Doug Pearsall, Ph.D.

October 2023

The Keweenaw Inventory Project 

Informing Conservation and Management of the Keweenaw Heartlands

What are we inventorying, and how will the data and information be used?

When The Nature Conservancy (TNC) purchased the 32,541-acre Keweenaw Heartlands in late 2022, we did so recognizing that we would need to learn much more about the property in order to manage it effectively. Because we are the interim owners and managers of this property, we needed to know more, not only for ourselves, but for future, public management of the Heartlands. The prior owners’ management goals were timber driven, but they had left us little data on ecological and cultural features. Aerial imagery revealed extensive, connected forests and wetlands, but little other detail.  

To fill this information gap, we designed an inventory more comprehensive than any in the history of TNC in Michigan, covering ecological and cultural features, infrastructure, and timber and carbon assets. We assigned staff to lead each of these four complementary inventories, consulted with partners including the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) and Keweenaw Bay Indian Communities (KBIC), and contracted with experts at Michigan Technological University (MTU), Green Timber Consulting Foresters, and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI) for components of the work. We set out to complete an initial inventory by the end of 2023 with an accompanying report to follow in May 2024 and to update that information based on new data on cultural features expected later in 2024.  

For the ecological inventory, there are many moving parts. One of our partners—Dr. Parth Bhatt at MTU—developed a machine-learning algorithm to map the natural communities of the Heartlands. That map and other data helped MNFI ecologists strategically survey areas most likely to support unique high-quality natural communities and rare plants. Several TNC staff were able to join them in the field to lend a hand and gain familiarity with the property. We are also working with MDNR biologists who plan to conduct surveys for endangered bats that may hibernate in abandoned mine shafts in winter and spend summers out in the forests. Our staff have also collected data on stream quality in the Montreal River.  

For our timber inventory, Green Timber Consulting Foresters and TNC forestry staff completed field surveys of a representative subset of the forests, focusing on areas not surveyed by MNFI to optimize their time and cover the most ground overall. This field data—along with the LIDAR data acquired as part of the sale from the previous managers—allow us to estimate timber volume and carbon storage and sequestration rates now and in the future. This information provides a basis for a business plan that we will provide to the future owners.  

For the infrastructure survey, TNC staff cruised the 73 miles of roads—some multiple times—throughout the property. They classified each road based on U.S. Forest Service categories that reflect the types of vehicles that can safely use each road. They also evaluated each bridge and road-stream crossing, identifying those that should be upgraded to improve stream flow and fish passage.  

The cultural inventory is completely novel for TNC in Michigan. We have contracted Dr. Dan Trepal at MTU, who has compiled data on cultural features—both pre-historic and post-European settlement—and initiated development of a model to predict areas where cultural features are most likely to occur. This cultural inventory is where TNC is least experienced, and we are learning a lot.

As TNC and other conservation organizations in the U.S. work to improve relationships and more authentically collaborate with Tribal Nations, we are becoming more aware of both the historical and current interests and rights of the people who for so long have lived on this continent. The KBIC has a voice in the planning and future management of the Keweenaw Heartlands, and the cultural inventory will be integral to management and use of the property.

Why do we care about the Keweenaw Peninsula?

When we think about our favorite or most memorable places, often our memories are cemented by some extraordinary feature or event. There is no shortage of superlatives that apply to the Keweenaw Peninsula: it receives more snowfall than any place east of the Rocky Mountains; its bedrock shorelines and ridges comprise some of the oldest rocks in Michigan, exceeding 1 billion years; it is the most remote place in Michigan (excluding Isle Royale and other islands, of course); it supported the oldest known metalworking (copper) in North America; and the list goes on. 

The unique climate, geology and topography create unusual conditions for plants and animals and have shaped human activities for millennia. The heavy winter snowfall prevented permanent Indigenous settlements—though seasonal uses including fishing, mining, hunting and gathering were important. Remoteness and rugged topography prevented extensive development and commercial logging in the most difficult areas, allowing pockets of old-growth forest to persist. Forests, lakeshores, ridgetops, wetlands, lakes and rivers remain highly connected relative to most of Michigan and the Midwest.

Residents and visitors also have very strong connections to this landscape for many reasons. Natural resource-based tourism and recreation are key elements of the local economy, as is logging, and local communities desire to maintain this way of life in the face of growing pressures as more people discover the Keweenaw Peninsula. Personally, I seized the opportunity to join Tyler and Jessie from MNFI, trekking up and down steep hills and bluffs, through old-growth cedar swamps, and along the beautiful Montreal River, dusting some of the rust from my field skills that have waned over years of primarily office work. Directly experiencing the remarkable ecosystems with these experts was an unforgettable experience, broadening and deepening my understanding of the Keweenaw and refreshing my personal connections with this landscape. 

Next Steps for the Keweenaw Inventory

As we complete each of these four inventories, we are drafting a report to both summarize and provide detailed data and information for future landowners. We will synthesize the data from each inventory and develop recommendations that we believe will result in conservation of the most sensitive ecological and cultural features while allowing the future owners and Keweenaw community to derive economic and social benefits critical to a sustainable future of their choosing. 

