I am certain that no test of any kind is required to operate a vessel in Illinois. Boating here is like the Mario-cart video game crossed with a bumper boat amusement ride, with a cacophony of loud music and decks filled with partying, lifejacket-less, probably not sober people.
We did get docked. This marina has about 1000 slips and we quickly learned that it was a mecca of bumper boating and partying - at least they all seemed to accept their boating inabilities and they were happy and having fun! There was a very popular beach next door too, along with a very loud outdoor bar and music venue. We went from the serene upper lakes into a disturbed beehive of people and boats in a confined space of perpetual activity. We thought it might be a weekend event, but alas, the dueling music started by 0900hr every day. It could be hip hop, jazz, blues, gospel, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and some other stuff that was perverse. The latter made me ponder our society today and its creation of such anger, hate, and vitriol in popular music as well as social media. And all this at a cost 3x the price of any marina so far. Admittedly, the live music around us was very good.
There has been no shortage of entertainment in Chicago. In addition to the music and partying, including a live band playing from the bow deck next door, helping people dock and fixing their boats were constant activities. My neighbor and his family arrived one morning to find his boat sinking. There was a foot of water in the boat. A call to his brother got him a pump that we plugged into my boat via two extension cords over the water (don’t think about it my electrician friends). He had no boating knowledge but was insistent on taking his family out on the lake in a boat without power, so no working bilge, and holes below the water line. I couldn’t solve his electrical issue but plugged the hole with a bung from WW and Macgyvered a slowing of the flow at the other hole. He got a battery booster from his truck to run the pump he brought on board and was ready to head out. I asked him about life jackets (“hey have you got enough life jackets for everyone”), they did but didn’t fit well, I retied his anchor ropes so he wouldn’t float away in the “Play Pen”, and asked him to stay close to shore just in case I had to come and get them which made him laugh. This was a typical day at the 31st Street Marina.
Some other highlights from Chicago include a White Sox game with Kelly (it was walking distance, in the daytime), getting shunned out of Buddy Guy’s bar- I don’t look very jazzy I suppose, KFC handed through bulletproof glass, the Chicago Airshow from the lake – awesome, and bike rentals to get downtown. Chicago has done an excellent job of developing their lakefront with bike and walking trails, three marinas, the Shedd aquarium, and Field museum. An aside, “chicago” is an anglicized word for the Native American spoken word for wild leeks (Allium tricoccum) which is a tasty edible wild plant that was abundant but I doubt exists there anymore. I was hoping to meet up with the Shedd’s Director of Freshwater Research, Dr. Karen Murchie. She was a graduate student in Canada that I watched grow into a talented researcher. It is great to see young scientists establish themselves; alas, she was at the American Fisheries Society meeting I am missing this year.
I was pleased to see several recycling containers in the marina. At 7AM when nobody was around, just a crazy Canadian who enjoys the relative quiet of a Chicago morning, a truck came to collect the trash and everything went into the same truck. Unfortunately, that is a common occurrence – we think we are doing the right thing on trash, but there is much more to this story. Did you know that Toronto, ON still sends its trash to Michigan and New York City sends its trash to Niagara, NY (among other places). My lake charts show many “disposal area” indications and I suspect that among other things, burned trash ash got dumped out there. Another story for the future you can preview at this link.
The highlight for Chicago was going to be the ride from Lake Michigan into and down the Chicago River. This is the beginning of the downstream trek into the Mississippi River. Sadly, three locks not far from Chicago are under repair and I needed a truck and trailer ride to get around these (more on that hiccup in a moment), but I wasn’t going to miss Chicago and its Sanitary and Ship Canal. I switched crew in Chicago and was joined by my nephew, Hollis Johnson. We got up early Monday morning, traversed a very bumpy lake, and entered the ‘river’ towards downtown Chicago. The entrance begins with the Chicago Harbor Lock. We pulled up at 0745hr as the only boat on the water, hailed them on the radio and called them on the phone but got no answer. Eventually, we connected and they opened the lock for us. When we got alongside the lock wall, Leon said they couldn’t hear our calls over the grass-cutting and weed-whacking they were getting done because only crazy Canadians show up in the river on a Monday morning.
The lock was first opened in 1938. The engineering goal was to reverse flow and stop the river from discharging into Lake Michigan where they got their drinking water. The solution for the river filled with raw sewage was to send it down the Mississippi River instead. The entire region from Chicago to Gary, IN is now an enormous mishmash of canals and channels intended to deal with both human and industrial wastewater, including a massive tunnel system. This water management history is a story on its own for another day. But a few points to mention: first, early on they were aware that raw sewage was bad for you, but the solutions were to send it down the river ‘away from me’ and ‘out of sight out of mind’, and second, the emergence of the persistent engineering doctrine, ‘the solution to pollution is dilution’. I will write about these solutions later because we need to talk about waste management, which is actually an easy task but we have made it a major problem, and today’s ‘not in my backyard’ dilemma that is linked to our declining respect for each other plus the planet’s environment, a.k.a. our home.
Back in the river, we carried on downriver out of the downtown into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. This is the saddest and most unhealthy waterway I have traveled. The banks are lined with industry of every ilk including a steady stream of sand and gravel barges feeding our concrete voraciousness. We traveled about 10 nautical miles downriver through multiple outfalls of unknown waste and the smells of human garbage facilities and harsh chemicals. I turned us back upriver when the wastewater plume ahead became the entire river and the chemicals in the air hurt too much to breathe. This poor river along with its sister the Calumet River are primary examples of our persistent abuse of waterways, so they will come back into my stories as I move into the industrialized rivers ahead of me. This ride also reinforced a sad feeling that I wouldn’t be bathing off the boat anytime soon.
One of my objectives on that downriver trek was a visit to the US Army Corp of Engineers, Electric Barrier at Romeville, IL. This complicated engineering project was designed to keep the fish known as Asian carp that are flooding up the Mississippi River from entering Lake Michigan. These fish are classified as “invasive” species because they are not native, they are prolific, and they are overwhelming the river’s ecosystems. It would be a major disaster if they established themselves in the Great Lakes, but that “if” is really a “when”. Like many invasive species, we humans introduced them for personal economic benefits and with a failure to understand and respect the natural environment. For now, the electric barrier keeps the carp downstream of Lake Michigan. I didn’t make it to the barrier. Tom Scott made an excellent video on the topic you can check out here.
Closer to downtown, the city is making attempts to reclaim the banks of the river as parkland. The downtown development isn’t park-like, but it is still focused on the river. This rethinking and redevelopment is happening in many urban areas and it is a good thing that I’ll explore as I continue my travels.
Well, that is enough about Chicago. I am still docked in Lake Michigan. I had a truck and trailer ride booked, but that fell through after I arrived – my hiccup. Hopefully, my newly confirmed ride around the three closed locks will happen next week!
Until next time, Allen
Hammond, IN
