By Abby LaForest
The Upper Peninsula's land constantly evolves, welcoming new faces as they pass through like the seasons, but its ecological beauty remains the same even as time passes. What was once a beachhead left over from the Ice Age has become the home of Northern Michigan University, and the approximate six villages inhabited by Paleo-Indigenous peoples between the Chocolay River and Presque Isle have sprouted into a bustling community over thousands of years. The Heart of Northern is predictably located at the center of NMU’s campus, right outside of John X. Jamrich Hall, which is all that remains of the 3-4 feet of elevation the land had before the first campus buildings were constructed in 1900. Local wildlife remained active in their previous habitats until the mid-1920s, and even today, some creatures, such as birds, squirrels, and the occasional deer, can be seen making their way through campus. Gichi-namebini Ziibing* is a place teeming with wildlife, dense forests, crisp, clean air, and the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the world - Mother Superior. When living in harmony with land and creatures that are essential to the natural world and, by extension, human existence, it’s no surprise that so many people will fight to protect and conserve this wonderful place so many of us get to call home - both here at Northern Michigan University and in the U.P. beyond.
*Marquette’s traditional Anishinaabemowin name
Northern Roots: Early Environmental Education
Various on-campus departments have incorporated environmental education into their curriculums since Northern’s early days, and programs teaching students about the great outdoors are still one of the university’s major draws. Similar to the time that George Shiras III was discovering wildlife photography in the Upper Peninsula and gaining recognition for his work, the Department of Biology as we know it today was the Department of Physical Science (alongside chemistry and physics) in 1899. It then took on the name Department of Natural Science in 1911, which was established under the leadership of Samuel Denis Magers, who served as department head until 1918. Magers was an active environmentalist both on and off campus, teaching early students how to cultivate school gardens and beautify outdoor areas of their homes through agricultural practices, while also analyzing water samples for the city health department, engaging in soil-testing programs, and testing milk for local and peninsula-wide dairy farms outside of his teaching duties. The department added forestry and conservation requirements for their majors in the 1940s, including a course called “Land Use Problems of the Upper Peninsula,” a two-week tour of the Upper Peninsula. Stopping at research camps in the Lake Superior State Forest, the Porcupine Mountains, and the Keweenaw Peninsula, students were able to study the geological history of each region, along with the local flora and fauna, soil compositions, and the effects of human use of biological resources.
The Department of Conservation and Agriculture was established in 1912, around the same time as the Department of Natural Science, to meet Michigan’s Board of Education Rural Schoolteacher requirements. The department began with teaching practical agriculture, where students were required to learn skills such as seed testing, Babcock testing for milk, and working in the school garden in addition to their textbook studies. With a curriculum designed specifically for future high school teachers, gaining experience in implementing hands-on conservation activities was a crucial part of the students’ education in the department. In 1935, George Butler, the former superintendent and a Smith-Hughes instructor at Grand Marais school,
became a permanent staff member, bringing with him a slew of agricultural and conservation knowledge. During his time at Northern, Butler taught classes on topics including forestry, botany, soils, animal husbandry, field agriculture, and agricultural economics. He would often encourage students to attend the Conservation Training School at Higgins Lake in lower Michigan, where opportunities to watch movies, receive lectures, and go on field trips related to conservation training were available to students at universities across the state. Butler eventually retired in 1959, and the department went through some drastic changes following his departure. The department became housed under the Geography Department in 1960, and the agriculture program was discontinued in 1963. During this time, the department was offering a variety of conservation courses that attracted students actively participating in the backpacking counterculture of the 1960s, where environmentally-minded students would attend for a semester or two before moving on to another college town.
