Midewin Webinar: Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Area Festival

LINK to participate: https://usfs.adobeconnect.com/r9-midewin-1000/  

RSVPs are not required; Midewin's webinars are accessible to 1,000 participants. This is a Midewin program. 

8:10 to 9:15 a.m. Historical Overview – Joseph Wheeler, Midewin NTP Archaeologist, Heritage Program Manager and Tribal Liaison What are the ties to Midewin NTP and the canal? Why are we celebrating?   

9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Historical Archaeology along the I&M Canal – Floyd Mansberger, Fever River Research What telling items have been pulled from the canal and what have those things taught us? 

10:30 to 11 a.m. Music by Musician & Storyteller Lee Murdock: “The Illinois and Michigan Canal” (“….where the wild bluestem grasses grew!”); “The Mules that Walked the Fo'c's'le Deck”

“Shores of Lake Michigan / May Day”; “Freshwater Highway”

11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Keynote Speaker: Jerry Adelman, President & CEO, Openlands “The Grassroots Creation of The Illinois and Michigan Canal” – Mr. Adelman will share his reflections about the creation of the nation’s first heritage area. The impetus for this initiative started when concerned citizens along the route of this historic waterway organized for its preservation. Grassroots’ efforts in the late 1960s, coordinated by Openlands, resulted in 1974 with the establishment of the I and M Canal State Trail that ran from Brandon Lock in Joliet to the terminus of the canal at LaSalle-Peru.. The more fragmented and urbanized sections of the canal to the north into the city of Chicago were excluded as they did not fit the definition of a continuous linear park. Starting in the late 1970s, a new landscape-scale approach emerged that embraced holistically the broader region surrounding the canal proper--and the National Heritage Area movement was launched!

12:30 to 1 p.m. Music by Musician & Storyteller Lee Murdock: “Watching Lake Michigan Roll”; “Load ‘em and Stack ‘em”; “The Great Lakes Song”; “The Illinois and Michigan Canal” (….where the wild bluestem grasses grew!”)

1 to 2 p.m. The Life-Size Silhouettes of The I&M Canal - Who are the people depicted in the steel silhouettes along the canal and why are they there? Ana Koval, President and CEO of the Canal Corridor Association will talk about the life-size silhouettes along the canal. Have you gotten your picture taken with all of them?  

2 to 3 p.m. Mystery Along The I&M Canal – Greg Peerbolte, Executive Director, Joliet Area Historical Museum/Old Joliet Prison Historic Site “…On the morning of Sept. 26, 1957, a pair of petite women’s shoes was found outside a stately Victorian home overlooking the bridges of the old canal in Joliet, Illinois.” Who did the shoes belong to? Reporter Molly Zelko went missing the night before. Molly lived in an apartment in a building that overlooked the old bridges of the canal. She always said that if anything happened to her, she’d kick off her shoes.