Contesting Keweenaw: competing visions of landscape aesthetics at Keweenaw National Historical Park

Abstract

Keweenaw National Historical Park (hereafter KNHP) is one of a periodically growing list of partnership parks developed in response to changing ideals of what the National Park Service ought to preserve and interpret. Established in 1992, KNHP and some other newer parks are intended by Congress to be public–private partnerships. This paper illuminates how KNHP stakeholders used information vacuums to intensify competing narratives regarding landscapes in a partnership park. Ethnographic fieldwork illustrates that stakeholders’ competing narratives complicate KNHP's management. Furthermore, this case study highlights the need for historic preservation professionals to build trust and to communicate effectively with all stakeholders in communities with historic preservation programs. Within a social group, insiders’ knowledge construction guides ideas of landscape aesthetics.

Keywords:

• United States National Park Service
• Keweenaw National Historical Park
• partnership park
• landscape aesthetics

Acknowledgments

First, I am indebted to the residents of Calumet and surrounding areas that let me into their lives and gave me their time and ideas. I thank Editor Alyson Greiner, anonymous reviewers, Robert Ostergren, and Anthony D. Feig for their time and advice, particularly with regard to framing this article's narrative. The usual caveats apply.

Funding

Funding support came from a Whitbeck Graduate Dissertator Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geography Department.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.