Starved Rock is a huge stony hand that lords over the landscape above the Illinois River. According to legend, in the 1760′s the Potawatomi and the Ottawa surrounded a band of Illiniwek atop this butte, and held their ground until the Illiniwek died of starvation.
There is an idea maze of trails through 18 canyons in this park, and we set off to hike a few, including French and LaSalle at the edge of the woods, along the Illinois River, whose waters ripple with the drift of eagles for much of the year. We veer inland, through clusters of Virginia bluebells, and floral arrays of marsh marigolds, wild iris, trillium and Dutchman’s breeches, plus purple-flowered spiderworts, nodding columbine and blooms of shooting star. We step up a steep walled sandstone slit to a silky waterfall. This is unexpected. It looks like Arizona. Here, in this quiet warm-toned canyon, with a crack to heaven, there is the kind of repose that inspires poets and dreamers. There is a sense of collaborating with the forces behind the pageant of the world.
I next board a packet boat called “The Volunteer,” a 76-foot replica of a 19th-century canal boat that plied the 96-mile, hand-dug I & M (Illinois and Michigan) Canal, with a lock system from the designs of Leonardo da Vinci. This is the canal that turned Chicago from a swamp into a global commerce hub, as it connected Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, allowing cheap water transport to, from and between the East Coast and The Gulf of Mexico, enabling the efficient mixing of ideas and markets.
There is less than a mile of the once great canal open for navigation, between two turtle-filled locks in LaSalle, and just two mules, "Moe" and "Larry," who now trudge the towpath pulling the craft. Legends still swirl, though. Wild Bill Hickok was a mule tender here; Lincoln took his family on a trip; and the Marx Brothers were chicken farmers nearby.
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