Our Work
JOIN USOn this page: Our Pillars | Our Projects
Our Pillars
As diverse as the islands themselves and the people who love them, our work at Friends reaches across a wide spectrum of projects and issues all focused on the four guiding pillars of our organization.
Accessibility
National parks belong to all of us. Our strong partnership with the National Park Service, business partners, and organizations is removing barriers for people of all abilities to explore the Apostle Islands. Our Access for All fund is helping to leverage funds and support in a variety of ways, from the creation of the all-accessible Stockton Island amphitheater to captioning videos and alt-text features on our internet offerings. The need to enhance park accessibility for all is a major goal of Friends and the National Park Service and an important focus of our work.
Education
The heart of our parks is the people who explore them, learn about them, love them, and then work to protect them. If the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is to thrive in the face of changing times, we must work to keep (or make) the park relevant to both current and future generations. Friends works to connect with all demographics including those who have yet to experience our national parks to ensure a strong base of park users, park supporters, and park lovers through our support of programs like Stewards of Tomorrow, and Island School. We also offer adult education through programs, publications, outreach, podcasts, and more.
Service
To love a place is to give back. Friends offers our members a wide variety of ways to give back to the islands. Plant beach grass on the Raspberry Island sandspits or mainland beaches to prevent erosion, tend the historic gardens at the Michigan Island Lighthouse or the Gaylord A. Nelson garden on the headquarters grounds, build bat houses, participate in litter pickups to keep trash out of the lake and off our islands, educate beach walkers about the fragility of nesting piping plovers, help with public outreach at events, all of these and more help you help the islands you love.
Stewardship
How do we preserve history in the park? How do we ensure that others can experience the dark skies or diversity of wildlife for generations to come? We become stewards of this place. Friends works with the park to provide funding for projects like the restoration of historic structures, purchasing bear boxes to keep both campers and wildlife safe, exploring the role of Citizen Science projects in the park, purchasing solar shares for the new Visitor Center at Little Sand Bay to lower its carbon footprint, and considering a Dark Sky designation to keep the stars shining bright. We all have a hand in the future. Help us use it wisely.
Access for All!
Want to make a donation that goes straight to work as soon as you send it?
Each year, Friends features one important project and this year it is our Access for All campaign. Support the park’s efforts to build boardwalks, accessible campsites, include accessibility features on interpretative signs and websites, and make our park accessible to all. Make a difference now.
Our Projects
Friends works closely with the staff of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to coordinate projects that most benefit the park and with the help of members like you ensure the quality of our park far into the future.
Click each of the tabs displayed below to learn more about projects related to our four pillars.
Accessibility
DOUBLE your impact during the Access for All Matching Grant Challenge!
Double is better: If you give right now to the Access for All initiative of Friends of the Apostle Islands, your impact will be doubled by the Matching Grant challenge offered through the support of the Black Spruce Fund.
Kwik Trip supports Access for All with generous contribution
Friends of the Apostle Islands recently received major new support for its Access for All initiative through a partnership with Kwik Trip.
Meyers Beach Ramp, Little Sand Bay trail network advance through National Park Service environmental review process
The National Park Service has issued a final environmental assessment decision endorsing plans for an accessible ramp at Meyers Beach and new trails at Little Sand Bay, which include Mashkiig (wetland) Boardwalk, Nelson Cabin Trail, and Minisi (island) Overlook Trail....
Wisconsin Sea Grant climate and tourism outreach specialist supports Access for All
“It’s obvious that there’s a lot of thought and passion that’s gone into the work, and it was really cool to see it personally. . . We’re trying to help increase access to coastal spaces so that people can come to the lakeshore, learn about the Great Lakes and experience it for themselves. Supporting efforts like these falls within our mission of outreach and education, and also promoting the sustainable use of the Great Lakes, as well.”
Annual cruise connects Friends supporters with the islands, accomplishments and what’s next
"This was a trip of imagination. It was a trip of gratitude." That's how Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Executive Director Jeff Rennicke summed up the 2023 annual cruise.60 Friends supporters boarded the Superior Princess in Bayfield for the catered...
Meyers Beach paddlers, hikers learn about Access for All ramp project during Saturday sessions
If your travels bring you to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore this month, stop by the park’s Meyer Beach trailhead. If it’s a Saturday, chances are good that you might find a Friends of the Apostle Islands board member ready and eager to meet you at this popular...
Education
New Ojibwe educator hired for Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (Wenabozho ominisan)
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in partnership with Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are pleased to announce Peyton Martinson as the newly appointed Park Ranger Cultural Educator for Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (Wenabozho ominisan).
