Several exciting fieldtrips are being prepared for the joint WLAAG/ELDAAG meeting. Here are some of the highlights.
1. A Walking Tour of Valparaiso
This walking tour examines some of the rich architecture and urban design of Valparaiso, a county seat town situated near an important cultural divide. North of this divide finds significant Northern or Yankee cultural influence, while south of the divide Midland cultural traditions prevail.
Yankee influence is evident in Valparaiso's many Greek revival and upright-and-wing houses dating to the late 19th century, some as early as the 1860s. The Midland tradition is exemplified, on the other hand, in the layout of Valparaiso's courthouse square, which follows the "Shelbyville" pattern. Valparaiso, in fact, has one of the northernmost examples of the Shelbyville square.
For many northern Indiana cities, fluctuation of economic activities has induced a deterioration of economic growth. During the 1970s, downsizing, cutbacks, and relocation of the steel industry resulted in a host of unfavorable socioeconomic circumstances such as low wages, high unemployment and poor infrastructure.
Michigan City, IN responded to the economic stagnation with a plan that increased commercial activity in relation to the recapturing of its natural resources. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Michigan City has experienced economic growth in the commercial and tourist industries which, in turn, has stimulated growth in other economic sectors, including the boating industry and residential development.
This tour will give an interesting view of the geographic relationships between the economic activities that have energized the city's recent economic growth.
This fieldtrip revisits the sequent occupance of the Kankakee Marsh reclaimed area of northern Indiana as studied by geographer Alfred H. Meyer, the founder of the Department of Geography at Valparaiso University.
Meyer once described this area as the land "God forgot to finish." But was it a human-reclaimed area of extraordinary fertility or a failure as a reclamation project—a substitution of unproductive land for the most ideally adjusted wildlife forms of plants and animals?
The trip also reveals the rich historical geography of the region, in particular the sequence of the Indian hunter, the French trader, the trapper, the pioneer farmer, and the river restorer.
This fieldtrip will visit a number of prominent sites near the lakeshore, one of the most remarkable of which will be Mt. Baldy—a classic, 200-foot coastal blow out dune which is actively advancing over a forest, with a slip face gradually burying the tree trunks.
Participants will climb the 200-foot blow out dune and descend the 35( angle slip face slope in an area protected for public use in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.