Going into the 1970s, environmental education and conservation had skyrocketed, not only at Northern but throughout the Upper Peninsula as well. Dr. Donald Snitgen of the Biology Department, alongside Jim Mansfield of NMU’s Education Department, founded the Regional Environmental Education Center for the Upper Peninsula in 1976 with the help of funding from the Cleveland Cliffs Foundation. As a student assistant, Janet Heltenen offered environmental education programs and materials for local schools, which expanded to offerings at the 
Greenwood Nature Center in 1979. The center, located on land leased from Cleveland Cliffs on their Greenwood Reservoir, continued to offer these programs under the direction of David Kronk and Betsy St. Pierre until 1983. While the center was eventually closed by the university due to budgetary constraints, Dr. Snitgen was still an avid conservationist and an active member of environmentalist causes in the Marquette County area. He served as a professor in NMU’s biology department from 1966 to 1998, and he was known for giving his students a hands-on approach to biology and ecology through field trips. He also taught public environmental education courses throughout the 1970s and was an active member of Citizens to Save the Lake Superior Shoreline, whose focus on state-acquired land at Little Presque Isle Park was central to Dr. Snitgen’s environmental activism. Partially thanks to Dr. Snitgen’s marches in front of the Marquette DNR’s office to request public hearings about the new park, development at the park was kept to a minimum, where towering trees and pristine shoreline remain today for the public to enjoy.
A colleague in Dr. Snitgen’s wildlife conservation efforts included Dr. William “Bill” Robinson, also of the Biology Department. Dr. Robinson focused on wildlife and game conservation in his work, where he researched animals such as ruffed spruce grouse, loons, woodcock, and white-tailed deer while also helping to organize the first translocation of timber wolves to the U.P. in 1974. His research into loons supported his argument that a high cause of waterfowl mortality came from commercial fishing, specifically net usage where the birds would get tangled and drown. In response and with the help of
a graduate student, they designed fishing nets with larger-spaced mesh sections on the top, and this research was crucial in increasing the wild loon populations in Michigan. Dr. Robinson spent his spare time on various environmental committees and worked with numerous organizations, as well as lecturing on wildlife management, bird watching, and fly-fishing. Defined by a legacy rooted in environmental passion, the “Grandfather of U.P. Conservation” has inspired conservation stewards to follow in his footsteps and advocate for the land and creatures that they hold dear.
Dr. Jon Saari: TransPLANTed in Michigan’s Far North
Working closely with Dr. Robinson for many years within UPEC, Dr. Jon Saari found himself right at home in the Upper Peninsula northwoods. He had spent ten years getting higher educated on the East Coast, and it felt like completing a generational circle route to return to the rural Midwest where his paternal grandfather had settled as a Finnish miner. Oriignally hailing from the Milwaukee suburbs, Dr. Saari was hired by Northern's History Department in 1971 as a Chinese historian, but alongside his wife Christine Saari, he had already fallen in love with the northern landscape and culture of the people who inhabit the U.P.
Saari discovered unknown Finnish-American relatives living in the Eben-Chatham area, and became enamored with the beauty and efficiency of their vernacular log architecture. He not only went on the study the design and lifestyle of Yooper camps, but created a Finnish-style camp himself on the Whitefish River, complete with a still-functioning smoke sauna. As a third-generation Finnish-American, Saari lacked Finnish language skills, so his scholarly work in this field concentrated on historiography, or how historical narratives are constructed. The name "Finland" or Suomi means wetland or swamp, and adjusting to the landscape was a persistent part of settlement for immigrants.
Saari was asked by NMU's History Department to teach a course on Finnish immigrants to America because his last name is common in Finland. He complied and, in the process, created a collection of Finnish-American family histories. For the project, students not of Finnish descent were adopted into a Finnish-American family, and most of these histories are housed in the NMU Archives.
