Where the River Meets the Lake

Where the River

Meets the Lake

FOLSR Newsletter | Fall 2020

Hello Friends

From Mike Koutnik, FOLSR Board Chair

What incredible surprises nature shares with us. Not long ago my wife and I took a few days to enjoy the glorious peak of fall color along Lake Superior. Some days were calm and relaxing, others windy and exhilarating. I kayaked. I spotted birds, both residents and those along their migration paths. Today, I watch gently accumulating snow. Autumn is only one in the wondrous cycle of seasons. Each is rewarding, energizing and renewing in its own way.

Being refreshed and renewed by our natural world motivates me as a Friends of the Lake Superior Reserve member. It motivates me—and your entire Board—to want to improve the estuary and find ways we can help the Reserve introduce a broader community to the wonder of the estuary, the waters that feed it and the lands over which those waters flow.

We are approaching a big opportunity. Friends of Lake Superior Reserve (FOLSR) is on the cusp of significantly advancing and expanding its work. That includes more recreational events and volunteer opportunities. The FOLSR Board is working hard to cooperate with public and private organizations in the area to make these activities even better. We need your financial support to continue to succeed. We apply for grants but the largest portion of our funding comes from … as public broadcasting likes to say … “members like you.”

Watch for FOLSR membership and year-end donation requests in the coming weeks. This is our first-ever campaign encouraging people to renew their annual memberships. We appreciate those of you who already took the time to renew memberships. For those of you who are new to the Friends, we welcome you and look forward to meeting you. Please consider FOLSR in your year-end giving plans. These gifts can make a big difference in providing opportunities to help people appreciate, learn about and enjoy the St. Louis River estuary.

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Your Friends are Becoming Even Friendlier

Valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion – commonly referenced as DEI – is an important but often forgotten facet of an organization. Organizations that value diversity recognize and respect the unique qualities and perspectives of different people. Organizations that value equity treat people fairly, recognizing that sometimes people may need different things to make their opportunities the same as another's. Inclusive organizations accept and value all individuals. To ensure that DEI measures are Friends of Lake Superior Reserve (FOLSR) cornerstones, the Board of Directors created a new sub-committee dedicated to improving the non-profit’s DEI internal and external measures.

For FOLSR, building stronger relationships across all communities sharing Lake Superior’s estuarine shores and welcoming a diverse array of members requires creative and passionate collaboration among Board members. The momentum and progress the new sub-committee has made has been steadfast and encouraging.

Reaching out to experts like Dr. Godfried Asante, an intercultural communications scholar and professor at San Diego State University, provided valuable background on social inequalities and exclusions. Asante shared valuable tools that FOLSR is using to understand the complexities keeping historically marginalized communities from participating in environmental organizations.

The DEI sub-committee is developing guiding principles to inform event planning, policymaking and other activities. These principles will ensure FOLSR is mindful of differences across communities in terms of availability, time, resources, interests, cultural significance and conflicts.

Here are a few of the other ways FOLSR Board is expanding its DEI efforts:

Members are building broader relationships to learn how FOLSR can serve different communities with equity.
The new FOLSR website includes Ojibwe names for lakes, rivers, and streams, and marks Ojibwe territories.
Members are inviting more diverse representation and presenters to events.

Such efforts take time and persistent attention. FOLSR Board members understand they may not get it right the first (or second) time, but know their attention to DEI challenges benefit the Reserve, the community and the region. There is continuing and evolving work to do. With the passionate and creative insights (both internal and external) paving a road to a more diverse, equitable and inclusive organization, FOLSR only stands to improve and better serve its communities.

By Abigail Armstrong, FOLSR Board Member

Graphic Credit: Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire, interactioninstitute.org; madewithangus.com.

Successful Beach Cleanup

Twenty-nine hardy volunteers braved cool windy weather on Saturday, September 26 and removed 150 pounds of litter from the beaches of Wisconsin Point and Barkers Island in the Lake Superior Reserve.

Volunteers from the Superior and Duluth area headed out in small, socially distanced family and friend groups to collect the waste and litter they encountered in their assigned segments of the beaches. Waste consisted of typical cigarette butts, plastics, paper and a few unusual items such as an electric hot dog warmer and discarded lawn chair.

The Beach Cleanup was sponsored by FOLSR and was part of the annual Adopt-a-Beach program organized by the Great Lakes Alliance. The Alliance has supported Adopt-a-Beach cleanups for over 25 years on all the Great Lakes. Thanks to the volunteers who participated in the beach cleanup that removed waste and provided an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Lake Superior Reserve.

