Questions of Ways and Means

The theme that the Lakeshore will be forced by financial pressure to reduce preservation efforts runs like a threnody through the Options For Future Management. In many ways, the document reads like an Instrument of Surrender:

Maintaining existing conditions will require more funds than what the park now receives. There is little reason to expect that this funding environment is likely to change over at least the next ten years. … (p. 4)

The park does not have, and is not likely to receive, sufficient funds to do regular maintenance and other preservation treatments on all of the light stations and associated structures. (p. 7)

Statements made by park managers at public informational meetings discussing the possibility of having to “perform triage”[5] or “mothball”[6] historic structures add to the tone of resignation and despair.

Sand Island Lighthouse, built 1881

Under other circumstances, one would not customarily offer specific funding recommendations in a commentary on a broadly-scoped document such as a General Management Plan, but in supplemental correspondence, park management has explicitly asked for such suggestions:

The needs… are enormous, and are far outside the ability of the park's operating budget to even begin to address. Thus the need for frank discussion. A plan that optimistically says the NPS will restore everything - or even maintain the status quo - is not a very useful plan if the means to get there are utterly lacking…. How do you propose the NPS address your favorite option? And perhaps most importantly, how would you fund it?…

Do you have specific suggestions for partners…? Can a partnership generate the MILLIONS of dollars necessary to do the job right? Would that partnership work on islands (some lacking docks anywhere near the lighthouses) in Lake Superior, with all the logistical headaches that involves? Would it work at a lighthouse that receives fewer than 1000 visitors per year?[7]

 

In response, I would first urge the park to pursue National Historic Landmark designation for the six light stations as a group. This additional level of recognition, which the sites clearly merit, would offer substantial advantages when competing for funds from sources such as the Save America's Treasures grant program. A draft nomination has already been prepared, and several reviewers have expressed confidence that the proposal has high likelihood of success.

In the long term, however, it appears clear that Apostle Islands, like many other national parks, would be well-served by cultivating partnerships with non-governmental organizations who can help shoulder the burden of caring for the park's historic structures and other cultural resources.

I note with approval that the Options For Future Management recognizes this tool of cooperative preservation:

...it may be possible for the National Park Service to pursue a partnership with another entity, such as another governmental/tribal agency or nongovernmental organization, to share costs and make some of the options more feasible. (p. 5)

The  agency’s Management Policies and Cultural Resource Management Guideline, encourages this avenue of approach, and provide guidance on how to implement it:

Stewardship ....the two most important and effective protective measures cannot be seen. The first is a positive, caring attitude toward cultural resources. Coupled with knowledge, such an attitude prepares every employee to act as a resource steward… The second measure is a spirit of cooperation that reaches out to form stewardship coalitions with local governments, professional organizations, state agencies, and nonprofit groups. (NPS 28, 1.4)

The National Park Service may permit the use of a historic property through a lease or cooperative agreement if the lease or cooperative agreement will ensure the property’s preservation. Proposed uses must not unduly limit public appreciation of the property; interfere with visitor use and enjoyment of the park; or preclude use of the property for park administration, employee residences, or other management purposes judged more appropriate or cost-effective. (Management Policies, 5.3.3)

The use of partnerships to augment agency capability has a long and honorable history in the National Park Service, dating to the earliest days when master entrepreneur Stephen Mather received help from many quarters in getting the fledgling agency off the ground. Today, partner organizations provide vital assistance in the stewardship of cultural resources in many, if not most, national parks:

• Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore has ensured the preservation of  architecturally significant properties by way of a leasing agreement with the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.

• At Fire Island National Seashore, the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society has been responsible for maintenance and visitor services at the historic light station since 1996. The program is considered a model of its kind.

• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore works productively  with several vigorous partner organizations, in addition to the Friends of Sleeping Bear, to enhance stewardship of cultural resources.

  The group Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear has achieved resounding success in stabilizing and rehabilitating structures in the Port Oneida Historic District, previously slated for demolition.

  The Manitou Islands Memorial Society, a group begun by former island residents, helps preserve the history and cultural traditions of those islands within the park. Along with providing educational and interpretive materials and programs, the group has begun a cooperative program to submit and/or update National Register of Historic Places nominations for park sites under the supervision of the Lakeshore’s cultural resource staff.

