INDIANA DUNES

Beach along the south shore of Lake Michigan in Indiana Dunes State Park, northern Indiana, with state park and national lakeshore, lying along the south shore of Lake Michigan in northern Indiana, U.S. The state park, established in 1925, comprises 2,182 acres (883 hectares) of shoreline, marshland, dunes, and forests near Chesterton. In addition to a 3-mile (5-kilometre) white sand beach, it has facilities for camping, picnicking, fishing, and hiking. An outstanding feature is the Big Blowout in the east end of the park, where lake winds constantly drift sands over a wooded area, creating a graveyard of trees. Shifting dunes, like Mount Tom, may reach heights of 200 feet (60 m). The authorization of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in 1966 was the culmination of a 50-year fight to save the dunes from the encroachment of industrialization. It provided for the acquisition of 8,329 acres (3,370 hectares) of dunes and wetland. The national lakeshorewhich is on a bird migratory route and surrounds the state park on three sidesfeatures long beaches, high dunes, deep swales, wooded ravines, and interdunal lagoons and swamps; unique features include fens and bogs that are remnants of Ice Age glaciers. In the dunes is found an unusual flora ranging widely in climatic type from Arctic mosses to tropical orchids and from wetlands loosestrife to desert cactus. In the 1980s further dune acreage was acquired through the efforts of conservation groups, increasing the total federal and nonfederal area to 12,857 acres (5,205 hectares), and development of the national lakeshore continued.