The Future

The plan is built around what people will actually be able to do here:

• Walk a level path from the parking area to the cabin, and rest on a bench beside the stream.
• Fish a Blue Ribbon trout stream that most people drive past on US-2.
• Hike or snowshoe trails through forest and wetland, including a loop on the island and a longer one on the east side.
• Read the Depression-era story of the cabin on a historic panel at the building.
• Bring a picnic and eat at a table near the cabin.
• Join a spring fishing clinic, a fall heritage walk or a winter snowshoe outing.
• Meet students at work on field days, water monitoring and signs they built themselves.

It will happen in stages over several years, and it starts with volunteer workdays. The plan below shows the order.

This preliminary map shows the improvements we propose across the 121.56 acres: parking near US-2 and an accessible space by the cabin, accessible paths and an overlook, a bridge, the island loop and other trails, and an accessible toilet. Today’s trails follow the old two-track roads. Click the map to see it full size.

A permanent accessible vault toilet is the long-term vision. For the first few years a portable accessible toilet will serve volunteers and visitors, and the accessible trails and fishing platform are later phases that use the existing roads until then.

The first year is about making the property safe, welcoming and easy to find. Volunteer workdays will clean up the parking area and grounds and clear the existing two-track trails. We will grade and gravel the drive to the cabin and protect the building: sturdy window covers, a railing on the basement stairs, covered window wells and repaired entrance lights.

A professionally produced historic panel at the cabin will tell the Depression-era story, and a donation station at the parking area will give visitors a way to help. We will also hold the first school field day and our founding community fundraiser.

Year two focuses on the cabin itself and on getting people out onto the land. We will repair the logs and re-stain the exterior with a stain compatible with the original finish, the most important preservation task for the National Register building.

The island loop trail will open on the existing two-track drives and a berm path, with two simple timber footbridges over wet crossings. Picnic tables will go in near the cabin. We plan three public events a year, such as a spring fishing clinic, a fall heritage walk and a winter snowshoe outing, and a second season of school field days with student water-quality monitoring.

In the third year we will add four to six small nature and history panels along the island trail, designed and built with local school art and technical classes where possible, and two accessible benches at the cabin and by the stream.

A trail counter and a cabin guest log will let us count visitors and volunteer hours, and show what your support has accomplished.

With Iron County’s support, later phases could add a permanent accessible toilet, a surfaced accessible trail, an accessible fishing platform on the old concrete weirs, more hiking, snowshoeing and biking trails, highway signs on US-2, heritage exhibits inside the cabin, an insulated cabin roof, and possibly a link to the Ottawa National Forest trail network.

All of this depends on volunteers, donations and grants, and on working with Iron County, which owns the property. Dates and details will change as the plan does.