White Cliff Nature Preserve

Located near downtown Egg Harbor, White Cliff Nature Preserve protects 103 acres of mature forest, Niagara Escarpment, and one of the preserve system’s most ecologically distinctive features: a 30-acre fen.

Unlike bogs, which are fed by rainfall, fens are fed by groundwater — here, alkaline-rich water filtering through the dolomitic limestone beneath Door County. That chemistry creates specialized conditions, and the plant life reflects it. While sedges and reeds dominate the fen, an impressive number of uncommon species grow here: yellow lady’s slipper, Kalm’s lobelia, marsh marigold, swamp milkweed, common bog grass, small-flowered gerardia, swamp goldenrod, and northern bog aster. Surrounding the fen, an upland forest of white cedar, hemlock, red oak, big-toothed aspen, American beech, and sugar maple creates a shaded, sheltered enclosure.

A rock talus slope of the Niagara Escarpment runs through the preserve, and a scenic stretch of White Cliff Road borders its edge.

Trails

1.5 miles of looped trail explore the preserve on level terrain — a quiet, meditative walk through a landscape that has changed little in over a century.

History

White Cliff Nature Preserve was once part of the vast landholdings of Ferdinand Hotz, a wealthy Chicago jeweler who, in the early 1900s, owned more land than any other private individual in Door County — including all of what is now Newport State Park, much of the orchard and bluff lands near Fish Creek, and the White Cliff neighborhood. The acreage that makes up this preserve remains much as Hotz found it when he first laid eyes on it more than 100 years ago.