“Boat Patrol, Summer, 1991 (Indiana Dunes Nat’l Lakeshore)” by Dan Grossman

Boat Patrol, Summer 1991 (Indiana Dunes Nat’l Lakeshore)

Out from Lefty’s Coho we cruised east. The lake
was the color of sky and the sky was all earth
tones over the Bethlehem Steel Mill and the Port
of Indiana. At the mill a refinery tower stood
slanted like the tower of Pisa—despite 10 ton’s
worth of scaffolding. Cowles Bog sat adjacent.
The bog took the name of a famous ecologist.
The irony was lost on Marge, the big-boned, meat
and potatoes woman at the wheel, when I tried
explaining it to her. A moment later she upped
the throttle and we circled a freighter loaded
with ore. We smelled the black liquid oozing
from outflow pipes before we saw it. We were
crossing the buoy-line that marked the boundary
between work and play. A cool northwest wind,
blowing off the effluent, dried our solvent-
induced tears. We passed a yacht. Jay Nichols
waved while casting his line. Marge spotted a boy
boarding beyond the buoys. We set him straight.
At the sight of a waterskiier in the swim-zone
we turned on the siren, gave chase, brought the
man on board, and fined him. Marge sang Garth
Brooks and steered while I looked through binocs
for glass at Mt. Baldy. Near the NIPSCO* cooling
tower we turned 180. Again we passed the swimmers
soaking in the filth our rule-books condoned.
The refinery tower came back into view. Despite
the scaffolding, a sinkhole was sinking it. An attempt
here to redefine the laws of physics? These
weren’t the laws we enforced. Ours were written
for a world out of whack. Philosophy’s out of line
in this line of work, I thought. We headed back.

● Henry Cowles was a University of Chicago professor who helped give birth to ecological
science. He did much of his research on the Indiana stretch of the Lake Michigan
shore. Much of this area was effected by the industrialization of the shoreline that took
place during the latter half of the 20 th century. The bog Cowles studied during the
1920’s was almost totally destroyed by the construction of the Bethlehem Steel complex
and the Port of Indiana in the 1960’s. The remaining portion of the bog, currently under
jurisdiction of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, is named after Cowles.

● NIPSCO—Northern Indiana Public Service