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
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.
Together we are stronger: Access for All Advisory Committee formed
The Access for All Advisory Committee brings together like-minded people who are committed to improving access to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore for people of all abilities. We appreciate the expertise, enthusiasm and connections these committee members bring...
Friends receives Memorial Medical Center donation for Access for All
To aid in efforts to make one such wild place, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, more accessible,
Memorial Medical Center recently announced a generous donation to Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore for its
“Access for All” initiative.
Access for All: accessing my dream
I wanted to float in a kayak under clouds of cotton I saw as a child, I wanted to discover the mystery of the sea caves. I wondered what shapes I might see in them. I wanted to hear natures music while floating quietly inside.
Access for All testimonials: Join the cause
Read why donors, including 100% of the board of directors of Friends, support this major effort to make the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore accessible to people of all abilities. The goal is to raise $325,000 to fund an accessible ramp at Meyers Beach and to...
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.
Education
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...
Badges of honor: Celebrating Junior Rangers
Raise your right hand and repeat after the ranger: “I am proud to be a National Park Service Junior Ranger. I promise to appreciate, respect, and protect all national park places. I also promise to continue learning about the landscape, plants, animals, and history of...
Through a child’s eyes
When adults gaze out at the Apostle Islands, they may see lighthouses, or a chance for adventure, or the relaxation of miles of sandy beaches to comb. But what does a fourth grader see when she visits the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore?
A is for Apostle Islands—virtual book reception and reading on April 26
Join this celebration of the Apostle Islands 50th and the forthcoming book A is for Apostle Islands, an ABC book for all ages!
Watch now: celebrating the science, arts and future of the Apostle Islands
Watch, learn and enjoy hearing from experts in all aspects of the national lakeshore, as we celebrate the first 50 years of the park we love and look to the future.
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 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.
Friends volunteers lend their green thumbs, time and talent on Michigan Island
In late June, a group armed with shovels, rakes and a willingness to get their hands dirty arrived on Michigan Island to care for the gardens.
A day at the beach: Friends volunteers help to restore the Lakeshore’s sandscapes
Thanks to the Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore volunteers who spent a day planting beachgrass at Little Sand Bay on the mainland, as well as on Raspberry Island.
