Beautiful Sugarloaf Cove
Photo by Dan Kaler
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Welcome to Sugarloaf's winter newsletter - also known as The Interpreter. We are using an email format this time. This issue includes highlights from 2020, introduction of our new logo, and update from the North Shore Collaborative and more! Enjoy.
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Welcome to 2021!
We sincerely appreciate YOUR support in 2020! A record 24,000 visitors experienced our property in 2020!
Thank you for your generous donations and membership renewals during the last quarter of 2020. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to host our annual North Shore Evening. This event had been an important source of our annual funding. Instead, we organized an End of 2020 Membership and Donation Campaign. Thank you for your generosity! Our campaign was successful and provides Sugarloaf with the funds to begin 2021!
Like other organizations, we adjusted our programs and operations because of the pandemic…and learned some of the adjustments were impactful! During 2021 we plan to:
- Continue to offer some programs via Zoom technology. These have been popular and reach a large audience of Sugarloaf members. Attendees are able enjoy the programs throughout the Country, rather than only at our Nature Center at a fixed time!
- Move our site hosts outside to the deck when weather permits. The pandemic forced us to close the Nature Center to visitors. This outside location enabled our site hosts to engage Sugarloaf visitors who previously walked past the Nature Center. Some asked questions, became members, purchased items, and made donations! We are exploring ways to expand this interaction with visitors in 2021!
Looking back on 2020, Sugarloaf had a successful year and continues to become an important location on the North Shore. We will continue to improve to earn your support in 2021!
By Russ Baker, Board Chair
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Upcoming Guest Speaker - Douglas Tallamy: Renowned Author, Professor and Great Speaker |
On April 14 at 7 pm, we are excited to have Douglas Tallamy present via Zoom. Doug is the author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens and Nature's Best Hope. He is a founder of the website Homegrown National Park - a grassroots call-to-action to restore biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks. He will talk about the importance of native plants to insects, birds and humans. His photos are beautiful and his message will inspire you.
Watch our website and your email for Zoom registration information.
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A New Look for Sugarloaf
Last spring, the board and staff decided it was time for a new logo for Sugarloaf. With this new look, it will more easily fit on logo items such as hats and shirts, and can be modified to include just Sugarloaf Cove or Sugarloaf: The North Shore Stewardship Association. Thank you to John Simpson for donating his time and talent to the effort. You can see the new logo at the top of this email and on your new parking hang tag when you renew your membership. This summer you will see it on new items in our gift shop and on our website.
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Bird Banding Summary
Sugarloaf Cove 2020
2020 was a year that taught or retaught so many of us that being outside is critical to maintaining our health and well being. We fortunately were able to figure out alternative methods for bird banding this year to maintain safety for the staff and volunteers by moving it away from the building and lots of visitors. During the summer and fall season we banded about an average number of 606 birds. And we recaptured 172 birds that were already banded previously, some of these captured multiple times during the course of the summer, as many 4 times in the case of 6 different birds. So the total individuals birds recaptured is 102 birds, with the majority birds being birds caught previously in the 2020 season.
There were a few unusual birds that stopped in this year. We caught a Scarlet Tanager during the summer breeding season this year for the first time during MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship- a summer breeding bird research project). We also caught 2 Golden Crowned Kinglets during MAPS- a male and a female in the same net at different points in the same day- which may indicate a pair. In both the Scarlet Tanager and Golden Crowned Kinglets, these were likely birds already on the move from their breeding territory.
Keep reading for more about the season by clicking HERE
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New Faces, New Adaptations
As its been said many times, 2020 was quite a year! Amazingly, due to the pandemic, we were busier than ever at Sugarloaf Cove. Visitors told us they were thrilled that our trails were open and that they were awestruck by the beauty of the Cove. We gained new supporters and fans who will hopefully return this summer.
As mentioned above, we learned from changes we made last summer. We moved our gift shop and site host, Amy Brugge, out on to the front deck and sold out of many items. Needless to say, we plan to keep that change. We will also continue offering special programs via Zoom and are working to redesign our Master Naturalist program to be an online experience.
During 2020, we worked with a consultant to review our programming at Sugarloaf Cove and to offer fundraising suggestions. Using some of his suggestions, we were able to meet our year-end fundraising goal. Thank you everyone!. We are also going to test offering on the hour programs for drop in visitors. These short, free programs will cover a range of topics that the visitors will be able to select from including geology, natural and human history and activities.
Also, this summer, look for new signage at the Cove. We will be installing a beautiful interpretive panel about the wildflower garden in front of our visitor center and another sign on Sugarloaf Point. Wendy Strombeck, our graphic designer, once again did a marvelous job.
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Mike Reichenbach Retires
By Molly Thompson, Executive Director
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Mike Reichenbach hard at work showing how to fence tree seedlings. |
At the end of 2020, Mike Reichenbach, Forestry Educator for UM Extension, retired. Many of you knew him as the leader of our Lost Forest programs and as the go to person for a wealth of tree planting and North Shore Forest information. He was an amazing resource we could reach out to for information and help.
