The Lake Superior neighborhood boasts five national parks in the United States, covering just about every variety you can think of under the National Park Service’s umbrella.
There are two national lakeshores – the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin and Pictured Rocks in Michigan – a national monument at Grand Portage, Minnesota, an island park at Isle Royale and a widespread collaboration of historic sites around the Keweenaw Peninsula in
Michigan.
Supporting all of them is the National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation (NPLSF), launched through the request of two park superintendents around 2007 and having grown from an eager band of volunteer board members to a federally chartered philanthropic partner with paid staff. The main location for the foundation currently is through the Twin Cities, though many of the founding board members remain on board and live near Lake Superior.
Tom Irvine is executive director of the NPLSF and he spoke with me in April 2022 during National Parks Week.
Tom says the role of the foundation, as with any chartered “friends of the park” group, is filling in the voids the parks have, be it programs, staffing or a capital campaign for building a new structure or for preserving an historic one. Choosing practical support goals means matching the park needs to the foundation board’s own enthusiasms.
“Our job is to get the public excited about these projects,” says Tom, “and in order to do that, we have to be excited about these projects.”
At the end of the budget year, Tom says, the parks rarely have enough in their coffers. The foundation can help on projects small to great.
“We do the picnic tables and bear-proof trash containers, too, but we’re really trying to drive projects that are a little bit more moon-shot projects. The Lake is the commonality between all these parks, so we’re serving the Lake and the parks. We want to do everything we can to help sustain a positive future for the Lake.”
Currently the foundation does not offer “memberships,” though it has many regularly contributing supporters.
The foundation keeps in contact with other regional friends groups, especially the Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, which also is federally chartered. “We actually work pretty closely with them and coordinate with them,” says Tom, whose family owns a seasonal home on Madeline Island. One of Tom’s favorite cooperative projects with the Apostles group involved a recent kayak tour with a photographer for the National Geographic Society among the islands.
I asked Tom to name two of the major projects currently on the foundation’s plate.
Tom Irvine, executive director, National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation
“The project that we’re probably known most for has been our involvement with the relocation of wolves back to Isle Royale,” he says. In 2019, the foundation aided the NPS and other parties with the complicated intergovernmental and international project to relocate wolves from Minnesota, Michigan and Ontario to Isle Royale where the population had dwindled to two inbred wolves.
“We were very involved in that (planning), and we were very involved financially to make the relocation happen,” Tom says. “Part of our on-going role with that was commissioning a documentary film to be created at the very beginning to document the capturing and relocating of the wolves to Isle Royale and since than tracking, documenting and sharing information about the wolves and the regrowth of the population on the island.”
That documentary, and other connected materials, have been gathered into a cross-discipline, K-12 curriculum that is free to download (along with the documentary) on the foundation website.
“It’s really a scientific based program, based on the observational information and strategies that came out of this relocation and the lives and development of these wolves.”
Another project in the early stages, he adds, involves giving the five parks “greener” footprints.
“We have both private and public support to put together a five-part implementation plan to decarbonize the five parks on Lake Superior. It’s basically a very rigorous study that develops an outline for how we can transition Isle Royale from running that park with six big diesel generators to solar or green-energy related power sources.” Isle Royale is the most complicated of the Big Lake area national parks, so that’s where the foundation will start, he explains.
“This has always been a priority for the parks, but at the end of the year, they have never been able to push it forward and get it fully funded. … It’s really a No. 1 priority for the parks right now – creating climate sustainability within the parks.”
Tom notes the massive influx of people into national parks during the two past pandemic years and for those newbies he reminds them, “the American public owns these parks and they just require respect … let’s go in ready to take care of something that belongs to us all.”
Reflecting on the National Parks Week, Tom gives this advice to those who have yet to visit a national park, as well as to the frequent visitors. “Understand, appreciate and respect these national treasures … and be part of the legacy to preserve something.”
Find out more:
National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
Grand Portage National Monument
Keweenaw National Historical Park
Hear more:
NPLSF’s Lake Superior Podcast airs new programs weekly.