From Big Water Comes Big Ideas: A Founding Board Member Reflects on NPLSF
- NPLSF
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
There's a saying around here: from big water comes big ideas. For twenty years, the National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation (NPLSF) has been proving it true — funding the projects, mobilizing the volunteers, and telling the stories that keep our five national parks thriving along the greatest of the Great Lakes.
Founding board member Carol Brady was there when it all came together, and she hasn't slowed down since. "We had a couple of years of little meetings here and there, tossing ideas around," she recalls. By 2006, that circle of eight or nine passionate people — lawyers, magazine publishers, tourism professionals, and Brady herself, a self-described "lover of the lake" — had built something real. Twenty years later, NPLSF is the only official nonprofit 501(c)3 fundraising partner of the National Park Service for all five U.S. national park sites on Lake Superior.
The work started humbly. Early projects meant repairing boardwalks, installing bear lockers, printing Junior Ranger coloring books — small but meaningful investments in visitor experience across Pictured Rocks, Keweenaw, Isle Royale, Apostle Islands, and Grand Portage. But the foundation's ambitions grew quickly. A landmark ballast water treatment project — a million-dollar grant-funded collaboration with the Naval Surface Warfare Center and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative — established NPLSF as a serious conservation player.
"We weren't fooling around," Brady says simply. "We were just ready, willing, and able."
That willingness to act fast is perhaps what defines NPLSF most. When Isle Royale's wolf population crashed to just two sickly animals and 1,600 moose were stripping the island bare, the foundation helped fund the emergency relocation of 17 wolves from Canada and Michigan Island. "When the call comes out," says NPLSF board member and Lake Superior Podcast co-host Frida Waara, "if you were to wait for the government to respond, you're going to lose it." NPLSF moved quickly, guaranteed payments, and got it done — then turned the project into a documentary and a K-12 curriculum available free on the website.
NPLSF’s work to protect wildlife continues to evolve. This winter and early spring, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the 1854 Treaty Authority, and the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, researchers have been flying specially outfitted aircraft over northern Minnesota wilderness, collaring young moose and investigating a troubling spike in moose mortality. It's exactly the kind of nimble, partnership-driven science that government budgets alone can't sustain — and exactly why NPLSF exists.
The clean energy frontier is also a vital priority. A new solar array is already installed on Isle Royale's west end, replacing the diesel generators that once hummed behind the treeline. Decarbonizing the parks — quietly, practically, one project at a time — is now a core initiative.
For Brady, all of it comes back to the lake itself. "They think it's going to just look like a big lake," she says of first-time visitors. "And then when they realize it looks like the ocean, they forget that it's clear and cold and fresh."
Keeping it that way — for the wolves, the moose, the lighthouse keepers' restored cottages, and the visitors who dip a cup in and take a drink — is what twenty years of NPLSF has been all about.
About NPLSF
The National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation (NPLSF) exists to provide financial support for projects and programs that preserve the natural resources and cultural heritage of the five Lake Superior national parks: Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Grand Portage National Monument, Isle Royale National Park, Keweenaw National Historical Park, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
Funded through grants and private donations, NPLSF projects and programs ensure that these great parks and historic sites are maintained for the enjoyment of all current and future visitors.
To learn how you can support our work visit nplsf.org/donate.
