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Paddling guide

sbradford — Tue, 27 May 2025 15:18:43 +0000

Paddling guide

June 1, 2025

Randy Edwards

When we were young boys, my brother and I sometimes paddled a battered aluminum canoe on the Mohican River in north-central Ohio. We’d launch from a riverside campground at Mohican State Park, where my family often parked our camper, to spend a leisurely afternoon chasing herons and kingfishers downstream and dodging other canoeists on the popular waterway.

A dozen river miles later, we’d pull out the boat in a Knox County hamlet called Greer. Looking back, I suppose our parents were confident we’d be safe because the Mohican was (and is) a placid stream heavily used by canoe rental liveries. But to be honest, back then we had no idea what to expect on that stretch, and information for paddlers was hard to find.

Today, intrepid boaters and their canoes, kayaks, and, increasingly, stand-up paddleboards have an outstanding resource to help them navigate some of the most popular paddling waters in Ohio. Fourteen streams and three sections of Lake Erie shoreline are now designated “State Water Trails” by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

One of those streams is the Mohican, and today’s paddlers can view the Mohican River Water Trail at the ODNR website or download a brochure to find information about access points (including Greer Landing), picnic areas, and points of interest, as well as low-head dams and other hazards along the way.

A combination of safety manual, recreational guide, and marketing campaign, ODNR’s water trail program is designed to “promote the awareness of public paddling access while increasing safety by partnering with local communities to develop designated water trails on Ohio’s waterways.”

The program was launched in June 2005, when the Kokosing River Water Trail became the first designated water trail. The program surpassed the 1,000-mile mark in June 2022, when a 36-mile stretch of the Portage River became the 17th official Ohio water trail.

Although the program is coordinated by ODNR, “it’s not an ODNR-driven effort,” says Mark Allen, statewide trails coordinator for the state agency. The process of developing a water trail includes significant involvement from the local communities along the waterway.

“It’s more of a grassroots effort, where we have to capture that buy-in from local leaders, land managers, and community members,” Allen says. “We want to make sure there is buy-in from all the stakeholders along the trail, that they are in support of providing this as an asset for their community.”

ODNR guides the talks between local communities; user groups; and state, federal, and local park districts, often crossing several county boundaries. Once the groups reach an agreed-upon route, ODNR helps pay for brochures, maps, and signs. Additional promotion is up to the local communities, and some do more than others. Communities along the Tuscarawas River, for example, created an online “story map” that traces the route of the water trail with photographs and GIS maps.

Drawing attention to the scenic and recreational values of a river does seem to encourage local enjoyment of the resource. An analysis of canoe and kayak registrations by Ohio State University professor Ozeas Costa Jr. and Bob Gable of ODNR’s Scenic Rivers program found a strong correlation between the state’s scenic rivers and the percentage of nearby residents with canoe and kayak registrations.

Ohio water trails offer a surprising variety of scenery, challenges, and hazards, Allen says: Paddlers navigate a series of locks along the Muskingum River (see related story here) or a Class V series of rapids on the Cuyahoga River (for expert paddlers only); the Mad River has excellent trout fishing; and the Lake Erie Islands trails offer spectacular scenery in the lake’s most popular tourist area (but watch out for power boaters!).

The trail maps provided by the water trail program are especially valuable for paddlers, says Mary Spikowski, a founding member of Columbus Paddling Club. The club’s 150-plus paid members schedule trips throughout the country, including some each year in Ohio. A map of in-stream hazards such as low-head dams, bridge abutments, and rapids can be lifesaving, she says. And identifying access points prevents conflicts with landowners.

“It’s very helpful to know which side of the river we are allowed to put in and where we can park. We want to stay legal, but sometimes it is hard to know.”

Click here to view maps or download brochures for Ohio’s designated state water trails.

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Mohican State Park

recreational activities

Crossing the 'River Jordan'

sbradford — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:18:25 +0000

Crossing the 'River Jordan'

February 1, 2025

Along the eastern edge of Alum Creek State Park in central Ohio runs a thoroughfare called Africa Road. I’ve lived in the general vicinity for years, and the road’s name always seemed a bit odd to me.

