Act passed. So if you're a criminal, illegal alien,
you know what? You're getting deported.
>> As the nation honors fallen service members this
Memorial Day on Monday, the tourism industry marks the
start of the summer season. A bill in the U.S. House
would re designate the Apostle Islands as
Wisconsin's first national park, the 21 islands and 12
miles of mainland off Lake Superior in northern
Wisconsin is already a national lakeshore.
Supporters say the designation as a national
park would boost tourism and local economies.
Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany introduced the
measure and it passed. Committee this spring. But
local governments in and around Bayfield County and
the Red Cliff band of Lake Superior Chippewa oppose
the redesignation. The county and the tribe
drafted a formal resolution together opposing it. We
asked Bayfield County Board Chair Jan Lee why. And
thanks very much for being here.
>> Thank you for having me. >> So we've done some
reporting in Bayfield, kind of during the summer season.
And the crush of tourists can be difficult for small
businesses there to manage. How would a national park
designation increase those crowds?
>> Yes. Thank you. So I think to to start, like you
said, the tourism area here in Bayfield, in particular
at the at the gateway to the Apostle Islands has
hasn't been a problem in the summertime. There's
never been a problem with not having enough tourists
up here in the late spring, summer, early fall,
basically through Apple Fest every first weekend of
October. As a matter of fact, we're pretty much
bursting at the seams in terms of what we can
accommodate in terms of lodging and restaurants.
And that affects workforce, of course. And we don't
have housing for people up here. It's hard to have to,
to to have workforce come in that can accommodate all
these tourists for the businesses. So and I know
that Mr. Tiffany has touted this redesignation as a
boon for tourism, but we're we're basically looking for
tourism in other directions. I, you know, I think as a
whole, we're, you know, we've done a lot of work
over the last 15 to 20 years trying to create
tourism as an industry up here, getting people all
the way up to northern Wisconsin to enjoy Lake
Superior and the inland lakes that we have. And,
and we've done a really good job of that. But what
we've really been trying to do is subsequently also is
to try to do that in the shoulder seasons and in the
winter, to expand tourism in those areas. And the big
problem with Mr. Tiffany's bill at this point in time
is that we don't know where the infrastructure is going
to come to support it. >> Infrastructure like
roads and lodging and parking. But but wouldn't
the Federal Park Service be responsible for that?
>> Well, we are responsible as a county for our roads
and I mean the highway department for our county
roads and county. Highway 13 is what gets you up to
Bayfield. It runs through Washburn, which is also a
small city about 12 miles south of Bayfield. And that
is also sort of a gateway point to the Apostle
Islands, as well as north of Bayfield, where the Red
Cliff Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe live. About two
miles north of Bayfield is where the reservation
starts. And they have treaty rights, of course,
to the area. The big. Another issue that we've
we've been sort of trying to address is the treaty
rights and the fact that we've. We've invited Mr.
Tiffany to come. We want to be a part of the dialog. We
want to share our concerns and our questions, have our
questions heard. But he hasn't come. And so we
received about a year and a half ago or we. And by that
I mean the County Board and the Red Cliff Tribal
Council first heard about Mr. Tiffany's bill
resolution H.R. 9111. And when we heard about it, we
found out that the resolution had basically
already been written and was already on its way to
Washington, D.C. without consultation with the
county board or the City of Bayfield or the Tribal
Council. And so we never got a chance to express our
concerns or ask our questions. And that pretty
much left us in an area of the only option that we
have left at the federal level is to enact some
resolution. So that's what we did. We don't normally
like to enact negative resolutions. We like to
work in the positive. And but this is an instance
where we felt that since we hadn't been heard or
consulted, that we really didn't have another option.
>> What would you be seeking from the federal
government or the Federal Park Service to make this
thing work? >> I think, first of all,
what we've never heard is an as a as a deeper
explanation of why the National Lakeshore
designation is already a part of the Park Service.
It's a part of the national parks programing of
designation of land matter and bodies of water. So.
And right now, as the National Lakeshore, it is
at one of the highest, if not the highest level of
protection, because it is a wild area. It's a it's a
wilderness area. Even though people live in these
small communities on the shoreline, the lake itself
and the islands are subject to very dramatic weather
shifts and very cold water that as as we know of
anybody who knows this area knows, has been responsible
for hundreds of deaths, either in ships or boats or
people out kayaking or, you know, canoeing, who aren't
familiar with how unpredictable this very big
lake, which is actually more of an inland sea, how
quickly the weather can change, how cold the water
is, and how prepared and knowledgeable you have to
be in order to embark on it. So that's one of our
concerns, is just the safety of it, of it all as
well. >> Well, we will we will
watch this bill as it as it moves through and prepare
to visit and do some field reporting up there.
>> We'd love to have you come up, take a look, enjoy.
The area. >> All right. Jan Lee from