Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes April 28, 2026

 

Quarterly Public Meeting
Keweenaw NHP Headquarters
April 28, 2026

Present:

Commissioners:

• Glenn Anderson, State of Michigan (President)

• Gerald Juntunen, Commissioner, at-large (Vice President)

• Dan Jamison, at-large (Treasurer)

• Karin Cooper, Houghton County (Secretary)

• Thomas Helppi, Calumet Township

• Andrew Ranville, Village of Calumet

• Mary Sears, Franklin and Quincy Townships

Executive Director

• Sean Gohman

National Park Service (NPS)

• Denice Swanke, Isle Royale National Park

• Amber Kraft, Keweenaw National Historical Park

• Anne Lewellen, Keweenaw National Historical Park

• Karl Dietsler, Keweenaw National Historical Park

• Robert Maxon, Keweenaw National Historical Park

 

Decisions and Announcements

• Keweenaw Heritage Grant awards will be announced mid-May, with $150,000 in grants to be awarded.

• Spring Heritage Sites meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20 at the park’s Visitor Center. Details to come in calendar invites.

A.1. Call to Order

A regular meeting of the Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission was opened at 1:02 p.m., Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

A.2. Introductions

Guests:

• Gina Nicholas, KORC

• Dean Juntunen, OCHS

• Mel Jones & Karen Hintz, KCHS

• Nathan Jones, Calumet Theatre

• Vince Kanthak & Chris Timoen, PM&S

• Marcia Slater, Hanka Homestead

• Gaylord Faull, QMHA

• Adrienne Detanico, IRKPA

• Penny Menze, Calumet

• Beth Baker, Agassiz House

A.3. Approval of Agenda for January 13, 2026

• Motion made by Juntunen to approve. Seconded by Jamison. Motion carried (7/0).

A.4. Approval of Minutes of January 13, 2025

• Motion made by Jamison to approve minutes. Seconded by Ranville. Motion carried (7/0).

B.1. Superintendent and Staff Report

• Denice Swanke, Superintendent of Isle Royale National Park, sat in today’s meeting in lieu of KNHP not having a current Superintendent in place.

  • Four KNHP staff members (Amber Kraft, Anne Lewellen, Karl Dietzler, and Robert Maxon) are rotating as Acting Superintendents on a monthly basis.

• There is no mechanism in place at the moment to fill permanent positions due to the ongoing hiring freeze in the Federal Government, but the Superintendent, Historical Architect, and Historian are up for appointment once that freeze is lifted.

• Otherwise, it is business as usual at KNHP, with several projects planned for the rest of this fiscal year.

  • Details can be found in the staff reports in attachment at end of the document.

Questions for the Superintendent

None

B. 2. Executive Director’s Report

Financials

• We’ve received all our funds this fiscal year: $100,000 for operations and $150,000 for projects related to work at the smelter.

• Our funding agreement paperwork for FY27 ($125,000) was initiated this month. I have till May 22nd to complete.

• Billings mostly related to school trip/bus reimbursements and smelter utilities.

• Travel reimbursement for trip to Norfolk, VA at end of May ($1,629.06)

Heritage Grant Updates

• Nineteen applications were received asking for roughly $215,000 to go towards a total of $529,000 in projects.

• Award decisions are to be made in the next two weeks, followed by notifications.

Quincy Smelter Operations

• $1,086.32 spent this fiscal. All on utilities.

• QMHA wants to keep investing in the smelter and improving their tour offerings there.

• Some of our funding is to be used this summer for safeing projects, mostly tackling masonry (plugging up openings). The rest is for us to decide.

• Replacing the introduction sign at the fence entrance. Should be done this summer.

• Historic Resources Study of the smelter is in draft form. I and NPS staff are reviewing it for final draft.

Completed and Ongoing Projects for FY26

• School Bus grant program: $445.45 reimbursed last quarter. $1,748.19 spent this fiscal on the program this fiscal year.

• Several requests have been made. There is roughly $1,000 left but will be spent soon.

