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149 chapter 7  Planning the Lakeshore In the process of developing the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore several forces were significant factors in the eventual outcome. In the next several chapters, the focus is turned more closely upon certain issues and policies that played a formative role and are essential case studies for those seeking to understand the forces shaping local, state, and federal responses to the lakeshore . In this chapter the strategic role that planning at various levels played in the outcomes of the process is examined. Chapter 8 evaluates how politics at every level affected the choices lakeshore proponents made. Chapter 9 examines the crucial role the press played in creating and shaping public demand and support for a park of some sort in the region. Chapter 10 examines the responses of those most affected by choices, those who resided, permanently or part-time in the region, to the idea of a park in their midst. Chapter 11 looks at the conflicts that arose between state interests and those of the federal government, and mechanisms by which those challenges were addressed . Finally, chapter 12 examines the crucial roles, both positive and negative , that the two Native American tribes, Red Cliff and Bad River, played and the consequences of the lakeshore proposal becoming caught in national-level power plays by Native leaders seeking broader political change. We begin with the vital role of planning. In the 1930s Apostle Island enthusiasts urged the establishment of a national park on one or more of the islands. The concept of “recreation areas” had not yet evolved in either the National Park Service (NPS) or congressional policy. By the 1960s, however, the question was, “Should the Apostles be a national park or a recreation area?” It was an important question because of the different uses and management programs engendered in each designation. 150 issues and policy studies Furthermore, the chosen designation would significantly influence public acceptance of the proposal. Gaylord Nelson’s original proposal called for a “lakeshore recreation area” encompassing the Kakagon–Bad River Sloughs and the long sand spit along Chequamegon Bay and Lake Superior. The proposal was strongly influenced by evolving legislation on national seashores, such as Cape Cod, Oregon Dunes, Point Reyes, Fire Island, and Padre Island. Lakeshores at Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks, and Indiana Dunes were all to be recreation areas. Other nonconflicting uses were permitted. To have proposed a national park for the Apostle Islands with restrictions on hunting, commercial fishing, harvesting wild rice, and trapping would have been highly controversial among the Bad River Tribe and local sportsmen who freely used the sloughs and who had hunting and fishing shacks there. When the proposal was expanded to include the Bayfield Peninsula, parts of the Red Cliff Reservation, and twentyone of the twenty-two islands, there was even greater need to allow Native Americans to hunt, fish, and gather, and to address the desires of both Native and non-Native sportsmen to hunt deer and bear on the islands. To have proposed a national park might well have doomed the proposal from the start. A recreation area would fit the region nicely and avoid conflict. The Recreation Advisory Council’s Policy Circular No. 1 spelled out the concept clearly: “Within National Recreation Areas, outdoor recreation shall be recognized as the dominant or primary resource management purpose. If additional natural resource utilization is carried on, such additional use shall be compatible with fulfilling the recreation mission, and none will be carried on that is significantly detrimental to it.” Other uses could occur without major conflicts. In spite of the obvious need to maintain strong support from the two tribes as well as with local communities and with hunters and fishers, the idea of designating the Apostle Islands as a national park continued to surface during the planning and legislative process. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR) initially took the position that judgments on this question should not be made until each island and the mainland units had been evaluated and classified according to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) system, leaving open the question, “Is it a national park, a recreation area, or a national monument?” ORRRC had proposed six classi fications: high density recreation areas; general outdoor recreation areas; natural environment areas; unique natural areas; primitive areas; and historic and cultural sites. The Apostle Islands proposal would fit under several of...

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