The UMN Extension webpage, My Minnesota Woods has a nice summary of Mike's career including the following excerpt:
In the last several years of his career, Mike invested his time in programming on Lake Superior’s North Shore. This involved forging and maintaining a strong partnership with Sugarloaf Cove and the North Shore Forest Collaborative. Mike’s work on the North Shore led to lasting impacts through targeted engagement and education, leveraging and growing the networks of local organizations. His education addressed innovative silviculture including strategic planting of conifers on a nucleus model in the hope that natural seed fall would help their expansion in between nuclei. This work led to national recognition for teaching materials and programming, including a video and storymap about tree planting on the North Shore.
Over the years, he and his wife, Kris, also became a good friends with my husband and myself. I will miss working with him, but he has promised to stay active with Sugarloaf and North Shore Forest restoration, once he settles into retirement. Sugarloaf wishes him a relaxing and enjoyable retirement. Thank you Mike!
To read more about Mike's time with Extension please read this article from My Minnesota Woods
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North Shore Loses Strong Advocate: Andrea Peterson
By Margit Berg
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Andrea Peterson, center, received Sugarloaf's Tombolo award in 2012.
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We mourn the loss of Andrea Peterson of Grand Marais who passed away on January 5 at the age of 82. She was an early supporter of the Sugarloaf organization. She served on the Board of Directors three different times, most recently from 2006 to 2012, and several years as President. At the 2012 annual North Shore Evening fundraiser she was awarded the Tombolo Award for exemplary commitment to Sugarloaf and the North Shore. She is remembered as being a kind and steadying presence.
Andrea gave of herself in a variety of ways. She taught school for many years on the Grand Portage Reservation and in Grand Marais, being named Teacher of the Year in 1976. She wrote several books, one pointing out how Native Americans are often portrayed inaccurately in children’s literature. She was a leader within the Schroeder Area Historical Society Board, her church, and other civic groups.
The city of Grand Marais was fortunate to have Andrea elected as its first female mayor in 1992. One of her main concerns in that position was the preservation of the city-owned harbor and shoreline. Before she left office at the end of her second term, the City Council unanimously approved an easement to preserve 60 acres of Lake Superior shoreline. Andrea was elected again in 1998 and was later appointed to complete someone else’s term.
We are grateful for Andrea’s many contributions to the North Shore community.
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North Shore Forest Collaborative Update
By John Paulson, NSFC Coordinator
NSFC Fencing Program:
The North Shore Forest Collaborative will once-again have a reduced-price tree protection fencing program in 2021. Details on the fencing program will be published in the coming weeks, via email, and social media sites. Make sure to order your seedlings early from the St. Louis County Tree and Shrub Sale, or other local vendors. White pine seedlings may also be obtained through planned donations from Castle Danger and Minnesota Power’s Rajala Woods Initiative. More details to come on the logistics and timing of those seedlings arriving, but they are expected sometime at the end of April, to early May. Hedstrom Lumber’s annual Tree Seedling Give-Away is being planned to take orders in mid-March, 2021 with trees available in May, 2021.
NSFC’s collaboration leads to grant success:
The North Shore Forest Collaborative actively collaborated with the agencies, conservation organizations, and North Shore private landowners to successfully apply for landscape grants that will help fund restoration work for next several years. The Nature Conservancy will be the administrator of the approved Great Lakes Restoration Grant of $200,000 as well as the Minnesota Conservation Partnership Legacy Grant of $400,000. The GLRI grant will work in the Stewart, Baptism, Two Island, and Silver Creek river watersheds. The CPL grant will work within the Two Island, Baptism, Manitou, Poplar, and Cascade Rivers river watersheds. The grant funding supports planting and protecting trees.
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We are planting the seeds of a tree whose shade we may never enjoy.
You may have heard this saying before. The root idea is a Greek proverb, going back two millennia. Just as then, people of good spirit and energy are still making personal commitments to places and ideas they hold as special and enduring. Each of us have special interests and cares, things we want to treasure now and preserve into the future. For some of us, Sugarloaf Cove and the Sugarloaf organization represent that place and ideal.
To ensure the future of Sugarloaf, we have established the Sugarloaf Legacy Society in 2017 to:
- Help secure the long-term future of the Cove and the surrounding North Shore Forest
- Give strength and stability to the Sugarloaf organization as it grows.
- Recognize the receipt of a generous lead gift and several gift commitments in recent years.
Creating a legacy can be as simple as amending your will or changing the beneficiary of your IRA, retirement plan, or life insurance policy. We are grateful for your gift of any size. We are ready to provide more information or meet with you at your convenience. We encourage you to discuss your interests with an attorney before making a commitment.
To make a gift commitment to our permanent fund that is invested for the long term, to arrange a meeting to discuss your interests, or for more information, please contact:
Molly Thompson, Executive Director
Thank you!
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Thank You to our Business Members |
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AmericInn by Wyndam Tofte
Bluefin Bay Resort
Cove Point Lodge
iComp
Isak Hansen & Sons Hardware
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Maxwell’s Nursery
North Shore Federal Credit Union
North Shore Winery
Waters Edge Trading Company
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