Prairie Rivers Network thanks the following individuals for their extraordinary contributions.
Jason Lindsey
Jason Lindsey (www.JasonLindsey.com) is one of the premier nature and wildlife photographers in the Midwest. His award-winning work has been published in books, magazines, posters, annual reports, advertising, cards, and calendars. His photographic art book Windy City Wild: Chicago’s Natural Wonders, by the Chicago Review Press, reveals and explores the natural areas and wildlife of the Chicago region.
Jason’s images have been featured in Backpacker, Illinois Audubon, Chicago Wilderness, Patterns, U magazine and Illinois Steward, and are used by many national agencies and nonprofit organizations including the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Prairie Rivers Network, Illinois Environmental Council, American Rivers, the National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife, The Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, Illinois Department of Tourism, PBS, Harry N. Abrams, University of Illinois Press, Oxford Press, and Walking Stick Press.
Our website includes many of Jason’s images, and he has graciously made a large number of them available for display in the Photo Archive.
Ralph Frese
Ralph Frese, owner of “The most unusual canoe shop in the U.S.A.,” has earned the respected title of “Mr. Canoe,” but many know he’s also an energetic and dedicated conservationist, historian, orator, collector, and bibliophile. Ralph is a fourth-generation blacksmith, whose blacksmith shop is part of the Chicagoland Canoe Base at 4019 N. Narragansett Avenue, Chicago. For more information, visit www.chicagolandcanoebase.com
Ralph has been building canoes since his mid-twenties, and has built both authentic birchbark models and fiberglass replicas. He is also founder of the Des Plaines Canoe Marathon, an annual event for over forty years. In 1973, Ralph built two 21-foot early Algonquin birchbark canoes and re-enacted the 1673 Marquette and Jolliet expedition from the Great Lakes to the Illinois River, and down the Mississippi River–a journey of over 3,000 miles. In 1976, he re-enacted the 1682 LaSalle journey from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these enormous undertakings demonstrated the role of rivers in our history.
While he is a passionate conservationist of all streams, Ralph has diligently worked to save the lower Fox River for future generations. The Fox’s bluffs and box canyons host an amazing diversity that can be found no where else in Illinois, and paddling the lower Fox is a real treat, especially if you know its treasures. Ralph is also working to establish a National Canoe Museum, which he plans to start with his collection of historic and unique canoes. He is looking for space in the Chicago area, perhaps near the historic Chicago portage.
An ardent reader, one of Ralph’s favorite quotes–from Thoreau’s “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”–demonstrates his love of canoes and streams:
“Other roads do some violence to nature, and bring the traveller to stare at her; but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, silently creating and adorning it, and is free to come and go as the zephyr.”
Ralph Frese contributed many photos to the Photo Archive.
Royse Wagner, Inc.
Prairie Rivers Network is very grateful to Jill Wagner and her creative team at Royse Wagner, Inc. for working with us as a pro-bono client. The creative team at Royse Wagner has been donating their time and talent to work on several marketing items for PRN, including designing this website.
For the past 15 years, Royse Wagner, Inc. has been creating advertising and marketing campaigns that get results. They combine gut instincts with a healthy dose of logic, research, and strategic direction.
We thank them for all of their creative work!