Today, Nachusa Grasslands illuminates a larger truth: The few remaining prairies of the Great Plains can no longer survive without the efforts of people. And the efforts of the
people at Nachusa — the seed collecting that leads to the seed sorting that leads to the months of seed drying that leads to the weeks of seed sowing (mostly by hand in all kinds of weather) and finally the constant tending — has resulted in the continuous conservation and restoration of one of the largest surviving prairies in the Prairie State.
“We’re proving that you can restore prairies,” says Stacy. “It takes time, sure, but it can be done.”
Since 1986, when the Conservancy purchased the core of the preserve, Nachusa has grown to 2,500 acres. And from early on, volunteers have been an essential ingredient in the restoration project.
Without them to care for the seed and sow it by hand, without Mary Vieregg watching the calendar and the land to make sure the stewards don’t miss their best chance to collect pasque flower seeds again this year, without Hank Hartman constantly patrolling for invasive plants, without Chris Hauser pollinating endangered eastern prairie fringed orchids with a steady hand and a toothpick, without Jay Stacy literally crawling across the prairie to plant porcupine grass seed quill by quill, the restoration will fail.
A Man for All Seasons
Jay Stacy is not the first person to come to Nachusa Grasslands looking for something, but he has perhaps found the most. He first came for the birds. He carried his hopes, his binoculars and a map drawn by hand for him by the Conservancy staff in Chicago. Now, wearing a battered baseball cap and holding his Marlboro, he gestures across the prairie and smiles as he remembers his first trip to the preserve in 1993.
“I wanted to see an upland sandpiper and a grasshopper sparrow, so I drove out here from Chicago because a Conservancy calendar had said that those two birds were here. As soon as I pulled up, there was a small wooden sign declaring that this was Nachusa Grasslands, and sitting right on that sign was a grasshopper sparrow. It was just sitting right there. I didn’t even have to use my binoculars. And then, a few minutes later, I saw an upland sandpiper. And that’s when I knew. This was the place.”
Some might say that this is where Jay Stacy finally found his place in the world.
Like most devotions, it started small and gradually grew until Nachusa became the center of his life. For two years, Stacy packed up his trailer and hauled it south to spend the winter first in Florida, then in Alabama. But the pull of Nachusa finally proved too strong, so he moved, boarding in a house in the town of Oregon, Illinois, to be close to the preserve in all seasons. He rarely talks on the phone — he doesn’t have one. And he’s reluctant to talk about life beyond and before Nachusa. He will say that his accomplishments here are some of his proudest.
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Nature picture credits: All Photos © Ann E. Cutting
