KEWEENAW COUNTY – During the April 30 public update meeting of The Nature Conservancy, questions arose regarding permissible land use and access. Keweenaw Heartlands Project Manager Julia Petersen replied that in the future, policies will be determined by local governance. “Once the land transitions to the DNR, and then transitions governance, decision-making and management, to the local government entity,” Petersen said, “it will be that local government entity that works through the questions of access.” Rich Bowman, director of policy for TNC, said that in terms of TNC’s ownership of the land, there are both ORV and snowmobile trails which have been kept open, as well as forest roads.

Questions and concerns of land use are not new.

Survey responses included in the TNC document, Blueprint for the Keweenaw Heartlands: A guide to the governance and management of the Keweenaw Heartlands in perpetuity, reveal conflicts between user groups.

The idea that not every use should be permitted everywhere, or all the time, was a prevalent principle. It was proposed primarily in interviews, public meetings and the meeting of south-shore residents, the document states. It also shows up in various places in the survey comments but was not a specific subject of the survey.

The principle of balancing uses is inextricably linked to this principle. Balancing uses requires attention to their compatibility.

One example reinforcing this concept was expressed by an interviewee, the document says. He told the story of his mother, who was walking along a street that also serves as a common snowmobile route and was run into by a snowmobiler who left her lying on a snowbank with a broken leg. As a snowmobiler himself, the storyteller wasn’t blaming the snowmobiler for the accident (although he was clearly upset by its hit-and-run aspect). He was citing it as an example of how some uses don’t mix.

Other frequent themes about incompatible uses concerned:

• Hikers who barely escaped being run over by mountain bikers using trails that are not part of their separate trail network

• Birders who mentioned that motorized users disrupt their birding

• Foragers and hikers who don’t feel safe anywhere in the woods during deer season

• Motorhomes that trek the unimproved road to High-Rock Bay and spoil the view for everyone else

Quiet users are not the only ones reporting conflicts, the Blueprint found. “Hunters express concerns about hikers who take to the woods in deer season without donning high-visibility clothing,” the d. Groups with organized trail networks mention conflicts when visitors on foot take the “easy path” of the dedicated trail and risk collisions when vehicles or bikes come upon them quickly in areas of limited visibility.

Nearly everyone endorsed the principle that there is room for balancing every currently allowed use, but that some uses should be separated as much as possible.

“A related corollary is that the full range of users should be afforded access to the most popular places where possible and consistent with protecting the land,” the document states.