Two other activities are noteworthy in Dr. Saari's career as an environmental advocate. One, he served as President of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition (UPEC) for ten years. In this role, he oversaw the creation of UPEC's annual Spring Celebration of the Upper Peninsula. He quipped, "Activists should enjoy the outdoors, and not just work to protect it." He also pioneered two UPEC grant programs, one in environmental education and another in community conservation initiatives. In addition to organizational work with UPEC and land conservancies, Saari created a protection scale for improving wild lands, and he and Christine personally put permanent conservation easements on over 700 acres of land whose ownership passed through their hands. Dr. Saari retired in 2006, but he is still looking for imaginative ways to turn private lands toward public good.
The Environment as Art with Kathleen Heideman
One of Dr. Saari’s fellow UPEC board members, Kathleen M. Heideman, found her way back to the Upper Peninsula through a similar passion-project-inspired route. Heideman earned a Master’s degree in English from NMU in 1994 and returned to Minnesota to work at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 1997, Heideman began writing about the phenomenon of "caving grounds" (ground collapse caused by mining). It soon became evident that the undermined place she was describing in her poetry bore a lot of similarities to Negaunee. Research took her back to the Upper Peninsula, where she dove deeper into the land’s “secret story,” interviewing local residents, researching historic iron mining, and weaving the stories 
into poetry. Eventually, the research led her to meet her future husband, Daniel Rydholm. She credits much of her “love of place” to her in-laws, as her father-in-law Fred Rydholm was a local historian with a deep love for the land of the Yellow Dog Plains. Heideman and her husband worked with June Rydholm to ensure the protection of Fred's lands, creating the Mudjekewis Wildlife Refuge, part of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve. Land stewardship and environmental advocacy remain foremost in her mind. Perhaps fitting for an artist, Heideman believes the land “speaks in poetry,” and each environmental crisis motivates a new group of people to spring up in defense of wildlands and clean water. Despite daunting environmental challenges, Kathleen remains hopeful, inspired by the resilience of nature, especially in the wake of fires and pollution. Heideman serves on the board of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition and the Mining Action Group (formerly Save the Wild U.P.), and works with the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, Freshwater Future, Protect the Porkies, and the Marquette Poets Circle. She writes, creates art, continues her advocacy, and is delighted to report that the poetry manuscript she began nearly thirty years ago has been published: The Caving Grounds (Modern History Press, 2025).
Sue Belanger, Mother Earth’s Cross-Country Steward
Sue Belanger’s experience growing up in the Upper Peninsula has granted her an awareness of the natural world that thrives and inspires her advocacy to this day. After graduating from NMU with a teaching degree in Physical Education and Biology, Belanger’s professional life has taken her to natural areas across the country, including Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas. During her time at the Texas Outdoor Environmental Education Center in Houston, Belanger was able to utilize her environmental knowledge to teach the kids about natural resources and recycling at the YMCA Camp Cullen. She also helped organize staff beach clean-ups in the Galveston area, work that helped determine new rules of the MARPOL Treaty, a global treaty to reduce marine pollution from ships. She moved back to the U.P. in 1992 and became part of the grant writing team for Lake Superior Village, and she helped direct programs around the northern Marquette area, near the Youth and Family Center, that involved beautifying neighborhoods, bulb-planting fundraisers, and environmental advocacy work, including helping youth do trail maintenance on the North Country Trail.
Belanger was able to work closely with both NMU and community organizations who donated their time and efforts to help, including the Girl Scouts, volunteers from local churches, the Student Leader Fellowship Program, and volunteers from the Nursing and Education departments on campus. Over the years, she’s also been able to dedicate her time to being a kayaking guide (even taking Jennifer Granholm out during one of her U.P. promotional tours!) and participate in sea kayak wilderness guide work for the Nature Conservancy in the Cedarville area of Lake Huron, the Wildlife Federation when they had a workshop in Marquette, and the Cedar Tree Institute, while using her kayak as a poster for keeping freshwater clean. During her time as a wilderness guide, Belanger taught "Leave No Trace" principles to all participants. Sue spends her time advocating for the nature that exists in Marquette County, covering topics such as sustainability in foraging wild plants and traditional Anishinaabe plant use. With so many different areas of environmentalism to get involved in, Sue encourages anyone looking to become involved in advocacy work to just take a look and see what’s out there, whether it be checking out local organizations such as the Citizens for a Clean and Safe Lake Superior or the Yellowdog Watershed Preserve.
