Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 15, Number 3 • Fall 2007
Lake Huron
Basin Update
Protecting theWild Shorelines of Lake Huron
By Paul Bruce, Indian Mission Conservation Club
It is overwhelmingly apparent to
anyone who has ever driven highway
US 23 north along the Lake Huron shore
between Standish and Mackinaw City:
there is very little undeveloped
shoreline left. Residential development
– cottages and year round homes –
crowd the Sunrise Side coast. The once
extensive wild places such as dune and
swale wetlands have either disappeared or been severely
fragmented.
Fortunately there are two
significant remnants of the wild
Lake Huron shore that have
been spared from development,
Thompson’s Harbor and
Negwegon state parks.
Thompson’s Harbor, situated
between Alpena and Rogers
City, encompasses a wide variety
of significant and diverse
natural communities. The park
has over seven miles of
untouched cobble and dune
shoreline featuring marl beach
pools, coastal marsh, northern fens, and cedar swamps.
Thompson’s Harbor boasts the world’s largest population of the
federally threatened dwarf lake iris as well as numerous other
threatened or rare wildflowers.
Negwegon is located south of Thunder Bay near the small
settlement of Black River. Remote and wild, the park has over six
miles of Lake Huron shore that varies between rocky points and
bays and long sandy beaches. Extensive globally rare Great Lakes
dune and swale wetlands and a significant archeological site at
South Point are prominent features.
Visitors to both parks can enjoy something that is increasingly
rare – long undisturbed vistas of wild Lake Huron. Unfortunately,
there is growing pressure from local special interests –
politicians, business and tourism interests, and self-described
motorized “sportsmen”, for intensive developments such as
modern campgrounds, boatlaunches, and roads at Negwegon
and Thompson’s Harbor. Such development would compromise
these unique and fragile shorelines.
To counter these threats, the Indian Mission Conservation Club
has launched the Protect Our Parks Initiative, a plan to obtain
permanent protection for the magnificent wild shorelines of
Negwegon and Thompson’s Harbor. Our goal will be to acquire
Natural Areas designation through the Michigan Natural
Heritage Program for the parks. Currently only a small segment
of the Thompson’s Harbor shoreline has such designation.
The Indian Mission
Conservation Club has been
awarded a GLAHNF technical
assistance grant to help
implement this plan. We
have retained Grobbel
Environmental Planning
Associates to prepare welldocumented
nominations to
present to the Natural Heritage
Program.
So far, local support for the
Indian Mission Conservation
Club’s initiative is limited. While
trying to build awareness at this level, a show of support is
needed from throughout the state of Michigan and beyond. The
Conservation Club is working on a statewide campaign to
increase awareness of the need to protect Negwegon and
Thompson’s Harbor.
Your help is needed to ensure that these unique remnants of our
natural heritage will be enjoyed by future generations. Send a
letter of support for the Natural Areas designations of
Thompson’s Harbor and Negwegon state parks to me, Paul
Bruce, President of the Indian Mission Conservation Club of
Oscoda, Michigan at pbruce@m33access.com. Your letter will be
included in the nominations submitted to the Michigan Natural
Heritage Program.
For more information on the Protect Our Parks Initiative,
contact Paul at (989) 739-3640.
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