Tag: apostle islands

Investigation Uncovers Bombing Site

An investigation has found that the Air Force used the
Apostle Islands and Lake Superior for bombing practice in the early 1970’s. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:

Transcript

An investigation has found that the Air Force used the Apostle Islands and Lake
Superior for bombing practice in the early 1970’s. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:


Jim Erickson was hoping to pull in a net full of fish one afternoon thirty years
ago, but his catch had a surprise. The Bayfield, Wisconsin fisherman had
snagged a missile.


“It was about four feet long and had some fins on it. They used to run those runs
outside of Outer Island there during the summer. Target practice, I guess.”


Erickson strapped the missile to the top of his fishing boat and tooled back to
Bayfield, where he handed it over to the Coast Guard. Erickson says he’s not
sure if the missile was a dummy or had live ammo. That’s one missile of three he
knows of that local fisherman pulled in around the Apostle Islands.


An investigation by the nearby Red Cliff tribe uncovered Erickson’s story. The
U.S. Department of Defense paid for that investigation. It is uncovering evidence
of different uses by the military of Lake Superior, including dumping tons of
ammunition after World War II.


For the GLRC, I’m Mike Simonson.

Bear Activity in National Park Increases

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore plans to step up its education campaign about the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country. Park officials hope that will end this past summer’s encounters between campers and bears. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore plans to step up its education campaign about
the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country. Park officials hope that will end this past summer’s encounters between campers and bears. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike
Simonson reports.


With about 30 bears on Stockton Island, some of them decided to swim for a less-
crowded scrounging area. So, this summer, campers reported bears rummaging through
their food on neighboring islands – forcing the Park Service to close a couple of
campsites.


Apostle Islands Resource Specialist Julie Van Stappen says the bear population may be a
little crowded. And even though there has been an annual hunt of bears since the mid-1990’s, she doesn’t expect much help thinning out the bear population from hunters.


“Very few people do it. You have to get out to the islands and there’s no motorized equipment allowed, so it would be a very different hunt.”


Next summer, Van Stappen says instead of moving bears or closing campsites, the best
bet is to educate campers about storing food, and not attracting bears in the first place.
She says that would be the simplest way to end the close encounters of the bear kind on
the Apostle Islands.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Relatives Return to the &Quot;Lucerne"

The story of the sinking of the 200 foot long wooden cargo ship"Lucerne" has the familiar tone of other shipwrecks…caught in a Novemberstorm on Lake Superior, it went down with all hands. But this summer, aface was put to that 19th century wreckage, as the family of the"Lucerne’s" captain came to Wisconsin to dive the site and bid him afinal goodbye. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson hastheir story:

Not a Place for Weenies

Newsweek magazine has named Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior as one of the seven best places in the world…to get away from it all. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports, this isolated island is one of the least-visited places in the national park system:

Personal Watercraft Ban

As of August 1st, an unprecedented ban on personal watercraft will affect most of the Upper Saint Croix (croy) Riverway in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports, this action may extend to other national parks around the Great Lakes: