My Birthscape: Kingsford, MI

The landscape and geography around the town where I was born has a lot to do with why the town of Kingsford and other small towns around it exist. The Menominee River provides a natural border between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Wisconsin here. It also provides for hydroelectric power to supply a large paper mill and most of the towns in the area with electricity. Its backwaters and channels are enjoyed by white tailed deer, black bears, fish and anglers.

Historically the river supplied electricity and mechanical power for industry in the area. Iron mining was the first large industry at the end of the 1800s. Near the turn of the last century large mines in Iron Mountain, Norway and near Crystal Falls all provided for many jobs and supply industries to support the mines. Iron ore is still abundant in areas around Iron Mountain, but the load ores that were close to the surface have been largely removed.

Not long after many of the big mines shut down, industry in the area began to utilize the large amounts of timber to produce wood products. These industries continue today. The most important are super-calendared and coated paper for magazines/catalogs and OSB (chip board) for building. 

The forests provide many jobs for the people of the UP. Loggers, mill workers, mechanics, engineers, foresters…and many more – all of these folks are able to make a living in a beautiful place like the UP because they are helping to utilize, manage and sustain the renewable resource of the forests in the north woods.

It is the sustainability of a resource like forests that make them so special and unique. With interactive GIS students in a classroom can really see how forests and rivers can work together in a landscape like the UP to provide for a community. GIS can help people of all ages get an understanding of what is happening with the amount of forests we have out there. (they are growing!) 

Also good GIS data and metadata can provide important stats that will help students make contributions to managing resources and planning for land use. Students can have inputs to their own future this way and they don’t have to simply rely on what adults tell them as being unchangeable or infallible. A good GIS can not only change the way a person looks at the world, but it gives evidence of resources on the landscape over time, they provide date for applying patterns of management and securing sustainability for the future.