Lighthouses, in particular, have often been the focus of successful preservation efforts by non-governmental organizations. To name only three nearby examples:

• The Great Lakes Lightkeepers Association has assumed ownership of the  St. Helena Island Light Station- a Great Lakes island light station like those of the Apostles- and made substantial progress in its well-thought-out, well-organized restoration project.

• The Granite Island lighthouse, a Lake Superior beacon even more remotely situated than any Apostle Islands site, was completely restored by a private individual in 2000-2001.

• On Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the small Keweenaw County Historical Society has restored and furnished, and continues to maintain, the Eagle Harbor lighthouse, identical twin to the Sand Island light.

Interior of Eagle Harbor (MI) Lighthouse,
restored by local historical society

Same room in Sand Island lighthouse,
under National Park Service care.

Indeed, there are documented historical precedents right here at the Apostle Islands for cooperative preservation of our historic lighthouses:

• The architectural firm Ellerbe Associates leased the Raspberry Island lighthouse from  1958 until 1975, taking full responsibility for maintenance.

• Lighthouse enthusiast Don Bliss rented and maintained the Michigan Island light station, one of the park’s least accessible sites, for much of the 1960s.

• The Sand Island lighthouse has a lengthy history of successful cooperative preservation efforts. Automated at the very early date of 1920, the structure was essentially abandoned by the government for a half-century until the mid-1970s. Almost immediately, a  single woman, Gertrude Wellisch, stepped into the void and leased the lighthouse through the 1920s and 1930s. Historic photographs in the park collection show Ms Wellisch, along with friends and family, performing a variety of  maintenance tasks on the structure.

  A local newspaperman, John Chapple, took over the lease in the 1940s, continuing the tradition. Finally, the Hulings family, whose members still hold use-and-occupancy rights on Sand Island, leased the lighthouse from 1953 until 1975, and undertook extensive repairs and stabilization efforts, at considerable private expense.

Walton "Bun" Wellisch at work
on Sand Island lighthouse, c. 1930

I submit that these examples provide a clear answer to the Superintendent’s questions quoted above:

“Do not despair- it can be done.”

Returning to the question, “Do you have specific suggestions for partners?” I will provide my assessment of the Apostle Islands Historic Preservation Conservancy (AIHPC), a newly-formed organization that in my considered, professional opinion, offers more promise for effective, cooperative assistance than any comparable entity I have previously encountered.

This organization includes representatives from the communities of Bayfield and Washburn, the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, and members  of families whose island homesteads were long-ago demolished, in addition to holders of current use-and-occupancy properties. Among the members are prominent supporters of the park from the days of its establishment, and preservation advocates and community activists with lengthy records of service to the public.

The central mission of the AIHPC is to enter a partnership with the National Park Service to improve the quality of stewardship of all historic resources within the Lakeshore.  This mission will be achieved both through the long-term commitment of the historic families to maintain the properties in which they currently hold life estates,  and through initiatives that would fund and carry out restoration, maintenance, and public education programs for other historically significant properties within the National Lakeshore. 

Though the Conservancy is still in its formative stages, the organization has already demonstrated the capability to raise funds and gather broad-based support in a way that could be used to provide incalculable benefit to the National Lakeshore and to the visiting public.

I am aware that there is concern among some park staff that this organization was begun by members of families holding use-and-occupancy properties on the islands (the “historic families”), and fear that the unstated goal of the Conservancy is to circumvent what wa said to be "the intent of Congress as expressed in PL 91-424 to fully integrate these properties into the park” at the expiration of the use-and-occupancy agreements.

To these concerns, I point out that the explicit goal of the Conservancy is to work as a partner with, and under the direction of, the National Park Service in its endeavors. Existing NPS guidelines, and 36 CFR 18, provide mechanisms to ensure that historic leasing arrangements  and other programs serve to provide mutual benefit, with the public interest foremost.

Moreover, I would point out that National Park Service policy specifically directs the Lakeshore to foster relations with groups such as the historic island families, who unquestionably merit the status of “traditionally associated peoples” as defined in the NPS Management Policies:

The Document Under Review:

Options For Future Management
(PDF format; 2.8 Mb)