NPS

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

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Above is the northeast point of Devils Island, the park’s northernmost island. The sandstone is more finely layered here, a bit softer and exposed to Lake Superior, so it erodes into caves, arches and beautiful shapes, under the lighthouse, quite photogenically. I briefly considered taking my own boat, but the distances are more than I realized. The largest island (left out of the park) is roughly the size and shape of Manhattan, with “1.5 hundred residents”. One does not simply paddle into the Apostles without serious preparation and proper gear. So, like most tourists, I took the efficient new catamaran from Bayfield. (While I arrived without burning carbon, I sometimes use park transport to enjoy places). The tour lets you see many of the 20+ islands in just a few hours. Guided kayak tours are also available.

Several of these beautiful Wisconsin islands are off limits, but most have one or more individual primitive campsites accessible by kayak, private boat or water taxi. Some of the wildlife is very difficult to see; martens weren’t seen on one until wildlife cams were installed. But from the comfort of the tour boat, we stopped to turn around and get a good look at a bald eagle nest, with a nesting pair visible. We also saw mergansers, nesting gulls and other birds. Bear and deer are only rarely spotted while swimming between islands. This is a large and important refuge for species that were once common all around the Great Lakes, and getting out among the islands is easy and worthwhile. If you have the chance, the colorful old Greunke’s Inn, near the dock, serves whitefish liver, a delicacy they popularized in the 1940s.

All Abraham Lincoln Sites

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Abraham Lincoln is remembered in the name of four national park sites and one national heritage area, and he is an integral part of at least four more sites, not to mention numerous other national and state sites, landmarks, parks and much more.

Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area is in Illinois, and it includes hundreds of waysides, visitors centers, historic sites, debate sites, Lincoln’s impressive tomb in Springfield, tour routes, museums and more. The Lincoln Home and the nearby Presidential Library & Museum are key partners with the non-profit that preserves his legacy and cooperates with towns and others who celebrate Lincoln and promote Lincoln tourism.

The NPS recognizes the following four sites as integral to understanding his legacy, but many of the Civil War sites and more are part of the full story, particularly Gettysburg and Appomattox. There’s even a Lincoln story (photo above) in the defense of Washington DC.

If you’re looking for trip ideas, consider a road trip in an electric vehicle focusing on Lincoln!

Ford’s Theatre

“By God, that will be the last speech that he will ever make!” John Wilkes Booth A Shakespearean actor, infuriated…

Lincoln Memorial

Carl Sandburg reported that Lincoln felt that the important monument was not the marble one but the “more enduring one…

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

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The small lake on the right is Glen Lake, and Lake Michigan is at the top left. If you zoom in to the right, you might see tiny people climbing the middle dune from the parking lot. I got up to this vast view on the pleasant Cottonwood Trail (less than 2 miles round trip) from the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, which also takes you to the breathtaking Lake Michigan Overlook and the splendid Sleeping Bear Overlook. Many folks seem to want to do things the hard way, but I definitely recommend hiking from the scenic drive. The impressive Sleeping Bear Dune itself is over 1000 feet high, and folks frequently need rescuing ($3,000) after climbing down to the lake and not being able to climb back up. A few extreme winter folk ski down the steep dune to the lake. Not sure how they get back up. Please stay on the trails, as past humans caused much erosion damage to the fragile ecosystem here. This is a beautiful park with wildlife, deep Native American roots, and it is part of a new UNESCO Biosphere across northern lower Michigan.

Bronzeville—Black Metropolis National Heritage Area

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The South Side of Chicago has long been a historic district, and now it will be recognized as its own National Heritage Area. This is the neighborhood of activist Ida B. Wells, the church for Emmett Till’s funeral, of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, boxer Jack Johnson, musicians Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole, and where a young community organizer named Barack Obama worked before law school. 1/2 a million African Americans moved to Chicago during the early 20th century. Above is the Monument to the Great Migration at MLK & 25th, welcoming people to join the community, and every so often you will find a bronze plaque recognizing accomplished residents on the walk to 35th, where there’s another statue, honoring the African American soldiers who chased the Germans at the end of WWI.

The neighborhood continues south, with many beautiful brownstone buildings and a few blues venues. Unfortunately, many historic buildings—like the Checkerboard Lounge where Muddy Waters used to play—were lost to poor government planning, an expressway that cut the neighborhood off, and expansion of the University of Chicago. Establishing a specific heritage area helps recognize the unique cultural value of a neighborhood, encouraging more visitors by promoting it. Now, I expect Black Metropolis will continue experiencing its renaissance, and I look forward to trying the food at Bronzeville Soul (closed Mondays) the next time I pass through town.

Grand Portage National Monument

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[Update: Blackwell National Historic Site in Texas is now officially a national park unit.]

The photo is from the moose exhibit upstairs at the visitor center. I failed to photograph a bald eagle flying right in front of the reconstructed fort, which includes a great hall, kitchen, warehouse, lookout and wooden palisade. The monument is surrounded by Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) land, and the tribe co-manages the unit, a first for the NPS. I stayed at the casino to catch an early ferry from Grand Portage, and I had a delicious ‘lunker’ (big fish) for dinner. From the dock, you can see Isle Royale in the distance, and there are various demonstrations of the fur trading life during the summer season.