• Working with KEWE Interp team on guidebook focused on the Heritage Sites for potential sale in Visitor Center and gift shops (ongoing). Possibly looking to contract some of this work out.

• Working on a content creation project with Alexis Dahl to tell the story of the park.

• Working with Kasey Koski on a large-scale art piece for the smelter this summer.

• Working with QMHA on installation of interpretive trail from shaft rockhouse to locomotive house. QMHA approved $25k to go along with $35k commitment from commission.

Travel

• Traveling to Norfolk, VA for the Society for Industrial Archeology annual conference. May 28-31.

• I am there leading the charge for next year’s conference to be hosted here in Houghton.

• I am also on the ballot to serve on the SIA Board.

Action Items

• Working with Bring Back Calumet and TNC-Heartlands on various projects related to historic preservation of buildings (Ruppe Block) and landscapes (Heartlands acreage).

• Sitting on the Copper Country Scenic Byway committee (ongoing).

• Working with the Society for Industrial Archeology and the Mining History Association to plan a 2027 joint conference based in Houghton but visiting sites all over the Keweenaw (early June, 2027).

• Spring Heritage Sites meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20 at the park’s Visitor Center. Details to come in calendar invites.

Questions for the Director

None

B.3. Financial Reports

A. Budget/Finance

• Motion to approve billing in the amount of $3,035.12 made by Juntunen and seconded by Jamsion. Motion carried (7/0).

• Motion to approve payroll and tax payments in the amount of $19,675.62 made by Jamison and seconded by Helppi. Motion carried (7/0).

B.4. Requests to Commission

None

B.5. Commissioner Reports

None

C.1. Comments from legislators or legislative staff

None

C.2. Comments from Keweenaw Heritage Site representatives

A. Vince Kanthak, Painesdale Mine & Shaft

• Ongoing preservation projects at the Champion #4 site, including column repair on the shaft rockhouse and (hopefully) shingle siding replacement at their Captain’s Office.

B. Dean Juntunen, Ontonagon County Historical Society

• The accessible viewing platform is up and open for use around the Fish Tug on display on the lighthouse grounds. Juntunen also shared stories of researchers being aided by OCHS’s ongoing collections digitization work (funded over the last several years thanks to the Keweenaw Heritage Grant Program). Things are simply easier to find now.

C. Karen Hintz and Mel Jones, Keweenaw County Historical Society

• KCHS museums open June 14^th. 22,000 visitors came through last year. Tuck pointing to take place on the lighthouse this summer, as well as ongoing restoration work on the 36’ life saving boat they have at their life saving museum near the Eagle Harbor marina. It is also the 100-year anniversary of the wreck of the Bangor, so be on the lookout for programming related to that.

D. Marcia Slater, Hanka Homestead

• The museum open May 5th.

E. Nathan Jones, Calumet Theatre

• The Theatre is holding a ‘Sock Hop’ fundraiser to support ongoing preservation efforts, and several other events are scheduled for the summer, so check the theatre’s website and/or box office for more details.

F. Gaylord Faull, QMHA

• Working with the park on new interpretive trail. A new flagpole to be raised over Bridgefest weekend. A new golf cart electric vehicle is being purchased to improve accessibility on the underground tours.

C.3. Comments from the public

A. Penny Menze wanted to introduce everyone present to her newly acquired home on 7^th street in Calumet. Just north of the Italian Hall site, the Cudihy House was built for the Calumet Theater’s manager and designed by Shand, the same architect who designed the Theatre. Menze hopes to restore the home and turn it into an interpretive and performance space, with Heritage Site status an aim as well.

B. Beth Baker, Agassiz House

• Looking into opening up the house for tours 1-2 times a week this summer

D. Motion to Adjourn

Moved by Jamison and seconded by Ranville at 2:18 p.m. Motion carried (7/0).


Next public meeting to be held Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Will take place at 1:00pm at Keweenaw NHP Headquarters.

 

Interpretation & Education Update

Visitor Center operations & ranger programs

• Currently the Calumet Visitor Center is open noon-4 on Thursday and Friday (this schedule allows us to accommodate more school field trips as well as prep for the summer season)

• Beginning May 26^th, the visitor center will be open 10am-5pm 7 days a week.

