Conference Information

Recap:
Thank You for Making the 19th Annual Conference a Sucess

Thank you for joining us in “Celebrating and Restoring the Calumet’s Living Landscape!” Our 19th Annual Calumet Heritage Conference was an exciting day filled with exploring issues of how we restore and sustain a balance among nature, commerce, and culture. Dynamic panel discussions addressed regional priorities, such as environmental restoration and stewardship, and how to work together across the region to better understand, create, and share our natural, industrial, and cultural heritage. Vibrant conversations arose at every opportunity throughout the day. As always, we took time to enjoy some of the riches our region has to offer by going outside and experiencing it first-hand. This year weather hindered our planned canoe trip and hike around Wolf Lake, nevertheless a brave few ventured outside for a brief presentation on the lake. 

A recap of the 19th Annual Calumet Heritage Conference: Celebrating and Resorting the Calumet’s Living Landscape (from the Calumet Collaborative)

Conference Highlights

From left to right: Calumet Heritage Partnership resolution honoring Edward Sadlowski; Challenges and Opportunities of Environmental Stewardship in the Calumet panel; networking; Lakeshore People’s Museum panel; keynote speaker Brenda Barrett; and Michael Boos’ orientation to Wolf Lake.

A presentation of the Calumet Curators group highlighted the development of the Calumet Voices, National Stories (working title) exhibit project, a regional guide to the region’s local heritage centers, and a “trip” to Cedar Lake. Calumet Curators is a regional network of museums, galleries and local history centers who showcase the natural, industrial, and cultural richness of the Calumet region by connecting local interpretive centers and collections-based organizations that tell the region’s heritage stories.

Management planning for the Calumet National Heritage Area initiative was kicked off at the Conference. The management planning process will turn the Calumet National Heritage Area Feasibility Study into a plan for how the heritage area will be structured. Participants were invited to join in a brainstorming activity over lunch to address the different priorities that would be activated on a regional scale with the Heritage Area.   

Visit the Living Landscape Observer to learn more about keynote speaker Brenda Barrett’s pivotal work on conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development in landscapes like the Calumet region.

Watch video of the conference sessions. Thank you to Chuck Przybyl and Edyta Stepien fromMost Visual for capturing key panels and addresses during the conference.

About the Conference

This year’s conference explores the Calumet’s living landscape, asking questions of how we restore and sustain a balance among nature, commerce, and culture. What priorities are there for environmental restoration and stewardship? How can we work together across the region to better understand and share our natural, industrial, and cultural heritage?  How can we celebrate the culture and lives of those who helped, and continue to help create the Calumet? How can we share this heritage with visitors? We hope that you’ll join us in “Celebrating and Restoring the Calumet’s Living Landscape.” 

As always, following morning conference panels and lunch, we’ll take time to enjoy some of the riches our region has to offer by going outside, and experiencing it first hand. This year our exploration will be from the vantage point of a canoe on Wolf Lake or a hike around its shore. 

Location

Lost Marsh Golf Course
Address: 1001 129th St, Hammond, IN 46320
Time: 8:30 A.M. – 4:30 P.M.

Registration Closed

Registration fee includes morning conference presentations, lunch, afternoon excursion, and membership in the Calumet Heritage Partnership.

Preliminary Program

8:30 A.M. Registration, Meet and Greet, Table Displays, Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:10 A.M. Welcome
Michael Longan, President Calumet Heritage Partnership
 

9:10-10:00 A.M. Panel: Challenges and Opportunities of Environmental Stewardship in the Calumet
Presented by the Calumet Stewardship Initiative of CHP

10:00-10:20 A.M. Collaboration among Museums and Local History Centers in the Calumet
Presented by the Calumet Curators Group of CHP

10:20-10:35 A.M. Break

10:35-11:00 A.M. Panel: Preserving and Celebrating Calumet Cultural Heritage

11:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. Keynote Address: Brenda Barrett, Living Landscape Observer

12:00-12:10 P.M. Calumet National Heritage Area Management Planning Lunch Activity Orientation
Mark Bouman, Field Museum and Board member Calumet Heritage Partnershipp

12:10-2:00 P.M. Buffet Lunch12:10-2:00 P.M. Buffet Lunch

2:00-2:30 P.M. Travel to Wolf Lake

2:30-4:30 P.M. Canoeing Wolf Lake and/or Hike with Wilderness Inquiry
Join us for a celebratory group paddle on Wolf Lake with Wilderness Inquiry. Experience the unique intersection of history, nature, and industry that surround sthis bi-state lake from the water in a 10-personvoyager canoe. Not up for a paddle? Take a hike on the Wolf Lake boardwalk! 

About Keynote Speaker Brenda Barrett 

Brenda Barrett is the editor of the Living Landscape Observer a web site and monthly newsletter providing commentary on land conservation, historic preservation and sustainable communities. She is the former Director of Recreation and Conservation at the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and held positions as the National Coordinator for Heritage Areas for the National Park Service in Washington D.C. and as the Director of Historic Preservation at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. A trustee of US ICOMOS, she has been appointed to the ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes. She also serves on the coordinating committee of the newly formed Network for Landscape Conservation.

Image credits (from left): Felix “Flex” Maldonado, artist, mural of Gary, Indiana, cultural heritage;  Illinois Steel Company machine shop, Southeast Chicago Historical Museum; view from Wolf Lake, David Klein.