Sustainability, Climate Change, and Higher Education with Dr. Diane White-Husic
As someone who enrolled in Girl Scouts as a child and went to grade school and NMU with Sue Belanger, Dr. Diane White Husic has also used her Northern education to help folks interact with the environment more sustainably. Both Belanger and Dr. Husic had the good fortune to learn from and be inspired by Fred Rydholm, Kathleen Heideman’s father-in-law, and Dr. Husic and Heideman have been back to Rydholm’s cabin on the Yellow Dog Plains since then. Dr. Husic spent her childhood in the areas surrounding Marquette, Harvey, and Big Bay, developing an appreciation for the lush forests of the U.P. and nearby Lake Superior. She remembers other faculty engaged in environmental education, such as the late Gail Griffith with her toxicology work. Griffith loved Lake Superior and, in 2014, received the Fred Rydholm Sisu Award from Save the Wild UP for her environmental work. Dr. Husic had met Heideman through Save the Wild U.P., alongside Gail’s daughter, Lesley, who was in the same graduating class from Marquette Senior High School as Sue Belanger and Dr. Husic. Dr. Husic graduated from NMU in 1981 as a first-gen student majoring in Biochemistry and orchestrated an undergraduate research project where she investigated oil monolayers on inland lakes for their composition to understand if the sources were natural or a form of pollution. After getting her Ph.D. at Michigan State University in plant biochemistry, she did post-doc work in cancer research in Philadelphia and worked as a faculty member at East Stroudsburg University for 16 years before going to Moravian University in Pennsylvania. When Dr. Husic went to Moravian, it was to chair the Biological Sciences Department and help start the new biochemistry and environmental programs, and she was dean there later on.
During her time at Moravian, Dr. Husic’s research was focused on the revegetation of a highly contaminated (Superfund) site, and she became involved in climate change policy at the local, state, and UN levels, as well as the development of the current 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was through this work that she began to contemplate the role of higher education in climate and sustainability education and problem-solving as well as the (what she thought was) the duty of institutions to be role models of sustainability for the communities in which they reside. Dr. Husic also worked with the city’s environmental justice initiative and engaged people in citizen or participatory science projects as a way of building relationships and engaging 
people from many sectors in conversations about environmental change. While in Pennsylvania, a former colleague in the music department, alongside Dr. Husic, co-taught a course on climate change. Dr. Husic’s colleague suggested that they apply for observer status with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which enabled them to take students to the United Nations climate conferences. We had funding from a grant and endowment to do this, but that was from a separate endeavor. Launching a pilot class in collaboration with her colleague in 2007, they applied and were accepted to attend the UN meetings in Copenhagen in 2009, bringing a group of students interested in environmental activism and climate science. She’s taken students to several subsequent UN conferences following the one in Denmark, and she explained how it’s a great opportunity for students to learn about the intersection between policy and scientific research, gaining a first-hand appreciation of the complexity of solving global environmental issues given that different countries have differing priorities and resources. In the wake of the overwhelming nature of climate change and other environmental challenges, Dr. Husic says that it is important to find stories of hope. These are the successes we have had in environmental legislation, clean-up, and working to reduce problems like the ozone hole. Remembering what you’re fighting for, alongside continuing to do the work necessary to keep the conversation alive in public and private sectors, and a greater collaboration between the S.T.E.M. and humanities communities are actions that she believes will keep people motivated and encouraged in a world fraught with environmental insecurities. Dr. Husic now serves as the inaugural Executive Director of the Center for the Environment at Saint Lawrence University in New York and is the vice president of NMU’s Alumni Advisory Board.
