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Places We Protect

Ivanhoe Dune and Swale

Indiana

Nature preserve with green trees and coloful flowers.
Ivanhoe Dune and Swale Ivanhoe Dune and Swale Nature Preserve in Gary, Indiana. © Susan MiHalo/TNC

Ivanhoe is a remnant of a globally unique natural community known as a “dune and swale.”

Viewing

Overview

Description

Why You Should Visit

Ivanhoe is a remnant of a globally unique natural community known as "dune and swale". It was formed when ancient glacial Lake Chicago receded thousands of years ago. A series of linear sandy beach ridges alternate with long narrow wetlands in parallel bands to form this rare community. Like counting the rings on a tree, aerial photographs from the early 1930s clearly show this distinctive topography extending inland several miles from the shores of Lake Michigan.

Rapid industrial and residential development of the lakeshore destroyed all but tiny fragments of this incomparable landscape.

What The Nature Conservancy is Doing/has Done

Located in a working-class neighborhood of Gary, the east 40 acres of Ivanhoe had originally been plotted into individual lots for residential development. TNC began acquiring these lots in the mid-1980s through tax auctions and donations. The west unit of Ivanhoe was amassed in 1991.

With the help of volunteers, interns, and partner organizations, plus financial assistance through various public grants, the Conservancy transformed Ivanhoe into a rich patchwork of upland savanna, prairie, forest, and wetland by thinning out the overstory through prescribed burns and manual labor.

Access

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Size

105 acres

Explore our work in this region

Dune and swale complexes are a series of roughly parallel sandy ridges and low, wet tracts of land. In Indiana, they are formed partly from the irregular cycles of high and low water levels of Lake Michigan. Past glacier movement, wind (eolian processes) and weather play an integral part of the formation of the dunes and swales as well.

There are four distinct zones within a dune and swale complex. They are the beach and foredunes, open interdunal swales, forested dune ridges, and the forested swales. Each zone is characterized by the vegetation (or lack thereof) found and the amount of sand accumulation. A diverse mosaic of black oak savanna, prairie and wetlands are commonly found within a dune and swale community.

The size of the complexes can be quite expansive. In fact, the dunes along the Great Lakes are some of the largest systems of freshwater sand dunes in the world, ranging from high, forested dunes and linear dune ridges commonly backing sand beaches.

The preserve is open for visitation and includes an interpretive trail.