DNR acquires ‘Tip of the Keweenaw’
$11.2M transaction finalized Thursday
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COPPER HARBOR -- The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has officially acquired nearly 10,000 acres of forestland and wetlands at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), according to a Friday DNR release.
The public property, locally designated as the Keweenaw Point State Lands, borders Fort Wilkins Historic State Park to the south and will be incorporated into the existing state park management system. The 11.2 million dollar transaction was finalized on November 5 utilizing grant allocations from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund and the Land Exchange Facilitation Fund.
"This landscape, shared by both geological history and human heritage, will now forever be in public ownership and accessible," DNR Director Scott Bowen stated, noting that the property will be managed for public recreation, ecological stewardship and natural resource protection.
The transaction marks the first major land transfer since the 32,400-acre Keweenaw Heartlands tract was placed on the private market in 2021. TNC temporarily purchased the acreage in 2022 to prevent parcel fragmentation and preserve established recreational trail networks while state and community partners secured public acquisition funding.
The transaction initiates a multi-phase process for the region. While the DNR assumes full ownership of the eastern 10,000-acre parkland parcel located south of Fort Wilkins, the remaining 22,000 acres of the Keweenaw Heartlands continue under the interim ownership of TNC.
Keweenaw County voters established local governance for the remaining 22,000 acres during Tuesday’s general election by electing Hannah Rooks and Braydon Cima to the newly formed Keweenaw Heartlands Recreational and Natural Resources Authority Board.
TNC Director of External Affairs Rich Bowman said that the land transfer functions sequentially.
"We still own the other chunk of it," Bowman said, describing the remaining 22,000 acres. "We are still in the process of getting the money lined up. Of course, we just had the election for the board last week and they have got to get set up. We will still be working on that for another year or two. This is kind of like a domino thing. First, this is gone, now the other 22,000."
Bowman confirmed that future public acquisition of the remaining acreage will rely on state funding structures before being transitioned to local administrative control.
"The way that is going to end up working is that we will also sell that to the state of Michigan," Bowman said. "Then they will either transfer it, lease it or enter into some other kind of arrangement where the Keweenaw County board, the forest authority board, will be the ones making the decisions about it and managing it. We were kind of always realizing that there was no way that anything other than the state was going to be able to come up with enough money to actually buy it."
While the final transaction remains a multi-year project, Bowman noted that the intended governance framework has been consistently presented during public advisory proceedings.
"We have said to the advisory committee and in public meetings that this is what our intentions are, but nothing is done until it is done," Bowman said.