Aimée Cree Dunn: Kinomaage In and Out of the Classroom
After teaching as an adjunct in the English department following the completion of her Master’s degree at Northern, Aimée Cree Dunn’s incorporation of traditional Ojibwe plant knowledge has guided a variety of projects in both her personal and professional lives. As part of her Master’s work, Cree Dunn conducted directed research on Kinomaage (1) and Ojibwe Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) alongside Dr. Martin Reinhardt in the Center for Native American Studies, and following Cree Dunn’s hiring as a fledgling faculty member in the summer of 2005, Dr. Reinhardt asked Cree Dunn to help develop his idea for an undergraduate Kinomaage course on Ojibwemowin plant knowledge and hands-on harvesting and preparation. Combining Reinhardt’s ideas with her own research interests, Cree Dunn’s Kinomaage course became one focused on forest immersion in Anishinaabeg Akiing (2,) and covered a variety of topics; the nature of plants as our relatives through Ojibwe teachings and the Wood Wide Web concept, impacts of industrialism on plant life, the environmental history of the Upper Peninsula, the role of Ojibwe TEK in understanding plant relatives, and the role of TEK in offering ethical guidelines by which to live alongside plant relatives. The course also included discussions of what the area’s pre-colonial forests were like and allowed students to connect with nature in a hands-on way that communicated that pre-colonial experience. Following the success of her 2005 course, Cree Dunn proposed another course called “Indigenous Environmental Movements,” focusing on multidisciplinary explorations of where current environmental crises on international Indigenous lands come from and an examination of how Indigenous values fit into everyone’s relationships with other beings. Since then, Cree Dunn has moved over and become an instructor in the CNAS, which has granted her opportunities to both develop and teach courses such as NAS440: Awesiinh – Wild Animal Relations, NAS240: Sacred Ground, and a Special Topics Course on Indigenous Star Knowledge.
1- Earth shows us the way
2- the land to which the people belong
Cree Dunn says that her relationship with the environment and what it means to belong to the land is present in every area of her professional and personal life. An anecdote about the presence of birds slowly returning to the land on which she has made her home over the past 20 years illustrates this, as well as building trust with the wild environment through time and naturally progressive understanding. The Native American Studies courses at NMU also grant the opportunity to learn about the contemporary Indigenous experience since we all descend from people who once lived in harmony with nature and the Earth. Cree Dunn says that Indigenous ecology is essential for the survival of the human species, along with the thousands of other species that coexist alongside us, and it is our birthright as humans to learn how to live with them. Her teaching philosophy lies at the heart of keeping Indigenous traditions alive and imparting traditional ecological knowledge to students in her classroom through a variety of educational mediums, so that students may come to understand why reciprocity with the natural world is important, and help them develop skills that allow them to nurture their relationships with the land and other
creatures. When it comes to climate change and other larger-scale worldly challenges, Cree Dunn points to industrialism and a concept called “authoritarian technics” as the largest threats. With the rushed solutions of industrialism, such as geoengineering, along with excessive resource extraction and lifestyles based on the materialism of violence, much can seem lost in the face of the world’s future. But, Cree Dunn chooses to focus on that future and view it differently, considering how the actions she takes today will have positive impacts on the world for future generations. Frankly, there is no better way to put it than in Cree Dunn’s own words: “To be frank, I don't have hope we will turn things around. But I do have hope that the future can learn from our mistakes. This isn't about our survival in the present anymore. It's about working to ensure the future generations have the knowledge, skills, and values that it will take to survive sustainably like our ancestors, ancestors we all have, were able to do before this destructive lifeway forced itself into dominance.”
