July 25, 2018
CNS July Environmental Package
To: CNS Editors
From: Eric Freedman
http://news.jrn.msu.edu/capitalnewsservice/
For technical problems, contact CNS technical manager Tony Cepak at (517) 803-6841; cepak@msu.edu.
For other matters, contact CNS Director Eric Freedman at (517) 355-4729 or (517) 256-3873; freedma5@msu.edu.
Editors: These stories are the result of a partnership between Capital News Service and Great Lakes Echo..
PIPINGPLOVERS: A new predator has emerged for critically endangered piping plovers. Snowy owls were recently seen eating plovers in several locations along the Great Lakes, including Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan and Vermilion Point in the Upper Peninsula. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service explains. By Naina Rao. FOR ALL POINTS.
w/PIPINGPLOVERPHOTO: Piping plover. Credit: Don Freiday/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
WHITESHOALLIGHTHOUSE: Renovation has started to restore a Great Lakes icon to its vintage “1950s glory” and, for the first time, open its doors to the public. The new owners plan to convert White Shoal Lighthouse, offshore 20 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge, to a bed and breakfast and museum. The owners and a lighthouse historian explain. By Carin Tunney. FOR ALL POINTS.
w/WHITESHOALLIGHTHOUSEPHOTO1: White Shoal Lighthouse. Credit: White Shoal Light Historical Preservation Society.
w/WHITESHOALLIGHTHOUSEPHOTO2: New owners of White Shoal Lighthouse, Brent Tompkins and Mike Lynch. Credit: White Shoal Light Historical Preservation Society.
w/WHITESHOALLIGHTHOUSEPHOTO3: Workers dubbed the steep ladderwell to the parapet level the “Stairway to Heaven.” Credit: White Shoal Light Historical Preservation Society.
w/WHITESHOALSLIGHTHOUSEPHOTO4: Co-owner Brent Tompkins scales the tower of White Shoal Lighthouse. Credit: Marty Rosalik.
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MARKETINGLIGHTHOUSES: Lighthouse owners are looking at new marketing techniques to draw visitors and funding for preservation. State grants have helped Keweenaw Waterway Lighthouse in Chassell, the DeTour Reef Light on Drummond Island and the Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse. The Harbor Beach Lighthouse Preservation Society spent nearly $1 million over the past 30 years to maintain its lighthouse. The Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association spent millions to renovate St. Helena Island Lighthouse. Lack of funds has stalled major restorations of the Cheboygan River Front Range Lighthouse. We also talk to a former lighthouse worker at White Shoal, the Michigan Lighthouse Alliance and the state Historical Preservation Office. By Carin Tunney. FOR ALL POINTS.
w/MARKETINGLIGHTHOUSESPHOTO1: Former lighthouse worker Larry Stowitts (left) pictured with Marty Rosalik, is assisting with renovation of White Shoal Lighthouse. Credit: White Shoal Light Historical Preservation Society.
w/MARKETINGLIGHTHOUSESPHOTO2: State funding helped with restoration of the Cheboygan River Front Range Light. Credit: Terry Pepper.
w/MARKETINGLIGHTHOUSSPHOTO3: Harbor Beach Lighthouse marketing materials. Credit: Harbor Beach Lighthouse Preservation Society.
MACKINACSOLDIERS: Mackinac Island bustles with 850,000 to a million visitors annually. But for British and American soldiers stationed there from 1780 through 1895, the strategic but remote outpost could be a place of loneliness, spectacular beauty, harsh discipline, even death. A new book tells the stories of those who served there until 1895 when the only remaining squad “marched out of Fort Mackinac for the last time,” victims of Army skepticism about its military value and a national cost-cutting movement that closed many forts. By Eric Freedman. FOR ALL POINTS.
w/MACKINACSOLDIERSPHOTO1: Book cover. Credit: Mackinac State Historic Parks and Michigan State University Press.
w/MACKINACSOLDIERSPHOTO2: A depiction of Fort Mackinac from 1890. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
MAPLESUGARING: Archaeological research at four sites in the U.P.’s Hiawatha National Forest sheds new light on how Native Americans and French-Canadians made maple sugar in the late 1700s through late 1800s. Maple sugar was more than a mere commercial product for them, and the seasonal sugaring camps offers insights into social structure, diet and lifestyles, the archaeologists tell us. By Eric Freedman. FOR ALL POINTS.