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Environmental educators who walked around Lake Superior to speak at Northland

September 21, 2011

Mike Link and Kate Crowley will share stories and research about their expedition walking around Lake Superior on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m., in the Alvord Theatre at Northland College. The event is free and open to the public. The retired couple's 1,550-mile tour of Lake Superior, called Full Circle Superior, has been deemed the first shoreline circumnavigation of the lake by foot in recorded history. Link and Crowley are the first speakers in the 2011 William P. Van Evera Endowed Lectureship series, another offering in the Northland College Community Connections series.

The focus of this year's Van Evera series revolves around freshwater. The speakers will present varying viewpoints on uses of surface and ground waters in the Lake Superior Basin and world.

"Now, probably more than ever before, people are recognizing that freshwater issues related to water quality and quantity have never been so important as they are right now," says Lissa Radke, Van Evera Lecture Coordinator at Northland College.

Radke says a committee of Northland faculty and staff chose Mike Link and Kate Crowley to kick off the series because of their contribution to education and research through their journey around Lake Superior.

"They walked within about 50 to 100 feet of the actually shoreline, so they weren't following any trails. They were crossing rivers and streams and going places where people had never really gone before," says Radke. "Educators and researchers recognized the importance of that - that this was a trip that would help collect some baseline data of conditions around the lake that included the presence of aquatic invasive species or other terrestrial species that no one would necessarily know are there."

People can go online to www.fullcirclesuperior.org for more information about the couple's journey around Lake Superior.

Peter Annin, author of Great Lakes Water Wars, will be the second speaker visiting the campus in December. Annin will talk about the impacts of diverting water from lakes and rivers for human uses, as well as how invasive species like the Asian carp can be detected in freshwater through DNA testing of water samples.

The William P. Van Evera Endowed Lectureship Fund was created so that every year Northland College could host an eminent authority to give a public lecture and lead a seminar to engage students, Chequamegon Bay area citizens, and faculty. Designed to bring these groups together around a particular environmental issue, the Van Evera Lecture and Seminar was established to bridge teaching and research with application and action.