Bliss Woods
Kane County, Illinois

by Todd Savage

At 285 acres, Bliss Woods Nature Preserve in Kane County is a modest-size natural area, but what it lacks in land mass, it makes up for with a rich and diverse array of plants, wildlife, and geological features.

Mary Ochsenschlager, a naturalist with the St. Charles Park District who has the good fortune to live next door to Bliss Woods, recognized few of the plants in the woods when she moved there more than two decades ago. "I didn’t know a lot about nature, but I knew I was drawn to it," Ochsenschlager says. So thorough was her education that she eventually became a steward for the preserve, and later authored a master plan for it.

For more than three-quarters of a century, Bliss Woods has been a willing teacher to people looking for a glimpse at the natural environment that existed here before European settlers arrived. Set aside as a protected area in the 1930s, it is the second preserve created by Kane County. Although the name belongs to an early settler, its meaning still pertains: The preserve is a blissful blend of woods, oak savanna, and marsh.

Visitors to Bliss Woods will find plant species numbering more than 240, with some found nowhere else in the county: narrow-leaved spleenwort, golden seal, and blue-eyed Mary, which make for a rich wildflower display in the spring. The preserve also is a delight for tree lovers, with an impressive collection that includes red, white (some enormous, 300-year-old specimens), and bur oaks, hickory, white and blue ash, ironwood, and one of the largest butternut trees in Illinois, according to Dick Young, author of Kane County Wild Plants & Natural Areas. The woods are a haven for animals, including deer, fox, raccoons, muskrats, woodchucks, mink, and opossum. The preserve’s watery environment makes it attractive to other creatures as well. There is both a salamander pond and a heron rookery, where several dozen of the great birds nest.

Geology-minded visitors should venture into the area of the preserve that lies east of Bliss Road, where they’ll find one of the preserve’s most interesting natural features: the remnants of a large esker, a winding knoll of gravel deposited by an underground glacial river. Known as the Kaneville Esker, most of it was destroyed by gravel mining. The steep northern and southern slopes are covered with woods and an open floodplain where sawtooth sage grows, one of the only places in the Chicago region where it is found in the wild. The topography of the preserve also includes several semi-conical kames and an outwash plain bisected by Blackberry Creek.

A drive through the area bears witness to the pressures of residential and commercial development, and Bliss Woods provides something of a buffer to the continuing loss of open space. The Forest Preserve District recently added a new 19-acre parcel of marshland directly north that it obtained as part of the area’s flood control efforts. Preserve planners are trying to link as much open land as possible to avoid creating isolated islands of habitat that compromise plant and animal life.

The preserve’s history is deeply intertwined with the earliest settlement of the area. Today it has a campground, picnic, and recreation areas, and for more than a century it traditionally has served as a gathering place for the nearby community of Sugar Grove. With flat, open prairie stretching out beyond it, it’s easy to see what drew people there. The community takes its name from the grove of sugar maples that attracted Potawatomi Indians – who called this wooded area "Sin qua sip" or Sugar Grove. Early settlers were also drawn to the maple’s sugar-making capacities. According to Ochsenschlager, early land records show that settlers who lived on the prairie also owned wood lots in the groves where they could chop timber. The community held Independence Day celebrations there as early as 1843. People came for picnics, to pick violets, and to relax and enjoy the sounds and sights of nature. They still do.