From Dave Searles

Brodhead

To the Editor:

This in response the Wisconsin Republican delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives wanting to upgrade the status of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to national park status.  This would be another Republican political national park.  While Trump was president, the Republicans in Congress upgraded Jefferson Western Expansion National Memorial in Saint Louis, MO, to Gateway Arch National Park and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Indiana Dunes National Park, despite the fact that the National Park Service stated that they did not meet the qualifications for national park status.  It was determined that national lakeshores do not meet the qualifications to be upgraded to national park status.  

Instead of creating more Republican national parks, Congress should be preserving and protecting areas that deserve to be national parks.  Number one is a Shasta National Park in California that would include Mount Shasta and the Medicine Lake Highlands.  Other areas include Adirondack Mountains (Mount Marcy area), NY; Big Sur, CA; Black Hills, SD; Grizzly Bear (south of Glacier National Park), MT; Kauai (Grand Canyon of the Pacific and Mount Waialeale, the world’s rainiest spot that averages 460 inches of rain per year), HI; Oregon Cascades, OR; Potomac Highlands, WV; Prairie, KS; Sawtooth Mountains, ID; Silverado (north of Silver City), NM; Tioga (Pine Creek Gorge), PA; and White Mountains, NH.  

Also, such areas as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, AK; Chiricahua National Monument, AZ; Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, GA; and Palo Duro Canyon (including Caprock Canyons and Palo Duro Canyon state parks and the area in between), TX; should be upgraded to national parks.  In addition, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area should be added to Voyageurs National Park, MN. 

As for the Wisconsin House delegation, they should work to establish a Door Peninsula National Lakeshore.  Door Peninsula is nicknamed “the Cape Cod of the Midwest.”   Also, a Milton College National Historic Site and a Robert M. LaFollette, Sr. National Historic Site.  The Milton College Historic District was already determined eligible as a national historic site because the National Park System does not include what is called “a pioneer college.”  

I have served as a Park Ranger-Interpreter at Cape National Seashore, MA; a Historian at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, PA, where cannons for the Continental Army were manufactured during the American Revolution and as a Park Ranger at Harry S Truman National Historic Site.