A Storied Wilderness: Rewilding the Apostle Islands

Acknowledgments

xv In my early years of graduate school, as I cast about for a topic on which I suspected I would spend close to a decade (or, as it turns out, a littlemore),IknewthatIwantedaplace-basedsubjectthatmettworequirements. It needed to be about a place to which I had a personal connection, and it had to connect to a current environmental issue. I found both in the Apostle Islands. I first went camping on Stockton Island in the early 1980s, and I’ve returned to northern Wisconsin almost every year since. After I spent the summer of 1999 working for Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, learning more about the islands’ past and also about the upcoming wilderness suitability study, I knew that I had found my topic. And the more time that I spend in the Apostles, the more I love the place. I hope that my attachment to the islands and their environments comes through in the pages of this book. I started keeping a list of people to thank for their help with this project a long time ago, as my debts mounted. Nevertheless, I am as sure that I will forget to thank someone as I am that this book would not have been completed without the assistance of the people mentioned here. My co-advisors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Bill Cronon and Nancy Langston, were encouraging, challenging, and helpful with every step of this project. Nancy commented on drafts and proposals, wrote letters, and Acknowledgments xvi acknowledgments offered advice, and she served a fresh fish lunch at her cabin in Cornucopia. She provided the crucial perspective of an environmental historian working in the field of environmental studies—a perspective that has now become second nature to me. Bill has been as kind, generous, and helpful a mentor as anyone could ask for, and he continued to push me in his role as editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series at the University of Washington Press. Bill and Nan Fey let me stay in their Bayfield home whenever I needed it, making my many fruitful research trips possible. This goes far beyond the boundaries of what an advisor or an editor does for a student and well into the realm of what one friend does for another. As this project gradually became a book, a new group of people provided new types of help. University of Washington Press acquiring editor Marianne Keddington-Lang offered constant support, advice, and reassurance. Every writer should have the chance to work with such a talented editor. Marianne also found two of the most helpful and generous readers one could ask for: Jay Turner read the complete manuscript twice, each time making comments that improved the final result significantly; and David Louter drew on his wealth of experience with the National Park Service to help me draw the most that I could out of this story. Julie Van Pelt also read the manuscript with an incredible eye for detail and style. A number of others read drafts and offered sound advice. Will Barnett, Mike Rawson, Troy Reeves, Tom Robertson, Kendra Smith-Howard, and Chris Wells read drafts at different stages. Two people did the yeoman’s work of reading the whole thing. David Bernstein read every page of the manuscript—sometimes multiple drafts—always with a fine eye for detail and for argument. His fresh eyes and insightful comments made this a far better book than it otherwise would have been. Bob Mackreth worked for many years as the park historian and cultural resources manager at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and he has a deeper knowledge of the history of the islands and their many stories than almost anyone else. He opened his archives, his knowledge of the islands’ past, and even his house to me. He responded to countless emailed questions, not just with prompt answers but with enthusiasm and encouragement. Other members of the AINL staff helped, too. Christy Baker took over from Bob Mackreth as cultural resource manager and continued to support my research. Superintendent Bob Krumenaker and Jim Nepstad, chief of planning and resource management, have been welcoming from the start, letting me sit acknowledgments xvii in on numerous wilderness study meetings. Julie Van Stappen has provided answers to my questions about the park’s ecosystems and resource management programs and access to numerous surveys and documents. Tam Hoffman, Neil Howk, and several others also helped along the...