By Jim Anklam, FOLSR Board Member

FOLSR's New Website

Check out our new website! FOLSR.ORG

When the FOLSR Board created its latest communication plan, a top priority was updating the FOLSR website to be as user-friendly and easy to navigate as possible. FOLSR is focused on engaging and connecting with the community and local government representatives in and around the Lake Superior Reserve. With this new website, FOLSR will be able to better support the Lake Superior Reserve, and invite Friends and future Friends to visit the Reserve and access its programming. We will also be able to direct local and state representatives to the new website to share the positive impacts that the Reserve system is having through the provision of education, research and opportunities to enjoy safe, clean natural areas.

As you explore FOLSR's new website, please reach out with comments and suggestions - what do you want to see when you visit? Email us at contact.folsr@gmail.com.

In Search of Volunteers

The Reserve is seeking a few Friends to lend a hand on two projects. Volunteers on the first project would be helping Research Coordinator Dr. Dustin Haines mark seedling trees along the Pokegama River with numbered tags. Volunteers on the second project would help collect water quality information from under the ice in several locations on the St. Louis River Estuary between January and March 2021. Volunteers should be comfortable navigating conditions along the estuary, including inclement weather, uneven terrain and slippery surfaces.

If interested, please email Deanna Erickson, Reserve Interim Manager, at deanna.erickson@wisc.edu.

Stay in the Loop

Search: The search is underway for the next Reserve Director. A search and screening committee reviewed applications and interviewed candidates in October. The committee includes representatives from FOLSR, UW-Madison, UW-Superior, Sea Grant and Fond du Lac. One round of interviews is completed and scheduling is underway for finalists to meet with partners, give virtual public presentations and talk in greater depth with the committee. The hiring process is especially challenging given the COVID-19 pandemic but the committee is encouraged by the applicants and is confident that the next leader for the Reserve will be exceptional.

Review: FOLSR members assisted in the first-ever Site Review of the Lake Superior Reserve in September. NOAA’s review team spent three days in virtual visits to the Reserve gathering input from the Reserve Advisory Board, community members, partners and FOLSR. Reserve staff assembled a video tour of the estuary so show off the amazing Reserve to the reviewers. You might be inspired by the most recent River2Lakes video. To wrap up the review, FOLSR hosted a series of Zoom meetings for partners to have an informal time to talk with the NOAA evaluation team.

Award: The Reserve won an award from the National Weather Service in September for enhancing community understanding of lakeshore flooding. The Ambassador of Excellence awards recognize local community members who have made significant contributions to helping build a weather-ready nation. Find out more about the award here.

Grant: The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration awarded $128,482 to the Reserve and the City of Superior (Parks, Recreation and Forestry) for Pokegama Bay launch improvements. The grant was awarded in September.

In the News: The Reserve’s Estuarium was the feature October story in Positively Superior. The online magazine reports, "Priority themes (for both Reserve staff and their partners’ research) are climate change, invasive species, pollutants, freshwater estuary research, species of special interest, restoration research and social science that improves understanding of the St. Louis River Estuary’s socioeconomic impacts."

That's Different!

Seeking Beach Poetry

Organizers of the St. Louis River Summit and the River Talks speaker series are seeking your poems about the St. Louis River Estuary. Poets will have the chance to read their prose during an online River Talk event held in conjunction with the Summit on March 3, 2021, at 7 p.m. Poems about the St. Louis River are preferred, but those about any river are welcome.

The St. Louis River Summit is an annual event attended by more than 250 natural resource managers, researchers, educators and the public with the goal of sharing river activities and research. River Talks is a public-friendly evening science event held monthly during the academic year.

The deadline for submitting poems will be in early February 2021. More information will be posted on FOLSR.org as it becomes available.

Get to Know Your Reserve

Wisconsin Point is a 3-mile-long peninsula of sandy beach separating the waters of Lake Superior from Allouez Bay. Here you will find several miles of sand dunes, small interdunal wetlands, and mixed forest of white and red pines. If you make your way to the end of the peninsula you will find the Wisconsin Point lighthouse, a beautiful place to take some pictures and watch birds. Wisconsin Point has been identified as an Important Bird Area of Wisconsin. It is common to see spring migrants resting in this unique setting in spring!

One of Your Friends

Meet Dr. Erin Burkett, the new Lake Superior Outreach Specialist for the Reserve. Erin coordinates Wisconsin's Lake Superior Collaborative and supports the Coastal Training Program. Community-engaged research is her jam. Erin holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from Michigan Technological University where she examined Great Lakes fisheries management, recreational fishing participation, and the management of women’s outdoor recreation programs through the lens of gender. Erin's training as an environmental social scientist serves her well as she works to improve the interrelations between humans and the natural environment at the Reserve and beyond.