Courtesy Friends of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
Friends of the Porkies
This Friends of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park crew cleans up along the park’s roadsides each year.
Porkies group wins service award
If you've ever enjoyed programs at Michigan's Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park like folk school classes, lantern skiing and snowshoeing or this weekend's Porcupine Mountains Music Festival, you can thank the park's Friends Of group – an organization that was just honored with a volunteer service award.
Friends of the Porkies, which has supported the park since the 1940s, won the 2015 Upper Peninsula Service Award from the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development.
“When I read the letter announcing the award, I was grateful for the recognition of everything this group of volunteers has accomplished,” board member Sally Berman says.
The Marquette-based Great Lakes Center for Youth Development congratulated the group for "making the Upper Peninsula a better place to live."
Other recent initiatives include securing grants for local schools' field trips and for youth ski helmets. You can support the non-profit's work by becoming a member (one perk is a discount on folk school classes at the park), buying merchandise or donating.
Water Walkers United are coming to Bayfield
The Water Walkers have arrived in the Chequamegon Bay area and will be in Bayfield on Wednesday, September 2. They also plan stops at other towns along the shore, including Duluth. The Anishinaabe women are carrying salt water from Matane, Quebec, west around the Great Lakes and ending on Madeline Island. For this year’s Sacred Water Walk 2015, the walkers want to raise awareness of oil spill dangers.
One leader of the walk again this year is Josephine Mandamin, who helped to start a series of water walks, first around the Great Lakes and from the four directions of the United States. She earned Lake Superior Magazine’s Achievement Award in 2011.
The Bayfield Chamber and Visitor Bureau, which has twice passed resolutions to protect Lake Superior water, suggests several ways to help the Water Walkers, including walking with them or checking their progress online. You can contact the walkers directly at info@waterwalkersunited.com. Providing fruit, veggies or pastries for them to eat on Wednesday and Thursday mornings next week on Madeline Island would be appreciated. If you are interested in dropping off a donation or finding out ways to support the walkers, contact David at the Bayfield Chamber & Visitor Bureau office, 800-447-4094.
Twin Ports oil terminal plan dropped
A Superior company's plan to ship oil via tankers from the Twin Ports to eliminate a distribution bottleneck has been scrapped. The plan had strong opposition from environmentalists. John Myers, Superior Telegram:
Calumet Specialty Products says it has scrapped plans to build an oil terminal in Superior that could have transferred western U.S. and Canadian oil to tankers to move to eastern refineries.
+ Cornell's Macaulay Library has digitized its extensive library of wildlife field recordings. You could easily spend hours poking around the site's audio and video. A few quick picks from our region: hear the common loon, gray wolf, red fox, moose and ruffed grouse.
+ Iron ore shipping continues to dip, reports the Duluth News Tribune.
+ Behind the wheel, Michigan Tech student Reagan May races toward a dream. MTU's Mark Wilcox tells the story.
+ A new lakeside campground is in development at a popular beach in Silver Bay, Minnesota, reports the Lake County News Chronicle.
+ An Upper Peninsula business owner hopes to expand the annual 906 Day celebration of all things U.P., reports WLUC. Taking its name and date from the U.P. area code, 906 Day is September 6.
+ Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal: "The chief of Fort William First Nation hopes to make the idled Big Thunder ski hill an economic opportunity for his community." The hill hosted the World Nordic Ski Championships in 1995.