Join us for “Apostle Islands in National Geographic: the story behind the story”
The March issue of National Geographic magazine celebrates Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands National Lakeshore with the kind of global exposure few other publications can match. “Return to Wild Waters” describes the Islands as a “sublime, yet dangerous playground for kayakers, sailors and powerboaters to explore.” And on March 30th at 7 p.m., you’ll be able to experience the story behind the story during a special online event.
Get your copy of the National Geographic feature on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
The Apostle Islands are a national treasure. In its March 2023 issue, National Geographic magazine celebrates their beauty and importance.
Full Circle: Second and third grade students from Georgia visit the Apostle Islands on a virtual tour of our national parks
With Education as one of our pillars, opportunities to learn and teach others about the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore have always been an important part of the mission of Friends. Recently, Executive Director Jeff Rennicke, a former teacher himself, had the chance to speak by Zoom to the second and third grade students of Ms. Hildebrandt’s class from High Meadows School in Roswell, Georgia.
Friends launches new website focused on discovery and accessibility
The new friendsoftheapostleislands.org offers stunning visuals, a new “Discover the Park” section and new tools designed to make the site more accessible to people of all abilities.
The Apostle Islands School: A Rite of Passage for Chequamegon Bay Youth
By Erica Peterson For me, the history of the Apostle Islands School reads like a logbook—full of sketches, personal reflections, images, challenges, and surprising outcomes. It’s stuffed with lesson plans, menus, Ojibwe words, and most importantly, the life changing...
Stewardship
Giving Tuesday 2022 – Access for All
Friends of the Apostle Islands is asking your support in the biggest capital campaign in our organization’s history aimed at supporting the ongoing efforts of the National Park Service to remove barriers to the park – from replacing those forty-five steps at the Meyers Beach launching site with an all-accessible ramp, to continuing the boardwalk project on Sand Island, to ensuring the latest technology on interpretive signs and our website.
Getting things done: Black Spruce Fund makes $25,000 pledge to Access for All
After years of regular annual donations to Friends, Peter Tropman and Ginny Graves recently took another step in their philanthropic support by pledging $25,000 more to keep the Access for All initiative vibrant and growing as well as joining the Advisory Committee for the project.
The power of one: Paul Blanchard
If you were out at Sand Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore this summer, you likely saw (and probably heard) the National Park Service crew hard at work hauling planks, pounding nails, tightening bolts, working on an addition to the long-term boardwalk...
Friends Volunteers Tend Historical Gardens
Volunteers from Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore helped the park restore the 16 garden beds in 2016 and continue to tend them each spring.
A Time Capsule Letter to the Future Stewards of the Apostle Islands
What would you say to future stewards of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, as they celebrate 100 years of the park?
Watch: Historic flag raising ceremony at Little Sand Bay
For the first time since the creation of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, the flag of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa was permanently raised over the park on June 23rd, 2021.
Service
Friends volunteers follow in the footsteps of Michigan Island keepers and gardeners
It’s a tough act to follow the lightkeepers of old. They were known for tending things - be it brass, the tower light or their flowers. Their gardens at the light stations reflected sincere diligence and pride. Each spring, usually the second week in June, Friends of...
Connecting people and the Apostle Islands to Costa Rican parks
Ten Bayfield area volunteers, including “Friends” Board members Neil Howk and Mark Peterson, recently completed two-weeks of conservation work on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula as a product of an agreement between Lake Superior’s national parks and Costa Rica’s National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC).
Friends Volunteers Tend Historical Gardens
Volunteers from Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore helped the park restore the 16 garden beds in 2016 and continue to tend them each spring.
Volunteers Gather for Earth Day 2022 Great Lake Clean Up Event
Volunteers rolled up their sleeves up on Earth Day, 2022 for a beach and street cleanup in Bayfield, gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. This Earth Day project is aimed at keeping trash off our islands by picking it up before it gets in the lake....
Erica Peterson’s legacy will live on!
Erica saw her role with the Friends as “an opportunity to give back to the Park for all its beach walks, bog smells, wild storms, eagle sightings, and night skies,” she says, and in turn, “help steward its vital future.”
Watch now: Sense of Adventure: Inspire!
In our new installment of our “Sense of Adventure” series, part of our 50th anniversary summer celebration, we will look at the many ways these islands and this lake inspire us – poetry, art, jewelry making, night photography, music, even the inspiration to connect the islands through swimming, a kind of dance among the waves.