• This summer park staff will conduct daily ranger led programs in the Calumet Unit. These will begin at the Calumet Visitor Center at 11 am (starting 5/27).

• Park staff also plan to provide evening programs in the Quincy Unit at the Smelter and Dry House Ruins as well as possible other locations like a Cliff Mine hike. Details on these programs are still getting finalized.

• There will be five (5) opportunities for the community to join with the park and heritage site parters for volunteer work days this summer. These are planned for June 13, 27, July 25, Aug 20 and Sept 19. More details will be coming out on volunteer.gov and the park’s calendar of events in the coming weeks.

• Park staff will join staff from IRKPA this summer to participate in several community events including Bridge Fest, Strawberry Festival, and Pasty Fest. All Heritage Site partners have been invited to join us at Bridge Fest to promote their sites and recruit volunteers.

• This summer we will be continuing our partnership with the Keweenaw-Calumet Sportsman’s club and will conduct a number of family/youth fishing and birding programs tied to Keweenaw history. The Sportsman’s club was successful again this year in getting a National Park Foundation grant to support these activities. The park was also successful in competing for and getting a Fish & Feathers intern this summer who will work on these family programs. Together the park and sportsman’s club have been doing fishing programs for a number of years. We are adding the birding component to the programing this year.

I&E projects

• This summer we are again partnering with the Advisory Commission and IRKPA on our Commissioned Art program. We continue to work with artist Kasey Koski and are working on a large art instillation at the Quincy Smelter this summer. Part of this work is a timeline of mining technology and we are in the early process of working with KBIC on the pre-contact depiction of that artwork. The other part of the work will depict different modes of transportation used from boats to trains to carts.

• Our Mellon Fellow, Dan Wallace, will be finishing up his research this summer and is working to put together a traveling exhibit. He is also working with MTU Archives to digitize the Brockway Diary.

• The park will work with a contracted teacher and a pre-service history education student this summer to support National History Day/ MI History Day involvement for local educators and students as well as work on park education resources.

• Winter projects still in process and getting done as time allows:

  • TRACES Online- work continues. Working with park staff and partners on finishing all learning modules that have been started.

  • We are working with the Commission, our heritage site partners and IRKPA on a new guidebook. This project is a bit delayed from what we had hoped but we still hope to find a way to move this forward. Once done, it will be a great resource for area visitors helping to tie together the story of Keweenaw copper and how the park and the heritage sites tell that full story.

Lake Superior Collections Management Center

Museum Acquisitions:

We are tackling the backlog of museum donations to Keweenaw NHP and have accessioned approximately 20 new collections in the past six months. They are primarily photo and business documents but also include a length of fuse and paraffin wax, security badges and a table owned by James McNaughton. We also accessioned and cataloged a Coast Guard flag donated to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore which is now being conserved and mounted in a frame for exhibit at that park. We accessioned some natural history specimens collected at Isle Royale and Pictured Rocks.

Deaccessioning:

We are deaccessioning larger museum collection objects that are duplicates and not necessary for the museum collection, such as chairs and file cabinets. We currently have one batch of objects going through the formal process and will have another batch ready soon. The deaccessions are based on recommendations provided by a contractor and regional office staff, and our Scope of Collections statement.

Research Requests:

Archivist Jeremiah Mason has answered approximately (80) research requests so far this year for Keweenaw NHP, (7) for Isle Royale NP and (5) for Pictured Rocks NL.

Archival Collection Processing:

We had two archives interns here this winter. One worked on a small Isle Royale photo collection and also organized a large collection of C&H maps and plans. The other intern worked on arranging the Pictured Rocks Resource Management Record collection, which is getting close to completion.

Isle Royale Moose Bone Project:

Michigan Tech has transferred approximately 8,000 cleaned and analyzed moose bones from the predatory-prey study so far but unfortunately, they are not organized. Continuing work from the past 5+ years, we have an intern working to re-house all the moose bones by individual.

