Most of Wisconsin's Apostle Islands National Lakeshore receives wilderness designation.
On December 8, Congress designated 33,500 acres of Apostle Islands National Lake-shore as wilderness, ensuring that the land would be preserved in much the way it has been for hundreds of years.
Known as the ancestral home of the Ojibwe people, the Apostle Islands feature incredible cliff formations, sea caves, and some of the most stunning sandscapes in the Great Lakes region. The newly designated area, which makes up about 80 percent of the park's land mass, is now named the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness, after the former senator and governor of Wisconsin, who was closely involved in the park's creation in 1970. In recent years, Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) contributed their efforts to see the process through to its completion.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as "an area where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain… an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence… protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions."
The most obvious limitation that comes with wilderness designation is the prohibition against motorized vehicles and equipment. But because the park encompasses 21 islands and a stretch of shore along Lake Superior, the waters in and around the islands will be open to motorboat traffic. And all existing developed areas, docks, lighthouses, and major visitor use areas are excluded from the wilderness designation, as well. But once you arrive on the islands, most of the land underfoot is contained by the designation, which means no vehicles, snowmobiles, or chainsaws.
Most of the park had already been managed as if it were wilderness for years, so the thousands of visitors who enjoy boating, sea kayaking, freshwater fishing, hiking, camping, and tours of the historic lighthouses probably won't notice any changes.
"On the ground, this move has very little impact in the short run," says Robert Krumenaker, the park's superintendent, "but it ensures that neither the Park Service nor well-intended stakeholders in the future will be able to change the management mix in any significant way, so our grandkids ought to be able to come to the Apostle Islands and have an experience pretty similar to the ones that you and I can have today." |