As it turns out, there’s a backstory behind it, dating back to the area’s significant role as a stop on the Underground Railroad. “Around 1847, in the community of East Orange — near what is today a crossroads just south of the dam at Alum Creek Lake — a church dispute over the issue of slavery led to the founding of a new antislavery Wesleyan church,” says Phil Hutchison, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. “The name ‘Africa,’ as applied to the new church and community, was initially meant as an insult, but abolitionists embraced it proudly.”

Late last fall, just off Africa Road in Alum Creek State Park, the ODNR unveiled the first of four planned “Heritage of Freedom” trails in the state commemorating Ohio’s contribution to the Underground Railroad. “The Underground Railroad is a key part of Ohio’s history,” says Mary Mertz, director of ODNR. “This Heritage of Freedom Trail serves as a visual history lesson and provides an immersive way to see what freedom-seekers faced in Ohio’s natural environment during this time in history.”

It is estimated that by the end of the Civil War (1861–1865), as many as 500,000 or more people had emancipated themselves from slavery via the Underground Railroad. While moving from safe house to safe house, Black men and women, sometimes with children in tow, would travel by night, stopping to rest and hide during daylight hours in deep woods, swamps, caves, abandoned barns, or shacks — anywhere so as not to be seen.

I took in the three-quarter-mile-loop freedom trail at Alum Creek on a bleak winter day shortly after it opened. Helped by seven interpretive signs spaced along the trail, I tried to imagine what enslaved people might have experienced while on the run during that season of the year — scared, cold, tired, hungry, poorly clothed, possibly ill.

“The Underground Railroad in central Ohio had two main branches,” Hutchison says. “The first began in Ripley near the Ohio River, where John Rankin, a guide — known as a ‘conductor’ — helped many enslaved people find their way north. This route went through Columbus, Worthington, Delaware, and the Alum Creek Friends Settlement near Marengo in Morrow County. It then continued north to Canada by way of many other safe houses. The second branch of the railroad led from Columbus to Westerville, then farther north to the small settlements of Africa, Sunbury, and beyond.”

Secret signs or signals were often used to help freedom- seekers and conductors identify one another. For instance, imitations of bird calls, ribbons tied to trees, and lanterns shining from windows helped people safely connect during the long, arduous, and dangerous journey north. The “River Jordan” was code for the Ohio River, as crossing it meant arrival into the free state of Ohio.

Of course, even though Ohio did not allow slavery, freedom-seekers still had to rely on the Underground Railroad while traversing the Buckeye State on their way toward Canada. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a federal law, required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to their enslavers, and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate. The law was so controversial that it was one of the factors leading to the Civil War. It was not until President Abraham Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, that the era of slavery officially ended in America.

Three additional Heritage of Freedom Trails are being planned by ODNR: one each at East Fork (southwest Ohio) and Portage Lakes (northeast Ohio) state parks. The location of the fourth is still yet to be determined.

The Heritage of Freedom Trail at Alum Creek State Park is located on the north side of the parking lot at the Galena boat ramp on Africa Road.

Tags

Ohio history

Ohio attractions

American history

Wild kitchen

sbradford — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 21:46:15 +0000

Wild kitchen

January 1, 2024

James Proffitt

Kendra Wecker, chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ wildlife division, swears she’s not trying to put any food trucks out of business.

“Absolutely not,” she insists. The ODNR’s Wild Ohio Harvest mobile kitchen, she explains, has a higher purpose as it serves delicious and nutritious food samples from the 18-foot, fully outfitted trailer: “Our goal is to meet new people who aren’t current anglers or hunters, and we want to hook them through their stomachs and taste buds.”

The kitchen and its chefs cook and serve up free food created with wild-harvested Ohio game, including fish, fowl, and other critters. And Ken Fry, ODNR outdoor skills specialist, says it all began when he was cooking up such treats from the bed of a pickup truck with a pop-up tent at a Jefferson County farmers market a while back.

“It was so well-received that I presented the trailer idea to my supervisor and he liked it and said, ‘Let’s go with it,’” Fry says.