As I reflect on this process, I am reminded of my PhD advisor at the University of Michigan—Dr. Burton V. Barnes—who demonstrated and imbued in his students the value of field reconnaissance and surveys to gain familiarity with the relationships among climate, geology, topography, soil and vegetation. These factors combine in unique ways in the Keweenaw Peninsula, and by employing the proven tactics of surveys in combination with the latest remote imagery and technology, we will know the Keweenaw Heartlands better than ever before. Our ability to conserve nature and benefit people will be all the better for it.

February 2023

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

Bringing Ecological and Human Well-being Benefits to the Rust Belt

By Matthew Jurjonas, Ph.D. 

A Note from Doug: For this month's blog, I'm joined by former TNC Bailey Conservation Fellow Matthew Jurjonas, Ph.D., who describes his work with TNC in Michigan on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). The Essel and Menakka Bailey Conservation Fellowship Program is designed to help develop the conservation leaders of tomorrow by providing recent graduates and early career conservation professionals with the opportunity to work in an environment that combines a deep dive into a specific conservation project with an intro to major conservation issues. My colleagues and I had the pleasure of working with Matt during his fellowship and thank him for sharing his findings here.

Have you ever heard of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, or GLRI, as some would say? No? Well, I would love to share a few thoughts with you, as I had the unique fortune of spending more than a year thinking about it. GLRI really is something you ought to know about! Though, I must admit I hadn’t heard of GLRI—even though I grew up in Chicago—until I had this chance to sit down with it.

Where to begin… To some, I suppose GLRI is mostly the action plans that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) puts together every few years that outline priorities like removing heavy metals, controlling fertilizer runoff from farms or keeping invasive species like Asian carp or zebra mussels out of the lakes. To others, I would bet it is the annual reports to Congress that pull together all the success stories like building a new park where an old factory had been, dredging out old lumber mill debris, or some good numbers showing how lake trout are doing.

To me, it will always be a large pile of records that few have ever been willing to crack open. More than 5,300 records, that is! And, I have read each of them…twice. Thank the pandemic. With a cup of joe, some music and a whole lot of time—I have GLRI to thank for keeping cabin fever away. 

The Industrial History Around the Great Lakes

To understand GLRI, we must talk about the “Rust Belt” and the eight midwestern states that border the Great Lakes on the U.S. side. Back when the heart of U.S. manufacturing was in the Midwest, all the steel plants dotted the shorelines of the Great Lakes. As manufacturing began to decline in the 1950s and these plants began to close, many were abandoned along with all the scrap metal and chemicals still on site, and sometimes in the lakes, creating a need for cleanup. 

At the same time, invasive species from across the world were finding their way into the Great Lakes—sometimes in a ship’s ballast, as in the case with the zebra mussels, and other times through connections with the Mississippi River, which has its own invasive species problems. Habitat loss also affects numerous endangered species across the region, like lake sturgeon, wild rice and piping plovers. 

What did the EPA do about all of this? They created the largest clean-up and restoration funding program in the U.S., and likely the world. Between 2010 and 2020, more than $3.5 billion were awarded to state governments and local organizations to get those metals out, put vegetation buffers between farms and streams, remove dams, inspect boats, reforest landscapes and protect nesting migratory birds. 

What Did I Do?

As I was saying, GLRI is 5,300 things. The plans and reports cover a few different variables and the important progress, but I wanted to know what happened at the local level. I wanted to find out what the project manager behind each of those records did. How did they plan their project? What strategies did they try? How did they know if they were successful? How did they feel about it at the end of the project?

I also wanted to know what these projects were doing for the people and communities that surround them. Believe it or not, most clean-up or restoration projects keep track of the chemicals removed, acres planted, the number of invasive fish trapped or how many endangered butterflies showed up after a new park was protected. However, things like changes to property value, the number of recreational visits, reduced flood risk in a community or educational opportunities for kids in nature are not tracked in those reports. 

To answer these questions, the first thing I did was read all those project records and tally it all up. You can find all of those tallies here, in the first complete synthesis of GLRI—that is free for the public to download—ever!

• Want to know how many projects restored passage upstream or downstream for fish through dam modification or removal? 229
• How many sites with toxic substances were dredged? 131
• How many addressed climate change impacts? 89
• How many projects addressed environmental justice? 2

Next, I put together a short online survey to ask the local project managers about their work (if you responded to the survey and are reading this, thank you!). I really wanted to know about the human well-being aspects of GLRI, or, more simply, what was GLRI doing for people and communities. You can read more about the survey here. 

In short, I found that many project managers were setting goals for people and communities and tracking new ways of measuring success in their clean-up work. For example, one project tracked community perceptions of invasive species removals. Another project designed novel ways to collect public comments during project planning. For those managers who set goals for people and communities, beyond their environmental goals, almost all reported high levels of success. 

At the End of the Day

You might be thinking: what can you do with a bunch of tallies and perspectives of project managers? To that, I will say two things.

