The boardwalk, damaged by flooding in both 2008 and 2011, with as much as eight feet of excess water rising and breaking the wooden walk and leaving behind extensive damage. In 2012, it was reopened by fundraising and volunteer work by the IDNR, Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, Friends of the Cache, and Southern Illinois Audubon Society last year was completed with financial support from those partners and the “Wetland Warriors” at Creal Springs School. We had never been to Section Eight, despite having been to, and loved, Heron Pond, which is part of the same river basin.
Over the last 100 years, 230,000 acres, more than half of the former wetlands in the Cache watershed have been lost to land-clearing and drainage projects. The Post Creek cut-off, completed in 1916, was especially damaging to the wetlands because it diverted the upper segment of the Cache River directly into the Ohio River and isolated 40 miles of the shallow lower channel. After World War II, the forests of southern Illinois began to disappear at an alarming rate; followed by a 10 year period between the 1960s and the1970s, where thousands of acres of floodplain forest in the Cache watershed were cleared, drained, and converted to agriculture. With the loss of habitat, increased
sedimentation, and large scale fish kills it became clear that the health of the Cache River Wetlands was in critical condition. As a result, local citizens organized the Citizens Committee to Save the Cache to protect what remained of the Cache River Wetlands. By 1990, this citizen-based conservation effort received a significant boost with the establishment of the Refuge and the Cache River Wetlands Joint Venture. Today, through cooperative conservation, the tide of wetland
destruction is being reversed. There's a whole lot more to the Basin than the few places we have been, which leaves lots of room for more adventures down South.
We were taking one of the Harley's down to Paducah for a cruise when Kevin unexpectedly pulled over at the entrance to Section Eight. Unlike Heron Pond, which is far from the beaten path, Section Eight is right off the main road. If you aren't watching for it though, you may miss it. The parking area is small, and it's easier to see going one way over the other.
The boardwalk is nice, it's clean and wide, although we actually only met one other group of three, who entered as we were leaving. It's pretty, and it's peaceful. Not nearly as long a boardwalk as Heron Pond, you can meander in and out in 15 minutes or so, and that's taking your time. But if your out there for bird or critter watching, or nature photography, you could conceivably spend some quality time uninterrupted.
How to get there:
Follow 37, Section Eight is just past Cypress Grove.
N 37° 18.195 W 089° 01.293