Since the ODNR already had the trailer, all it needed was some cool graphics on the outside and a full kitchen installed on the inside. About $10,000 later, it was done. The trailer includes a kitchen with deep fryers and cooking surfaces, a sink, and plenty of prep and serving space. It can be operated either with propane or electricity, which means its dedicated foodies can crank out yummies at both indoor and outdoor events.

Construction was completed in 2019, but it was sidelined soon thereafter because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, ever since the all-clear, it’s been on the road visiting fairs, boat shows, libraries, and other sites where ODNR chefs tempt Ohioans to get out and harvest their own proteins.

“There’s been a movement in the last 10 to 15 years where people really appreciate knowing where their food, such as produce, comes from,” Fry says. “So hunting and fishing in Ohio is a perfect means to know where your proteins come from and how they’ve been handled from the point of harvest to the table.”

A recent public library event featured a cooler full of iced-up bluegill. Folks could fillet the fish, watch them being prepared, then eat them. Fry says partakers included kids and some adults who had never fished before.

Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine was such a fan of the operation after she sampled its fare that she penned a column for the Xenia Daily Gazette sharing one of the ODNR’s super-secret recipes. Of course, the ODNR was happy for the helping hand in getting the word out that wild game can be fun to acquire as well as tasty and healthy. And, full disclosure: Their recipes aren’t really so secret; the ODNR’s online resources include a cookbook and a YouTube channel.

According to Fry, you never know where the kitchen may pop up.

“We’re trying to get away from preaching to the choir, and so we’ve accepted some events we may not have in the past,” Fry says, citing another recent library appearance. “It was a Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse program, and we talked about how you could use wild game to put meat in the freezer if you had to — if things got real nasty out there with the zombies.”

So what exactly do they cook up? A little bit of everything. Obviously, panfish like bluegill and yellow perch are top ingredients, though walleye tends to be the star of the show when it comes to fish.

“I’d have to say our crowd favorite is blackened walleye with cheddar grits and a Creole sauce,” Fry says. “And for non-fish dishes, that’s a tough one, but probably the black-and-blue venison sliders.”

Ingredients for other trendy dishes have included wild turkey, squirrel, waterfowl, and upland game birds — all prepared in front of diners and potential hunters and anglers. Some of the food prepared in the kitchen is donated by hunters or members of the ODNR staff, and some are garnered from scientific research or evidence seized by wildlife officers.

According to Fry, if the crowd is especially large and hungry and there’s a sense they may run low on food, staff members adjust the portion sizes, which is fine.

“The goal isn’t to feed everyone; it’s to provide a taste,” he says, “and there are times where people love our dishes so much we have to remind them that we’re only here to provide samples.”

Even Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is not immune from the rules. At a recent event celebrating Lake Erie and its walleye fishing, DeWine told the gathered audience that he himself has pushed the limits on the wild game samples and been cut off.

“Well, actually, yes, that has occurred,” he admitted, smiling. “And they actually cut my son off one time, too.”

Tags

Ohio attractions

food

Meat eaters

sbradford — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:39:16 +0000

Meat eaters

September 1, 2023

It took more than 6,000 years for the last ice sheet, the Wisconsin Glacier, to spread across what is now Lake Erie and Ohio, at an average rate of about 160 feet per year. In doing so, it set the stage for peatland ecosystems — bogs and fens (see the red box below if you don’t know what they are) — to make their appearance in the Great Lakes region.

Those bogs and fens, as it turned out, became habitats for some strange natural phenomena, says Guy Denny, author of Peatlands of Ohio and the Southern Great Lakes Region (Kent State University Press, 2022) and one of the Buckeye State’s leading naturalists.

“Even into medieval times, bogs and fens remained mystical and frightening places,” says Denny, a member of Mount Gilead-based Consolidated Cooperative. “Fueling some of those fears was a natural phenomenon known as ‘will-o’-the-wisp’ or ‘jack-o’-lantern’ — a mysterious, flickering light often observed hovering and moving around at night within bogs, swamps, and marshes.

“In folklore, they were thought to be nefarious ghostly spirits,” says Denny, who was inducted into the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Hall of Fame in 2021. “In reality, it was small amounts of methane gas escaping into the atmosphere from the anaerobic decay of peat.”

