Illinois celebrated its bicentennial as a state in December of 2018.  To celebrate, the Chicago Tribune published the Bicentennial Bucket List: 200 Things To Do In Illinois, celebrating the best the state has to offer in history, food, architecture, culture, sports, nature, drink, and oddities. Now that the state is starting to open back up following the corona virus outbreak, I figured this was the second-best time to look through this collection and cover the ones I’ve done/eaten/seen.

We continue things this week with one of the entries from the Oddities category: Elk, from Elk Grove Village, IL

For nearly a century, a small herd of elk – that’s right, elk – have resided in a 17-acre fenced-in pasture in Cook County Forest Preserve’s Busse Woods.  It all began in 1925 when nine cows and one bull arrived by train with much fanfare from Yellowstone National Park.  The herd’s numbers have vacillated over the years. but you can still spot a few of the animals and imagine a time when an estimated 10 million elk roamed North America.  Watch them grazing, and if you’re lucky, hear the males bugle during the fall mating season.

In the fall of 2016, I ended up in Busse Woods, taking, what I thought at the time, was a nice walk with a friend.  As we went through the woods, we came across a surprising sight: elk.  I had no idea they were there.  Looking back, this afternoon was the start of one of the most trying times of my life, something that still causes my grief to this day.  If I could trade the elk for some peace of mind, I would do so in a second.