Traders wanted access to the western rivers and lakes, and the easiest way to get there was to carry their canoes on the ~10 mile Grand Portage Trail around some impassable waterfalls (including Minnesota’s largest) on the Pigeon River at the border with Canada. At a site called Fort Charlotte, the voyageurs entered the Pigeon River—now the US-Canada border—and continued with shorter portages upstream on the Athabasca, English & Saskatchewan Rivers. They would pass through what’s now Voyageurs National Park, Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, and deep up into the Canadian Rockies to the Athabasca, Great Slave, and Winnipeg Lakes. The trail carried beaver and other pelts, typically trapped by natives, in 90 pound packs from inland Canada down to Montreal (skipping the polar bears around Hudson Bay), bound for global markets in Europe, Russia and China. Vast fortunes were made wiping out the abundance of our wildlife.

Arkansas in Photos

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Celebrating visiting all park sites in Arkansas by EV and updating the Natural State on my map! Arkansas has both beautiful natural and many important historic sites. Below see Arkansas Post, Buffalo River, Bill Clinton Birthplace, Fort Smith, Hot Springs National Park, Little Rock Central High, and Pea Ridge. Two national historic trails also pass through the state: Butterfield & Trail of Tears. And the two easternmost American Concentration Camps are in Arkansas: Jerome & Rohwer.

All Teddy Roosevelt Sites

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The park service commemorates six parks for Teddy Roosevelt, from his childhood home in NYC, to the ranch in North Dakota where he mourned, to his family home on Oyster Bay, to the room where he was sworn in after an assassination, to the DC island that celebrates his legacy and to the monument that rightly places him among our greatest presidents. The carbon crisis threatens to end the environment Teddy Roosevelt saved for us, so he would want us to switch to electric vehicles to enjoy all his parks, as I did.

At least a dozen current National Parks began with Teddy Roosevelt protecting their land, besides his namesake park above. His friendship with John Muir inspired our entire national park system. We owe a debt that we can only repay by continuing his legacy of preservation for the future.

As President, Teddy Roosevelt protected 230 million acres for us in 20+ states, including national forests, rivers, preserves and more, such as around the beautiful San Luis Valley. He’s directly responsible for all the units listed below, plus others, as well as for signing the Antiquities Act by which presidents still designate national monuments.

“The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art, or sat by slothfully by while they were destroyed.
We have passed that age, but we are, as a whole, still in that low state of civilization where we do not understand that it is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature – whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird.
Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds.
We pollute the air, we destroy forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals – not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements.
But at last it looks as if our people were awakening.
Above all we should realize that the effort toward this end is essentially a democratic movement!
Now there is a considerable body of opinion in favor of our keeping for our children’s children, as a priceless heritage, all the delicate beauty and all the burly majesty of the mightier forms of wildlife.
Surely our people do not understand, even yet, the rich heritage that is theirs!”

Teddy Roosevelt, 1913

Chimney Rock National Historic Site

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While not the largest rock formation in the west, Chimney Rock above, was the first exceptional one seen by the pioneers on their journey across the wide open prairie, so many pioneers elaborately described it in their journals. Judging by the old photos, it has lost some of its point, but it still towers over the landscape. Chimney Rock also made a clear landmark for the prairie schooners navigating on the Pioneer Trails from the Platte River to the nearby pass at Scotts Bluff. The site is affiliated with the NPS, but it is managed by the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Isle Royale National Park

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This is now my favorite park for wildlife. I was lucky to get a photo of this moose and her calf on the 1 mile Nature Trail in Windigo just before my boat left. Despite seeing loons, mergansers, swans, geese, and even a bushy tailed fox parading near my shelter on Washington Creek, I had neglected to take any decent wildlife photos, so until these two approached me, all I had was one photo of two ducks: a paradox.

I hiked a dozen miles and enjoyed the pitcher plants and boardwalks through the swampy areas and the mossy boulders on the north shore. The island is larger than I imagined, so be sure to download the park map in advance and charge your phone. This Biosphere is one of the least visited National Parks but most re-visited. Many folks hike the length over several days, and early in the season there were many volunteers hiking off-trail doing scientific research on wolf-moose predator-prey. A few were carrying a canoe for inland lakes. It’s an idyllic place, with hours of silence and solitude, a wonderful trip into the wilderness.

Isle Royale is in Lake Superior, and the shortest ferry ride is a couple hours from Minnesota to Windigo. The island is part of Michigan, and there are also ferries from the Keweenaw Peninsula in Upper Michigan to Rock Harbor. Most visitors are experienced hikers who backpack to their campgrounds, and it’s 40 miles between Windigo and Rock Harbor. Some arrive by private boat, and several campgrounds have docks. Lodgings are limited to Rock Harbor and a couple cabins in Windigo, and rooms are both very expensive and typically sold out many months in advance. The season roughly runs from early June to early September, so it’s a good idea to plan your trip a year in advance.