That spooky otherworldliness seems to make those bogs and fens the perfect setting to find another of Ohio’s other slightly scary natural phenomena that reside there: carnivorous plants. But not to worry — the specially adapted flora only prey upon insects, not humans.

Spatulate-leaved sundew

The fleshy leaves of sundew are covered with glandular tentacles tipped with droplets of sticky secretions. “The common name ‘sundew’ is in reference to how the droplets glisten in sunlight, resembling morning dew,” Denny says. “The sweet and very sticky substance topping the tips of the tentacles attract and then entangle insect prey.”

The more the prey struggles, the more tentacles bend over to further entrap it. Slowly, the tentacles force the prey downward onto the surface of the leaf, which at the same time folds over the prey. On the surface of the leaf are glands that secrete digestive enzymes. Ultimately all the process leaves behind is the indigestible chitinous material that once formed the exoskeleton.

Denny says the entire process takes from three to 20 minutes, depending upon the size of prey. The sundew leaf then slowly reopens to repeat the process with its next unlucky insect victim.

Northern pitcher plant

Pitcher plants, as their name implies, have a basal rosette of colorful pitcher-like leaves incredibly well designed for attracting, trapping, and consuming insects. “Upon landing on the collar of a leaf, prey, such as a wasp, hangs on while lapping up nectar, which, by some accounts, contains an intoxicant that seems to disorient its victim,” Denny says. There’s an ample supply of sweet nectar, but the surface also contains hundreds of stiff, downward-pointing bristles, directing the victim into the depths of the leaf. Just below the bristle zone is a smooth, slippery surface, where the prey eventually loses its footing.

Microscopic magnification shows the slick zone is made up of special cells laid down one atop the other, like shingles on a roof. The cells are both sticky and easily dislodged. As the victim struggles to keep from sliding further into the plant, cells break off and adhere to its feet and body, weighing it down and accelerating its plunge into the liquid contents of the pitcher-like leaf. The prey eventually drowns and sinks to the bottom of the pitcher, where it is digested and its nutrients absorbed into the plant.

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor. Email him with your outdoors questions at whchipgross@gmail.com. Be sure to include “Ask Chip” in the subject of the email. Your question may be answered on www.ohiocoopliving.com.

Bogs and fens?

If you don't know the difference between a bog and a fen, this little saying might help: "Fens flush and bogs back up." It means that fens are sustained by underground water sources, such as a mineral-rich spring; bogs, on the other hand, depend upon precipitation or surface water to replenish them.

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Consolidated Cooperative

Wild at heart

sbradford — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 19:48:19 +0000

Wild at heart

January 1, 2023

Ohio Division of Wildlife

Aldo Leopold, the “Father of Wildlife Management,” described his classic book, A Sand County Almanac, like this: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.”

It was as if he was also describing the tens of thousands of employees and volunteers of the Ohio Division of Wildlife who have worked tirelessly for the benefit of wild mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and insects over the last century and a half. This year, 2023, marks the 150th anniversary of the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

“The division is a direct descendant of the Ohio Fish Commission, which was created by the General Assembly in 1873,” says Steve Gray, a former chief of the division from 2003 to 2007. “In 1949, the commission was joined with other state conservation agencies to create the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which today consists of nine separate divisions and three offices.” Gray is currently an assistant director of the ODNR.

To conserve and improve fish and wildlife resources and their habitats for sustainable use and appreciation by all. - Mission statement of the Ohio Division of Wildlife

The Division of Wildlife currently either manages or cooperates in managing over 750,000 acres of diverse wildlife lands throughout the state, plus thousands of miles of streams and rivers, inland lakes, and 2.25 million acres of Lake Erie. Nearly all of the Division of Wildlife’s funding comes from Ohio hunters and anglers through the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and excise taxes on the sale of firearms and ammunition.

In 1873, the Ohio landscape looked very different than it does today. Prior to statehood in 1803, the Ohio country had once been described by an early historian as a “howling wilderness.” But those frontier times were long gone, the era taking with it two large, iconic carnivores (wolves and mountain lions) and two of their larger prey animals (bison and elk). Those four indigenous species were destined to never return to the wilds of the Buckeye State.

