Workers restoring Lake Villa preserve

When they walked the area near what is now Lake Villa in the late 1830s, surveyors carrying a compass for direction and chains for measurement literally reported the lay of the land.

Settlers were starting to trickle into Lake County, and the government wanted an accurate picture for potential buyers. Was the land fit for farming? Was there timber on the property?

"This was the time when the bears and wolves and mountain lions were still here," said Ken Klick, restoration ecologist with the Lake County Forest Preserve District.

Near what is now known as Sun Lake, surveyors found stands of white and bur oak. Over time, settlers created gaps in the terrain by clearing some of these woods for lumber, to farm or raise animals.

Using those observations and old aerial photographs, Klick can tell how an area used to be and pinpoint where it makes sense to try and restore the past.

Which is why in recent weeks, contractors have been installing $60,000 worth of trees and shrubs -- 2,100 altogether -- to knit a clearing at Sun Lake into the landscape of long ago.

Trail users at the preserve, which features a mosaic of oak woodlands and wetlands, may have noticed the seemingly random plantings of more than a dozen varieties of trees and shrubs.

The plantings include about a 50-50 split of trees and shrubs including white, bur and black oaks; bitternut and shagbark hickories and downy hawthorn trees. Shrubs include ceanothus, corylus, prunus, rosa and viburnum.

"Sun Lake historically had all these trees, so we're connecting the remnants," Klick said. The larger an area that can be filled, the more protected it will be from invasive plants, animals and other outside influences, allowing for a more original habitat.

"We're always doing plantings, but this one in particular is very large," said Allison Frederick, a forest preserve spokeswoman.

Klick said about only about 1/100th of 1 percent of the native landscape remains in Illinois. Because of the many wetland areas, Lake County is probably at about 1 percent, he estimated.

Too much time has passed to restore the original, but the plantings in time will mimic the remnant forest at Sun Lake, Klick said.