With our sparkling spring at
hand, I think a reasonable number of people across the United States
are planning Lake Superior visits. I hope that many of us who have
“dropped” Isle Royale as part of our travel plans over the past few
years will realize how much we miss this lovely wilderness and make
this the year to return.
Yes, Isle Royale National Park is in the midst of changes,
many reconfirming it as a maritime location and destination. We boaters
are again going to be welcome to come, visit and enjoy.
Leading this change is the new park superintendent, Phyllis
Green, an experienced natural resources manager who was forest
supervisor of Ottawa National Forest in the Upper Peninsula before
taking this job. She heads into her second year as superintendent,
still as fascinated by the island and its beauty as she was on her
first visit at about age 6.
Growing up in Houghton, Phyllis knows the Lake Superior
region and people. She knows the concerns and challenges that make up
Isle Royale National Park.
“I’ve tracked Isle Royale for years. I have paid attention. I
was well aware of many of the controversies before I applied for the
job,” she says. “I’m trying to renew relationships and maybe mend a few
fences.”
For whatever reason, since about 1995 Isle Royale National
Park has seemed an almost forbidden, hostile destination for boaters.
New or expanded regulations severely restricted our access to the
sheltered bays on which we boaters depend should severe weather
threaten. We also felt there were a series of harassments best left
undiscussed. But, as Phyllis says, bad news travels a lot faster than
good news and the uncomfortable incidents were retold and remembered by
us.
The result has been boaters staying away in droves. The new
superintendent says boat traffic to the island has dropped. “Boating
numbers are way down. There’s certainly room for them to come back up.”
 She sees her challenge as one of juggling varied interests - all interests - in the island park.
Building bridges can mean hanging out on the dock as park
superintendent Phyllis Green does here, putting on safety equipment
with Isle Royale Boater Association volunteers at Malone Bay. (photo courtesy Isle Royale National Park)
“I think there are a lot of challenges that way,” she says.
“We’re seeing a lot of increases in our hikers and yet they want more
remote experiences.”
The superintendent is familiar with the experience of hearing
and understanding many groups whose love of a land may also create
conflicting interests. These issues parallel those with which she
worked in the forest service. She’s worked in the past on historic
trail development in Washington state, where she was a district ranger,
and in developing sustainable forest use criteria. She has been a
public affairs officer at the Huron-Manistee National Forest in lower
Michigan and was an information specialist with the Forest Products
Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.
She loves outdoor activities from hiking to kayaking, from cross-country skiing to snowmobiling.
 Among
her tasks at Isle Royale is determining what to do with the more than
100 historic buildings on the islands of the park. Some buildings are
still seasonally occupied and maintained by families with long-term
permissions to do so. People, of course, have been part of the history
here long before it became a national park in 1940.
Phyllis Green, superintendent of Isle Royale National Park, knows well the issues of the Upper Peninsula where she grew up.
At first there were the native people who fished and used
resources from here. Later followed the immigrant families. For most of
these early pioneers, Isle Royale was a fabled and storied island, lost
in the mists of time. Only as America’s wealth grew, and Americans
explored more of their country, did its beauty become a lure of
transcendental proportions. By the late 1890s, wealth blended with
hard-working fishing families to create an island paradise, where
working with others was just an accepted effort, never an “up or down”
effort.
Now Phyllis Green must work with many others in managing and
maintaining this island. She has contact with the recently formed Isle
Royale Original Families Association about which I have written before
(June/July 2002).
She is also broadening contact and understanding with the
Isle Royale Boaters Association. The park service staff and members of
the boaters association worked side by side last year to create a
picnic area on the island. This year, the two groups jointly worked a
table at the boat show in Duluth, Minnesota.
“They might be happy to know that I bought a boat,” Phyllis says to boat visitors. “I bought a little sea dory.”
Getting out on the water will help her to understand the concerns of boaters coming to the island, she says.
She already understands some needs better. As an experiment
this year, the park will allow boaters to do online registration 48
hours before they arrive. The national park’s Website is
www.nps.gov/isro.
Yes, Phyllis Green has quite a string of challenges as she
seeks to rebalance visitor activity. In the very real face of economic
distress spread across the National Park Service, she must accomplish
many things with very few resources.
But, honestly, those of us who have listened to this Park
Service asset feel she will accomplish much, and many of us are more
than willing to help. She represents, we think, preservation of this
wonderful island paradise, but for all to enjoy. Sure, rules will be in
place, but, we hope, far more sensible ones.
“It’s a fun park,” she says of her charge. “I like challenges.”
We say good luck to her in her duties, and we’ll see you on the island.
A selection of Jim Marshall’s columns of lake lore and his inland sea voyages
has been published as Lake Superior Journal: Views from the Bridge
by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Follow this link
for more information.
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