In general, fish and wildlife populations at the time were in pretty sad shape, due mainly to habitat destruction coupled with unregulated hunting and fishing. Ohio’s forests were similarly on the ropes. Once covering 95 percent of the state, only about 10 percent of the virgin woodlands remained by 1873. The creation of the Ohio Fish Commission, which eventually became the Ohio Division of Wildlife, came none too soon.

I had the privilege of working for the division for 26 years, from 1976 to 2022, beginning my career as a state wildlife officer. Those were exciting times, as the latter half of the 20th century was when keystone species of wildlife were being restored: white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, Lake Erie walleyes, river otters, and bald eagles, to name just a few of the more charismatic critters.

One of the many changes I witnessed during my career with the division was the professional advances made by women. Once relegated mainly to office jobs, women have since become wildlife officers, fish and wildlife biologists, managers, and administrators. The current chief of the Division of Wildlife, in fact, is Kendra Wecker; appointed in 2019, she is the first woman to hold that position.

In addition to the 11 million people who call Ohio home, the Buckeye State is also now home to robust wildlife populations that once again offer outstanding hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing opportunities. For that, we can thank those many men and women who have worked for the Ohio DNR, Division of Wildlife, both past and present. None of them got rich —believe me, I know — but their passion and dedication to their careers is seen today in the many wildlife species we all continue to enjoy.

The work of wildlife management continues statewide, of course, and no doubt there will be more and possibly unprecedented challenges in the future. But for now take a bow, Division of Wildlife — well done and congratulations on your 150th anniversary!

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Counting the dead

sbradford — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 12:27:40 +0000

Counting the dead

September 1, 2022

James Proffitt

Mostly in life, possums, skunks, groundhogs, and racoons don’t get much respect. That’s especially so for the ones who spend their last earthly moments on Ohio roadways, just before they get hit.

To at least one person in Ohio, however, they’re forever immortalized, even if it’s just as a number.

Katie Dennison is a research biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife. At the Olentangy Research Station in Columbus, she oversees the annual Furbearer Roadkill Survey. And yes, that’s the official name.

Katie Dennison

“There are 50 different routes, 40 miles long,” Dennison says. “We drive them three times a month in March and April, so they get covered a total of six times each.”

Every year the routes are driven by wildlife officers or DOW staff like Katie. As the name suggests, they count the roadkill. And for what possible earthly reason?

“All four are native species and they’re game animals in Ohio. As a part of our mission, we monitor all our game species to keep track of their population trajectories,” she says. “It was established in 1979, so it’s been going on for a long time.”

Dennison says it’s usually fairly easy to identify a carcass on or near the road, though if it isn’t, surveyors must stop and get a closer look.

“We get funny looks occasionally,” she says, laughing. “People will sometimes stop and want to know what you’re doing or what you’re looking for.”

It’s often wildlife officers like Michele Butler charged with the surveys. Butler, assigned to Erie County, recently spent a couple hours driving a route that meandered through Sandusky and Ottawa counties. At one point, she slowed to a crawl for something unidentifiable, but then shook her head, punched the accelerator, and continued on. It was just a clump of muddy turf.

Speaking of precipitation, wildlife officers say surveys in the rain can be a little tricky because everything gets matted down and harder to identify on the fly.

“Sometimes you see something and you don’t know if it’s a racoon that’s been hit 20 times or if it’s dirt or something else,” she chuckles. “There’s definitely more exciting things we could be doing. But this is important data for our biologists like Katie. And plus, I’d much rather be outside than in an office or a lab.”

Butler says she never seems to find anything too exciting — but sometimes other people do.

To supplement the survey that tracks the four furbearing animals, Ohio bowhunters are asked to take part in a voluntary survey each hunting season — about 3,300 sent in data last year. The hunters are asked to keep an eye out for the four species while in the woods. As an example, a recent survey from bowhunters accounting for about 108,000 hours in the woods offered up numbers on the species, plus a few bonus sightings of black bears, fishers, and other notable creatures.