First, reviewing all those records and presenting them in a format that is easier to digest can help identify gaps in where projects are located and what gets funded. For example, the lack of projects that are addressing climate change impacts or the multiple environmental justice issues in the region—such as high concentrations of contamination in lower-income, historically marginalized and minoritized communities—signals new priority needs for future programming. Tracking can also lead to developing more effective ways of evaluating GLRI success like understanding the relationship between investment and impact.

Second, clean-up and restoration activities are not always easy to fund, and sometimes efforts are needed to build more support to make them happen. Research shows that people care more about the recreation numbers, property value and flood reduction benefits than the invasive species reduction, nest protection for endangered birds or chemicals they may not have heard of. So, with more thorough reporting on those human well-being benefits, in combination with clean-up or restoration benefits, we can help build more community buy-in for GLRI going forward.

So, if you hadn’t heard of GLRI, now you can see that one of the biggest restoration programs in the world is right in your backyard. If you had, I hope this has shared something new. For me, GLRI was a great way to reconnect with the Midwest, through the stories hidden within the records.

Guest Blogger: Matthew Jurjonas, Ph.D.

Matthew Jurjonas is an environmental social scientist whose research broadly focuses on conservation issues, climate adaptation and community resilience in the United States and Mexico. In addition, he strives to incorporate a justice perspective into his research through documenting local barriers to adaptation and the disparities that can emerge in the planning, implementation and aftermath of the conservation or resilience programs that target people and communities. He currently works for Lacy Consulting Services, a conservation start-up focused on including historically underserved voices in planning processes. 

July 2022

North Point Peninsula: Connecting with Great Lakes History, Culture, and Ecology

Nestled along the shore of Lake Huron in northeast Michigan is an area bursting with biodiversity. From the elusive dwarf lake iris to the federally listed endangered Hine’s emerald dragonfly, the North Point Peninsula is a haven for a variety of species and habitats. 

The Connection

As a scientist and conservation planner with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), I have long known of the importance of the Northern Lake Huron shoreline for birds, rocky and sandy beaches, and rare, highly diverse ecosystems such as Alvars, dunes, and coastal fens and the rare species that inhabit them.

Around 20 years ago, when I first learned that a large property had come up for sale on the tip of North Point, I had to check the map to locate that peninsula as it was new to me. I soon visited the site with colleagues and was struck by its surprisingly remote feel, along with the quality of the shoreline and adjacent wetlands and boreal forest. The point had not been well surveyed for rare species, but a few were known and we confirmed their existence, including dwarf lake iris and Pitcher’s thistle, both endemic to the Great Lakes region.

History of the North Point Peninsula

North Point extends about five miles into Lake Huron from just east of Alpena, Michigan. Its limestone bedrock core is overlain by sands deposited by Lake Huron as the land surface rebounded from the weight of the glaciers over thousands of years and undulating old beach ridges are still visible on the forest floor.

Thousands of years before Lake Huron existed as we know it, when waters were at their lowest point in the Great Lakes basin, a land bridge extended from North Point southeastward to what is now Amberley, Ontario. Herds of caribou migrated along this ridge, and the people living here roughly 9,500 years ago exploited that physiography by constructing drive lanes and hunting blinds to funnel the animals for easier harvest.

This close relationship between people and the Great Lakes coast continues to this day, though the caribou have largely vanished from the basin; the Great Lakes and its tributaries sustained people with clean water, fish, and transportation routes, among many other benefits for millennia.

The shallow, rocky coast that was formerly part of the Alpena-Amberley Ridge became a particularly treacherous area for ships navigating Lake Huron, and over 100 shipwrecks are known within the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the largest such sanctuary in US Great Lakes Waters.

Ecology and Importance of the Area

Boreal Forests cover much of North Point and extend almost 15 miles northward along the coast, representing one of the southernmost, large chunks of boreal forest in Michigan. Hundreds of acres of rich conifer swamp occur in low-lying areas and swales between the ridges. On the northern shore of the peninsula lies a coastal fen of over 200 acres, as well as Great Lakes marsh that in low-water years extends across portions of Misery Bay to nearby Crooked Island, providing critical habitat for fish and water birds.

In addition to the rare plants, the USFWS has also identified habitat for the Federally Endangered Hine’s emerald dragonfly, one of a handful of places it is known to persist. Finally, peninsulas such as North Point are very important for migrating birds seeking food and rest after crossing the Great Lakes and for concentrations of Monarch Butterflies that form surreal, tremulous clouds of orange and black.

Partnering to Protect North Point

TNC recognized the importance of the shoreline between Alpena and Mackinaw City more than 20 years ago. When the large parcel at the tip of North Point came up for sale in the early 2000s, TNC began to build relationships and negotiate for protection of that property. Unfortunately, we did not reach an agreement with the landowner, though we remain interested in protecting the property.

Subsequently, the adjacent landowner that owned the even larger, neighboring property knew of our interests and when they sought to sell their land we worked with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS) and several generous donors to negotiate a sale. Huron Pines—a local land trust—has management responsibility, with assistance from the Friends of TBNMS, and we will eventually transfer the property to Huron Pines.

These collective efforts have ensured conservation of some of the peninsula and surrounding waters of North Point, and I look forward to additional conservation to benefit future generations.

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