C&H Warehouse No. 1:

There is a long-running project in the works to convert C&H Warehouse No. 1 to a museum storage facility. The project seems to be in limbo for this fiscal year. It was formulated to be funded this year, but funding hasn’t come through yet and there isn’t any word from the regional office.

Heritage Sites Technical Assistance:

• We are storing a Lyle gun for Keweenaw County Historical Society for the winter.
• We are rotating moldy documents from Ontonagon Historical Society through our Wei to freezer to deactivate the mold.

Looking to the summer:

We will have two NPS museum techs and one archives tech on board, as well as our ACE member continuing to work on the Isle Royale moose bone housing project. Three of us will be going to Isle Royale to conduct the annual inventory of museum property, clean exhibits, and download dataloggers that track humidity and temperature in the various museum exhibit spaces.

Jeremiah and I will be entering and updating project statements to compete for internal NPS funding in FY28.

We will continue to work on accessioning and cataloging the backlog collections for Keweenaw and Isle Royale.

We plan to continue packing large objects in the warehouse in anticipation of the move to temporary storage during the warehouse rehab.

Landscape Preservation Report

NPS 2026 OBJECTIVES:

Progress this quarter was made toward the following objectives in support of broader NPS goals for 2026.

Objective 1

Work with the Bring Back Calumet Committee to collaboratively achieve Calumet Village objectives in the stabilization and preservation of historic properties in the Historic District of Calumet Village.

• Participate in regularly scheduled meetings as a technical advisor.

Objective 2

Appointed committee member with the Calumet Village Historic District Commission to collaboratively achieve Calumet Village objectives in the preservation and interpretation of the natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources the Historic District of Calumet Village.

• Participate in regularly scheduled meetings as a technical advisor.

Objective 3

Working with the NPS Midwest Region and the Village of Calumet on the redesign of the Keweenaw National Historical Park Visitor Center parking lot and adjacent Scott Street.

• Concept design completed.

• Cost estimates are in progress.

• Calumet Village Planning Commission Meeting scheduled for late May.

Objective 4

Respond to technical assistance requests from park partners to advance preservation and stewardship of historic landscapes.

• Currently advising the Village of Calumet regarding the Anna Klobuchar Clemenc placement in the newly designed pocket park between 5^th-6^th Streets.

• Currently working with the Quincy Mine Hoist Association and Blue Line Site Solutions on the construction of the Phase II accessible trail, which will better connect visitors between the Quincy Mine Shaft Rockhouse No. 2 and the Quincy & Torch Lake Railroad Engine House.

• Advised the Quincy Mine Hoist Association regarding the Miner’s Memorial (Martin) House.

• Advised the Painesdale Mine regarding security lighting and related solar panel and signage placement at the Champion Mine.

• Advised the Painesdale Mine regarding initial preservation of the Electrical Warehouse at the Champion Mine.

• Expected to advise the Delaware Mine regarding a request for outdoor archaeology protection.

• Expected to advise the Keweenaw County Historical Society regarding projects at the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse & Rathbone School (TBD).

• Expected to advise remaining NPS-KEWE partner sites on seasonal requests (Ontonogan HS, Hanka, etc.)

Objective 5

AML/IRA Funding

• Coordinating with the Regional AML Team re: Calumet Township Superior Stack assessment and stabilization funding.

• Coordinating with the Advisory Commission, the KEWE Facilities Mgr and AML re: IRA funding re: QSW safeing and other preservation projects.

Objective 6

Great Lakes Invasive Plant Mgt Team

• Working with KEWE PUPS (Pesticide Use Proposal System) coordinator to submit the updated herbicide list necessary to treat invasive plants in the following areas:

  • Dry House Ruins (ongoing project)

  • Potential for KEWE partner site inclusion for identification of invasive species and future control (Hanka Homestead, Painesdale/Champion Mine, Central Mine Site, Old Victoria)

Objective 7

• Sustain facility maintenance and operations including snowplowing and lawn care.

• Assigned work as collateral duty safety officer and initiated program assessment.