Dennison says the bowhunters aren’t hunting for the species, they’re just recording how many hours they were in the woods and what they saw — which is an important supplement to the information collected from the roads.

“They’re abundant species — we just use the information from both sources to keep tabs on them and make sure that no large, unaccounted changes take place,” she says.

Surveyors driving the routes are also asked to report anything unusual and when possible, to collect the carcass for a necropsy to determine age, sex, health, reproductive status, etc.

“Badgers are one of those we ask them to collect,” Dennison says. “And gray fox also.”

While porcupines have been sighted in Ohio near the Pennsylvania border, none have been found on the road during the survey. Some armadillos have showed up — though Dennison discounts them as hitchhikers because they were found hundreds of miles from their nearest territory near an interstate in northern Ohio.

Another species Dennison wants to know about are bobcats, which have made a comeback in Ohio and so are seen frequently by officers — both alive and on the road.

Dennison said the bowhunter survey data usually correlates with the roadkill survey data.

“For the most part, they’re pretty much in line,” she says. “The possum was one where we’ve seen a declining trend going back to the early ’90s. And on bowhunter and roadkill surveys, skunks declined through the ’90s and early 2000s, but have been stable for about a decade.”

Banner years both population- and roadkill-wise for groundhogs, possums, raccoons, and skunks? 1989, 1991, 2000, and 1996, respectively. And apparently time and experience does not teach any of the four animals to better cross roads since the total number hit versus number-per-mile remains a steady ratio throughout the survey history.

When asked about turtles (which aren’t on the survey), Dennison made it clear she’s no expert. But she does have some advice because — let’s face it — who among us has not stopped to help a turtle cross the road?

“If you can stop safely,” she says, emphasizing the “safely” part, “always move them in the same direction they were heading — otherwise they’ll just turn back around and head back across the road.”

Tags

Ohio Division of Wildlife

Specter of the forest

sbradford — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 20:30:12 +0000

Specter of the forest

August 1, 2022

I enjoy reading — always have. One of my favorite books is Wilson Rawls’ 1961 classic, Where the Red Fern Grows. The author reveals the origin of the title of his fiction novel through his young protagonist, Billy Colman, who lived in the Oklahoma Ozarks:

“I had heard the old Indian legend about the red fern. How a little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and had frozen to death. In the spring, when they were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between their two bodies. The story went on to say that only an angel could plant the seeds of a red fern, and that they never died; where one grew, that spot was sacred.”

Ohio has its own version of a “red fern,” a plant eerie and haunting, mysterious and ephemeral, yet at the same time beautiful and delicate — it’s known as “ghost plant” or “ghost pipe.” Native American tribes were familiar with it, which is why the plant is sometimes also called “Indian pipe.” To botanists, it is Monotropa uniflora.

The plant grows in such deep, dark forests and is so short-lived that I’ve only seen a handful during a lifetime of wandering the woods. One was growing along the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, spotted during a day hike with my wife. Several other plants I’ve stumbled across here in Ohio (not literally, thankfully), but not often. Each serendipitous find is truly a special event to be celebrated and, of course, photographed.

“They’re pretty common but also pretty easily overlooked, as they have no bright colors to catch one’s eye,” says Jim McCormac, retired from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and one of Ohio’s leading botanists. “They tend to bloom during the dog days of summer, when not as many people are traipsing about the woods with all the heat, humidity, and biting deer flies. The plant’s been documented in at least 50 Ohio counties and probably occurs, or has occurred, in all 88.”

An herbaceous perennial, ghost plants are usually waxy-white, sometimes a pale pink, and often flecked with black specks. Even more rare, such as Wilson Rawls’ storied fern, a few ghost plant variants can be colored a deep red.

Ghost plants lack the green coloring of most plants because they do not produce chlorophyll. Rather, they are (big-word alert) mycoheterotrophs, simply meaning they feed on fungi associated with certain trees, often beeches. This parasitic relationship allows the ghost plant to live on the forest floor in areas of dense canopy cover, where summer sun cannot penetrate.

Usually, several individual plants grow in a group, as high as a foot tall, looking like white, scaly clay pipes that have been stuck into the ground on their stems. A good time to search for ghost plants is a few days after a rainfall.