Jane Fitkin: Guardian of U.P. Waterway Preservation
Aimée Cree Dunn isn’t the only one using her NMU education to advocate for the local environment and its creatures, as 2022 NMU alumnus Jane Fitkin has shown. Fitkin serves as the director for the nonprofit Citizens for a Safe and Clean Lake Superior (CSCLS), and their work to protect Lake Superior empowers people in the U.P. to stand up for what they believe in, no matter how they choose to contribute to a cause. Originally from downstate Michigan, Fitkin’s family owned property in the northern Lower Peninsula, where she learned to appreciate the world’s natural beauty. Her time in Marquette led to her falling in love with Lake Superior, and her time in the Earth, Environmental, and Geographical Sciences Department on campus helped cement her values and reinforce her passions. Fitkin describes their relationship with the lake as a sustaining, grounding force, and their relationship with it is rooted in their belief of reciprocity back to a watershed that provides the earth and its people with so much to begin with. This care and consideration branch out into the community surrounding CSCLS, and Fitkin prides herself on showing people what it means to get in touch with their own values. As an evidence-based organization, CSCLS communicates the science of freshwater protection and conservation to the general public, allowing them to take a stance on the issues based on the facts presented. Jane mentioned that it allows people to have a voice and feel like they’re being listened to, especially when it comes to what’s happening in their backyards. Though not immune to climate anxiety, Fitkin turns their eyes to the lake for inspiration and finds hope in both local action and community-based change, as well as individual actions based on love, appreciation, and respect for the world we live in. She stays hopeful by keeping her heart open to learning more from others and being thankful for what she has, stating, “I’m so rich because I live in Marquette.” I might be biased, but I have to agree with her.
Branching Out Into Community: Conservation Crew Co-Leader Anna Tousley
If students are looking for the chance to get involved with environmental advocacy work and sustainable change, there are plenty of campus organizations to become involved with, including the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, Divest NMU, EcoReps, Green Athletics, the Northern Climate Network, and the Conservation Crew, to name a few. Anna Tousley, one of the Conservation Crew’s current co-leaders, was able to sit down with me and talk about some of the work the organization does, as well as what the work means to her. The Conservation Crew was founded in approximately 2018, and most of the founding leaders were involved with Outdoor Recreation, Mining Industry, and Environmental Science studies. Tousley mentioned how the organization engages with a variety of community partners and hands-on projects, such as working with the Department of Natural Resources for presentations, maintaining sections of the North Country Trail, and going off campus to do beach
cleanups. These types of activities make themselves visible in the eyes of the public, and Tousley hopes that by letting people see what kind of work they’re doing, it will inspire others to understand the importance of place and develop a love for the environment they live in. A few of Anna’s favorite memories with the Conservation Crew include group camping trips, hacking up trees during trail maintenance, and catching sunsets after beach cleanups around the county. Acknowledging that it’s okay to feel upset and worried about the volume of environmental issues that exist in the world, Tousley encourages those wanting to help to start with small actions, like picking up trash on the sidewalk and using reusable bags at the grocery store. It can feel like a lot at times, Tousley says, but no one has to do it all alone, as there are plenty of people out in the world who also want to help the environment just as much.
Conclusion: Ganawenjigaade*
- *Ojibwemowin for ”it is taken care of, protected, kept (by someone)”
With NMU being located in such a unique area, especially one that grants us the opportunity to be so close to nature, we must take care of the world around us and, by extension, one another. Whether it be along Lake Superior’s sandy shores or deep in the woods far from the public eye, each part of our land is sacred in its own way, and that connection means something special to each person who breathes its air each day. In a world 
where many things seem uncertain, and at times downright disheartening, it’s people like those involved in this article that we can look to for hope and action in the more trying times. The Earth is our home, and we all live on it, so it only makes sense that we try to give back to it when it already gives us so much. The Upper Peninsula is often accompanied by the tagline “Someplace Special” from the local news station WLUC-TV, and as you take the time to listen to the land’s unspoken languages and bathe yourself in the love that ebbs and flows between Mother Superior's whitecaps, you’ll understand that not only people, but the natural world itself is what makes Michigan’s U.P. an irreplaceable paradise.