Awards
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. - John Muir
I’ve gotten 2 awards in my life.
The first is a home made plaque with a monkey wrench attached to it (the old ones with no handle you often find for a quarter in rummage sales), hanging above my desk. It was given to me by my academic advisor, fellow activist hell-raiser, and life-long friend Don Snitgen, sometime shortly after we beat the DNR from building 2 drive-through campgrounds on a 4-mile unbroken stretch of Lake Superior shoreline.
We stopped 2 of 3 timber sales in the tract, and the only active logging operation packed-up early. This was at Little Presque Isle tract, 7 miles north of Marquette, MI. We were also able to get that 4 miles proposed as a Natural Area, and a 7-acre island a Wilderness. It’s still “proposed,” so our job is not yet done, 15 years after our committee and the DNR approved the plan.
Anyway, Don made a handle for the garage-sale monkey-wrench of curly-maple, and spliced two chunks of birds-eye maple together with a piece of black walnut, to make a plaque. The wrench is attached to its display by wires looping through drilled holes.
Don got the black walnut from one of his students, Mark Danielson, who was also a woodworker, and had salvaged the walnut from a tree that blew down in his Dad’s front yard.
Mark did his Master’s degree work at Fumee Lake, a tract of land owned by the City of Norway. He botanized the tract, and came up with several rare ferns and other neat plants. When the EPA forced the city to switch their municipal water system from using the surface water of Fumee Lake to an underground well, they no longer needed the land. Mark’s work helped advance a Trust Fund purchase, where the tract was transferred to county ownership as a natural area.
After finishing his thesis, and just before getting his Diploma, Mark, his wife and infant child were killed instantly in a car crash. Mark was coming back from lunch to Iron Mt. High School where he taught. Don heard the news that day as Mark’s final thesis was sitting right there in front of him on his desk. Mark Danielson’s degree was awarded posthumously.
The Fumee Lake report was put to use several years later.
Almost 15 years later.
In late January 2003, Beth Rogers contacted me asking if I knew about the timber sale being planned for the dedicated Natural Area at Fumee. I hadn’t, but Beth convinced me to help, and I was soon on the telephone with Walt Summers and Phyllis Carlson.
There was a tornado the preceding Fall, and 3 or 4 acres of big old aspen was completely flattened. The county commissioners wanted to bulldoze their way 2 miles through the tract to get to the wood.
I hooked Phyllis and Walt up with attorney Evan Dixon, and we decided to sue. There were also more than a couple dozen other folks passionate about protecting this land, and we enlisted them as plaintiffs and witnesses.
We went to court, and were awarded a temporary restraining order.
A week later we were back again asking for a preliminary injunction. Our judge recognized the importance of this dispute to the community, and granted our request. Our trial was scheduled right then, and the judge gave us not even 2 weeks to prepare.
The 4-day trial heard testimony from nearly 30 witnesses. The judge also wanted to see the site, and on day 3 we had a field trip. Fortunately, one of our plaintiffs owned land smack-dab next to the blow down. His woods had been hit by the tornado too. And, he just had that land salvaged-logged, giving us a muddy, rutted, fresh-oozing scar to compare the unlogged down trees to. We drove to our plaintiff’s house, and only had to walk a short way to see.
Our judge asked many good questions, there on the field trip, and all through the trial. He gave the trial his complete attention and had his decision prepared on day 4. It took almost an hour for him to deliver his judgment. We won all but one count. The logging was stopped. We had won on deed restrictions placed on the land by the City of Norway during the sale to Dickinson County. Those 2 restrictions forbid motorized use of the tract and required a county-wide referendum to sell any “real property” (the trees, in this case).
This Grand Prize was augmented greatly by the dozens of friends made in Iron Mountain, Quinnessec, and Norway.
My second award was really Linda Rulison’s. Linda directed her $250 Heart and Hands Keweenaw Award to our Nicole Bloom Memorial fund, to honor both Nicole and Northwoods Wilderness Recovery’s work. Nicole was a good friend of Linda’s and they both trained together for their Tae Kwan Do brown belts. Nicole was killed right after graduation in a climbing accident in the Tetons.
After corresponding by e-mail for months, I met Nicole for the first time. It was, literally, in the flesh! She came to a workshop we had at the Little Presque tract. On the second day we had a field trip to look at acid-rain-killed old-growth forest. When we walked out to Wetmore Landing, Nicole stripped to her birthday suit and dove right into Lake Superior! The college boys on our hike, not believing what they just saw, hesitated before partially disrobing and jumping in to follow. They didn’t have a chance to catch up!
Her mother connected with me after reading Nicole’s journal, which praised our conservation work. Since, Jackie has participated in a 300-mile trek to raise awareness about the dangers of metallic sulfide mining, and raised several thousand dollars doing it. She has also worked raising money for 2 Keweenaw projects – 7 Mile Point and Lookout Mountain (aka Mt. Baldy). At Baldy, the last couple miles of trail to the top are dedicated to Nicole, who now resides, forever, at the summit.
A manufactured plaque, from a yearly award program, of a well-funded non-profit, seems tawdry in comparison. Give me a painted, solstice sunset, sinking in Lake Superior’s depth, atop Ol’ Baldy, instead.