Now, mid- to late-summer, is the time of year to look for a ghost plant. Take a hike at a state park, state nature preserve, or another mature forest location to search for one. And to prepare for the experience, you just might read Where the Red Fern Grows.

If you happen to know of any food or medicinal value associated with ghost plants and would like to share that information, you may contact me by email at whchipgross@gmail.com. I will then, in turn, share the information with other OCL readers in a future online “Ask Chip” column.

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plants

Shooting black bears!

sbradford — Tue, 31 May 2022 17:39:47 +0000

Shooting black bears!

June 1, 2022

I’ve lived in Ohio all my life, spent tons of time in the outdoors, and have never encountered a black bear in the wild in the Buckeye State. That’s not to say they’re not here, of course. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates Ohio’s black bear population at only five to 15 resident individuals and anywhere from 50 to 100 transient bruins. Given the size of our state, that puts the chances of finding a cooperative bear to photograph somewhere near those of me winning a beauty contest.

There’s another option, however, and not too far from Ohio, for anyone who’s always wanted to photograph, or at least see, a black bear in the wild. But first — and this is important — understand that although photographing a bear is a thrilling experience, it obviously must be done safely, or the encounter could become a bit too thrilling. A sow defending her cubs or a male defending his territory can be particularly dangerous.

Predictably unpredictable, black bears are not the bumbling oafs or cuddly teddy bears they are portrayed to be on some television nature programs. No matter where they live, by nature a bear is still a bear, and they are much stronger, smarter, and more adaptive than most people realize. They are also fast, able to run 30 miles per hour for a short distance (the best an Olympic sprinter can do is in the low 20s). It is the wise wildlife photographer who gives bears a wide berth.

How best, then, to safely photograph bears? Shooting bears with a camera is one instance when a telephoto lens is an absolute necessity, as it gives you plenty of working distance yet still allows you to fill the frame of your camera’s viewfinder with the photo subject. So how close is too close? A good rule of thumb is that if your presence changes the natural behavior of a bear, you’re too close.

My personal choice of photography equipment for bears and other wildlife is a Canon EOS 7D Mark II camera body attached to a 100–400 mm Canon zoom lens. Though certainly not the latest and greatest body, this camera was designed for sports/wildlife photography and has been a workhorse for me for years. In fact, most of my photos that have accompanied my features in Ohio Cooperative Living magazine through the years were taken with this camera. In addition, I often mount a 1.4X teleconverter (multiplier) between the body and lens, giving me 560 mm of reach. I sometimes steady the camera and lens with a monopod.

If you don’t care to invest in traditional photo equipment, some late-model cellphones have excellent zooming capabilities and produce professional-quality images. An added benefit of cellphone photography is that most people carry their phones with them all the time.

All that said, what is my suggestion for where and when to shoot photos of black bears? Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, is within a day’s drive of Ohio. It is the most visited national park in the country, and it’s loaded with bears. As a result, black bears are so used to seeing people that most pay little attention to visitors, often ambling by just a few yards away.

GSMNP encompasses a huge area, and bears are where you find them — but a good place to begin looking is Cade’s Cove, a paved, 11-mile-loop auto and bicycle trail. Visiting during this time of year helps tilt the odds of seeing a bear in your favor, as they’re fattening up — literally “hungry as a bear” — after losing weight during winter hibernation. For a photographer, that means more potential encounters with bears.

While photographing bears when other photographers are near and working the same subject, remember common courtesy. For instance, just this past spring I was photographing a yearling black bear at Great Smoky Mountains, the bear only a few feet off the road. As I started shooting, however, I heard a vehicle pull up behind me, stop, and a car door open. A young man in his twenties jumped out, ran up with cellphone in hand, positioned himself squarely between me and the bear, and took a selfie with the bear in the background. He then yelled to his buddies in the car, “Got it!” Running back to the vehicle, he jumped in, slammed the door, and the car roared off.

The young man was way too close to the bear for his own safety, but fortunately the yearling was spooked into the underbrush and didn’t come at him. Nevertheless, it was game over for me and the other few photographers who had been shooting that particular bear. It should go without saying, but don’t be “that guy.”

