2024 “Know Your Ships” launches; book signing at Soo Locks March 23

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI – The new shipping season is at hand, and so is the release of
the 2024 edition of Know Your Ships, the popular annual field guide to boats and
boatwatching on the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Seaway, now in its 65th year.

To mark the opening of the Soo Locks, Editor & Publisher Roger LeLievre will be at the
Soo Locks Visitor Center Saturday, March 23, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., to sign copies of the
new edition. Buy them right from him, or from Das Gift Haus and Island Books and
Crafts in the Soo, bring them to the Visitor Center and he will sign them. Standard and
spiral bindings are available.

Order at this link: https://www.knowyourships.com/

Lake Superior is warming fast. Its national parks are starting work to cut fossil fuels

As national parks around the country try to raise awareness about climate change,
those around Lake Superior are taking steps to cut their emissions.

“Even though the carbon footprint is small, the example being led by these parks is
huge,” said Tom Irvine, executive director of the National Parks of Lake Superior
Foundation, which supports five sites around the largest of the Great Lakes.

The foundation and the National Park Service announced last week that the parks are
starting to implement plans to get their operations off fossil fuels. The coordinated effort,
called Decarbonize the Parks Project, launched last year and has roots in long-standing
plans to stop using diesel generators on Isle Royale, according to Irvine.

“It’s been a dream of the park service for years to be able to shut those generators
down and create a green energy source to power the island, and that being primarily
solar and solar battery storage,” he said. Now, the park is working toward that goal by
installing heat pumps for staff housing and administrative buildings.

Isle Royale’s superintendent, Denice Swanke, said in a news release that each park is
working based on its own budget and capacity. Other plans include electrifying mowers,
trimmers and chainsaws in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and exploring solar
options in Keweenaw National Historical Park.

The efforts around Lake Superior are part of National Park Service’s Green Parks Plan,
which lays out net-zero energy goals for parks across the country and includes reducing
waste and water use and phasing out single-use plastics.

The country’s national parks emit 179,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually according to
the National Park Service, which says that’s equal to about 40,000 gasoline-powered
cars driven over a year.

Last year, more than a million people visited the parks around Lake Superior — Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore, Grand Portage National Monument, Isle Royale National
Park, Keweenaw National Historical Park and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

A 2023 report on the project found that the parks could reduce their emissions by 93%
and save $2.7 million over 25 years compared to their current operations. Cutting
emissions fully would cost $3.5 million. The difference in price is because of the solar
arrays and battery storage needed to bring energy to off-grid locations in all weather
conditions. Both options would reduce operating costs by millions of dollars.
Implementing the parks’ plans is expected to take years, funded by public and private
dollars. Fueling these efforts is the rapidly changing climate. Lake Superior is one of the
fastest-warming lakes in the world, and Irvine said they have seen more intense storms
and much less ice in the winter.

“The fact that climate change is so radically apparent on Lake Superior every day is just
a constant reminder to all of these parks,” he said.

Interlochen Public Radio