Lake Superior is the largest, cleanest and coldest of our Great Lakes. Along its southern shore stretches the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, like a string of ornaments. Kayakers paddle among the many sandstone caves that time and Superior’s waves have etched and the quietest, and most attentive, may hear the hushed plash of a sea otter slipping into the lake’s icy water.

The 21 islands within the lakeshore offer unmatched views of Lake Superior from slopes covered with mature and even some ancient forest stands.

This is a landscape that owes as much to human history as to natural processes. The Ojibway people have known and used the Apostles longest of all. European presence dates back to the voyageurs and the earliest fur trade. Later occupants fished, quarried, farmed and logged on the islands.

The ample evidence of human use, including extensive logging on many of the islands, caused the National Park Service to ignore longstanding local advocacy for the islands’ protection. That the Apostles are today a unit of the National Park System is evidence of the remarkable legacy of Gaylord Nelson. It was Sen. Nelson’s leadership for the islands’ protection that caused the National Park Service to take another look and to see, finally, what Sen. Nelson saw: a landscape wild again.

The Congress created the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 1970 and expanded its boundaries in 1986. In well-deserved tribute to Sen. Nelson’s tenacity, the Congress in December 2004 designated 80 percent of the Lakeshore, 33,500 acres, as the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area. That makes the area Wisconsin’s largest wilderness area and its first within a National Park.

“If not for Gaylord, there would be condos, there would be resorts,” Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold said, recalling Nelson’s work to win national park status for the Apostles. “It is because of (that effort) that his name will forever be associated with these islands.”

The Place
The archipelago that is the Apostle Islands comprises 22 islands just off Lake Superior’s Wisconsin shore. All but one are within the National Lakeshore that also includes a 12-mile strip of the shore.

The islands vary in size from a tiny 3 acres to 10,000. Despite long human use and occupancy, they are surprisingly wild. One of America’s largest concentrations of black bears uses the islands. Deer are plentiful, and beaver, otter, muskrat, fox and coyote occur.

The common loon is emblematic of the northland and its unforgettable call echoes across the islands. Eagles nest there, along with a range of other nesting and migratory birds.

Somewhat paradoxically, the old-growth forests that remain on Devils, Raspberry, Outer and Sand Islands, including 300-year-old white pine and hemlock, are there because of human use: the U.S. Lighthouse Service set areas aside on the islands as lighthouse reservations, restricting some forests for the use of lighthouse keepers.

Dotted around the islands are six historic lighthouses, the largest concentration in the park system, as well as several newer ones. They are popular with visitors.

The Apostles are famed for their sea-kayaking, but sailing and power boating, scuba diving, hiking and camping also draw many visitors each year to the islands’ beaches, sandspits and forests. Waterways between the islands and popular docking sites on the islands remain open for public use.

With so much of it protected within the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area, we are assured that it will be natural processes that shape the Lakeshore’s future and that our children may enjoy it as we do.

For More Information

• The Apostle Island National Lakeshore was just one of Sen. Nelson’s environmental achievements. To learn more, click here.