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photography

Deep blue mysteries

sbradford — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 16:18:16 +0000

Deep blue mysteries

March 1, 2022

James Proffitt

At one time, the “blue hole” in Castalia was a big deal. Really big. From the 1920s until it closed in 1990, the quaint tourist destination drew as many as 165,000 visitors each year who traveled to gaze at the geologic curiosity. The deep artesian spring exudes an intense blue color, explained by scientific jargon about the sun, light spectrum, and water depth. The main thing is — it was really cool. Robert Rogers, the British Army officer who first recorded its sighting in 1761, described it as “boiling above the ground in a column 3 feet high.” From that first sighting, its attraction was a guarantee, though by the early 20th century, a series of underground cave-ins had turned the site into more of a large, serene pool than a boiling column of water.

But, hey, it was still cool.

Nancy Gurney remembers going to the Blue Hole on the occasional Sunday day trip to Castalia with her family in the 1950s, when she and her sister were young and her parents were farmers in Seneca County.

“It was so nice, all landscaped and beautiful, and it had flowers,” recalls Gurney, who now lives in Lakeside. “And there was this mystery of a deep hole with no bottom they can detect.”

Gurney, later a scientist, admits that, of course, there is a bottom — though to a child and tourist, the bottomless mystery thing was way neater.

Neat enough, in fact, to attract the attention of a blind ham-radio operator named Henry McFerren, who enlisted the help of other hams in an attempt to track the source of the Castalia Blue Hole’s water. The story was detailed in a 1941 Radio News magazine article.

McFerren launched a 2-pound rubber ball (with a homemade radio transmitter inside) into an underground stream deep inside Seneca Caverns, about 30 miles to the south near Bellevue. Radio operators on the surface tracked the transmitter more than a mile before losing the signal — though the experiment was considered a success: They did track the ball toward the Castalia Blue Hole.

The Castalia Trout Club has owned the site since 1879, and while it’s no longer a tourist attraction — it’s been closed for three decades — folks still show up all the time. Unfortunately, when they do, they’re trespassing. “When people blatantly disregard the ‘private drive’ and ‘do not enter’ signs, that does not fly well,” says Steve Sessler, the trout club’s manager.

While the original Castalia Blue Hole sends thousands of gallons of water toward Sandusky Bay via Cold
Creek every minute, there are several other, smaller blue holes in the area.

So what exactly is a blue hole? According to Douglas Davis, with the Ohio Geological Survey, a blue hole is created when the ceiling of an underground cavern — in this area, limestone or dolomite caves — collapses, creating an opening for pressurized groundwater deep below the surface to rise into the new opening.

“The area’s kind of unique because south of Castalia into Bellevue and beyond, there’s almost no creeks to speak of on the surface. It’s really crazy,” Davis says. “Most of the surface water drains into sinkholes.”

The area drained by sinkholes is more than 300 square miles. That water, Davis says, is what feeds a massive underground system that eventually sends water up through the series of blue holes in the area. The water flows at a constant temperature of 53 to 54 degrees year-round and, as a number of private clubs figured out in the 19th century, provides the perfect source for raising trout.

Luckily, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources got into the game around 1997 when one of those clubs folded and sold off its property — which included a blue hole. ODNR purchased the land and constructed the state-of-the-art Castalia State Fish Hatchery, where it now raises about a half-million rainbow and steelhead trout each year to be stocked in Lake Erie tributaries and in public lakes and ponds around the state.

The hatchery also fills the tourist void left when the Castalia Blue Hole was closed to the public. “A lot of people think this is the one they saw as a kid, so it’s kind of a daily explanation,” says Andrew Jarrett, the site’s superintendent. “I tell them, ‘This isn’t the same one, but it’s similar.’” He says about half the people who show up to the hatchery come to see the fish — the other half just want to see the natural oddity that is the blue hole itself.

Castalia Fish Hatchery, 7018 Homegardner Road, Castalia, OH 44824. 419-684-7499. The hatchery is open during the week for self-guided tours. Bring popcorn, cereal, bread, or other tasty trout chow. And a camera.

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Ohio history