COPPER HARBOR, Mich. — A century of private timberland at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula shifted into state hands on Nov. 5 when the Department of Natural Resources took title to nearly 10,000 acres now folded into Fort Wilkins Historic State Park.
The Nature Conservancy sold the block, known locally as Keweenaw Point State Lands, for about $11.2 million drawn from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund and the Land Exchange Facilitation Fund. The ground sits just north of the historic park and will be run by the DNR Parks and Recreation Division.
Talks started after more than 32,000 Heartlands acres went up for sale in 2021. Residents, trail groups and local officials flooded Lansing with letters opposing a breakup of the woods. The Nature Conservancy stepped in as a short-term buyer in 2022 so the landscape would not be carved up while public money was assembled.
Another 22,000 acres stay with the conservancy for now while both sides hunt funding for a later transfer. A new Keweenaw Heartland Recreational and Natural Resources Authority is meant to speak for the community on that remainder. Next door, the 9,376-acre Baraga Forest Management Unit remains under the Forest Resources Division.
Project briefings put dozens of river and stream miles and thousands of wetland acres inside the wider Heartlands forest. For visitors, little changes immediately. Marked motorized trails stay open, and forest roads to spots such as High Rock Bay keep running. Because the new acres sit inside the state park line, a Recreation Passport is required. Campfires and overnight stays on Parks Division ground are limited to marked sites; dispersed camping continues on Forest Resources land. The Natural Resources Commission cleared hunting on the park addition on Oct. 14.
DNR Director Scott Bowen called the purchase a template for saving large private tracts without losing trails or habitat. Conservancy Michigan director Helen Taylor said the bridge buy was designed to protect recreation, local jobs and cultural sites from fragmentation.
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