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May 2010 | | Comments
From Suburbs to City—Go Canoeing
The time to celebrate outdoors is here and the suburbs north of Chicago offer an amazing opportunity to explore nature and escape from the sounds, smells and sights of the metropolitan area in a canoe or a kayak.
Here are some places where you can float your own boat or where you can rent a craft to paddle for an hour or a day and watch the turtles sunning themselves, perhaps encounter a muskrat or beaver, spot a deer or spook a Great Blue Heron:
The Skokie lagoons bordered by Northbrook, Winnetka, Northfield and Glencoe. launching area off of Tower road East of the Edens and West of Forest Way.
Chicago River launch in Skokie/Evanston at 3220 Oakton
The Lake County Forest Preserve District has several canoe launches on the Des Plaines River Trail:
- Wadsworth, Van Patten Woods on Russell Road east of Route 41 and west of Green Bay Road
- Wadsworth canoe launch on Wadsworth Road east of Route 41
- Gurnee, Verne Gowe Memorial Park, 4621 McClure Road south of Grand Avenue and west of N. Oplaine Road (watch out for beaver dams)
- Libertyville, West Oak Spring Road west of Route 41
- Vernon Hills, South side of Route 60 east of Milwaukee Avenue
- Lincolnshire, Rivershire Park, launch is East of Milwaukee and West of Riverwoods Road and South of Half Day Road
- Bluff Lake, west of Antioch in Northwestern Lake County. Lake is west of Milwaukee Avenue off of West Beach Grove Road
- Allison Woods, Glenview/Wheeling/DesPlaines, off of Milwaukee Ave., South of Willow Road (part of the Cook County Forest Preserve Des Plaines River route
- Big Bend Lake, Des Plaines, Off of Golf Road and East River Road, entrance is east of East River Road
Visit our Better List for a variety of places from which to rent a canoe or kayak.
About The Author
Larry Green is an award-winning veteran of the publication industry with backgrounds in reporting, editing, advertising and new media. Most recently he was President and Publisher of Pioneer Press (2000-2009). Prior to that he served in a variety of positions at Pioneer’s parent company, the Sun-Times News Group, including executive editor of the Sun-Times and Vice President of Advertising and Marketing. His reporting career has taken him from the farm fields of the Midwest to the battlefields of Southeast Asia and the Middle East to the slopes of Mt. St. Helens to the corridors of the Illinois capital. He has also worked for the Detroit News, the Chicago Daily News in Chicago, Springfield and Vietnam and oversaw operations of the Los Angeles Times Midwest Bureau. He is a North Shore resident and a New Trier parent and a member of the North Shore Senior Center’s board of directors.
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