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 campaign is helping to fund an accessible ramp at Meyers Beach (scheduled for 2025) and other accessibility projects. We’ve also funded the all-accessible Stockton Island amphitheater, a viewing stand at Little Sand Bay and included accessibility tools on our website. The need to enhance park accessibility for all is a major goal of Friends and the National Park Service and is 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.
Safe boating is informed boating
Wave Watch is a partnership with UW-Madison and the National Park Service to deploy a system of 5-8 solar-powered buoys in the Apostle Islands, giving kayakers, sailors, and power boaters real-time wave and wind information refreshed every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. Real information when you need it most.
Help us return the buoys to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in the summer of 2024 and beyond.
Starry Skies Initiative
The Apostle Islands Starry Skies Initiative, launching in 2024, seeks to protect night sky resources in and around the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore through the identification and monitoring of light pollution, public outreach, increasing awareness, and a potential designation for the Apostle Islands as an International Dark Sky Park through the International Dark Sky Association (IDA).
You can help keep those stars shining bright.
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
Meyers Beach Project Update: An open letter from Friends Executive Director Jeff Rennicke
The Board of Directors of Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, in consultation with its staff and the National Park Service, recently voted to delay the planned 2025-2026 construction of the all-accessible walkway at Meyers Beach after contractor bids for construction did not meet expectations.
Our website works for everyone: audit verifies Friends website is accessible
National parks belong to all of us. So does the Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore website, which a new audit confirms is accessible for more than 30,000 visitors every year. Accessibility means our website includes features and special tools to help people who may live with sight or hearing challenges.
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Superintendent Lynne Dominy retires, reflects on accomplishments and future
We join the National Park Service and surrounding community members in celebrating the many contributions and the retirement of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Superintendent Lynne Dominy of Bayfield.
Love Our Lakeshore: Welcoming the Ajijaak to the National Park Service fleet
The Sandhill Crane has landed. The staff of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore recently took delivery of the first new addition to the park’s marine fleet since 2016, the Ajijaak, which means “Sandhill Crane” in the native Ojibwe language.
Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore’s Access for All initiative wins Governor’s Tourism Award
Friends Executive Director Jeff Rennicke accepted the Bright IDEA Award during the Governor’s Conference on Tourism Dinner and Awards Celebration in La Crosse, on March 11th. Accessibility is a key component of the Bright IDEA award, which “recognizes tourism efforts that foster a welcoming environment and authentic experiences for all visitors.”
National Park Foundation supports Friends Access for All campaign, highlights larger mission in new video
The National Park Foundation and partner L.L. Bean today released a video showcasing their role in financially supporting Access for All, a Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore campaign designed to fund construction of an accessible ramp at Meyers Beach, gateway to the mainland sea caves. The new ramp and wider staircase, scheduled for construction next summer, will replace an old, narrow staircase that can be challenging to navigate, especially for people with mobility issues and for people carrying kayaks to and from the beach.
Education
The fungus art of Raspberry Island keeper Francis Jacker
When you visit the historic Raspberry Island lighthouse and friends board member Neil Howk is your guide, you’re in for a treat. As a retired park ranger specializing in telling the stories of the islands, Neil has a special way of immersing park visitors in the rich history and natural beauty. This summer, Neil volunteered at the Raspberry Island light, where in the late 1800s, keeper Francis Jacker exercised his artistic talents in a mosts unusual way.
Life at Raspberry Island Light: 2024 vs. 1924
After the lighthouse was completely restored in 2005-2006, the half of the house used by the head lighthouse keeper was refurnished to appear as it did in the early 1920s. This is the “museum” part of the house that visitors experience during a lighthouse tour to learn what life was like for the keepers working on the island at that time. The other half of the lighthouse was converted into quarters for the park staff that station the island from mid-June to early September. I thought it might be interesting to compare what life was like for the keepers at Raspberry Island one hundred years ago with the conditions that today’s “keepers” enjoy.
Bear encounters in the Apostle Islands: safety tips to help campers and visitors minimize the risk
When visiting the Apostle Islands, it’s important to understand that these islands are wild places and to be bear aware. Oak and Outer Islands are currently closed to camping and day-use because bears have been escalating their encounters with humans and have caused property damage. The current advisory says,”These closures are necessary to ensure visitor safety and bear well-being.”
Bird’s-eye view: What 50 years of research reveals about waterbirds in the Apostle Islands
2024 is a milestone year for the waterbirds of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and for the scientists who study them. It is also a time for concern as some waterbird populations are now significantly smaller than they’ve been over the past half century. Others are simply gone.
The Apostle Islands have served as nesting areas for herring gulls, ring-billed gulls, common terns, black terns, cormorants and great blue herons. These birds are colonial, meaning that they typically nest in colonies or groups. As rugged and remote as most of the islands are, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources scientist Sumner Matteson told Friends board member Neil Howk that he’s seeing a decline for every colonial waterbird species in the Apostles. The question is why. The possible explanations vary by species.
Earth Day 2024: Planet vs. Plastics in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
From single-use water bottles, containers and bags you might carry into the park to microplastics detected in the lake water around the islands, plastics are having an impact on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Doing something about our personal and global dependence on plastics is the global theme of Earth Day 2024.
Beauty from above: A winter hike on the Lakeshore trail
It has been a winter of extremes: the warmest December on record in many parts of the northland, historically low ice coverage on Lake Superior, and then the plummeting temperatures of mid-January. There were windless days on end with the lake barely rippled and then a storm bringing gusts up to 53 miles an hour at Devils Island churning the lake into waves of 12 to 15 feet.
There is beauty in extremes, the kind of beauty that can turn a hike into a journey through a landscape of enchantment.
Stewardship
Earth Day 2024: Planet vs. Plastics in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
From single-use water bottles, containers and bags you might carry into the park to microplastics detected in the lake water around the islands, plastics are having an impact on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Doing something about our personal and global dependence on plastics is the global theme of Earth Day 2024.
Dark Sky Week: from the first lighthouse beacon to the starry skies of today and beyond
Now, 15 years after Weller and his team made that first, iconic image, he reflects on the first time he experienced the star-filled skies above Outer Island. “I had never seen skies like that. It was not lost on me that we were looking at sky that people a hundred years ago… a thousand years ago… would see.” Weller thinks back to the mariners who navigated Lake Superior by the stars before the first lighthouses helped to guide them through stormy seas. “That line from the hymn Amazing Grace echos in my mind immediately. “I once was lost but now I am found.”
Treasures of the night: Friends to focus on protecting the night sky over the Apostle Islands in 2024 and beyond
“One of our priority issues for 2024 and beyond,” Rennicke says, “will be to look at the potential for protecting our dark sky resources here in the Islands through the identification and monitoring of light pollution, public outreach, increasing awareness, and more.”
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...
Service
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.
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.