Naturalist Alex Graeff will lead Keweenaw Wild Ones members on a botanizing walk near Copper Harbor, at 1 p.m. ET, Saturday, July 20.
We will meet at Hunter’s Point Park (directions below). Our destination will be the bedrock plant community along the shoreline. The round trip will take an estimated two hours; if that’s too long, you can join for the beginning and turn back at any time. The trail is well marked.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said we would be going to Horseshoe Harbor. That’s incorrect. We will be walking to the shoreline, however.
Plan to come? Please register here. We want to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind.
We won’t necessarily be focusing on pretty blooms. Instead, Alex will point out rare and/or unusual northern plants eking out a living in the shoreline communities. One example is mountain serviceberry, a diminutive cousin of the commoner serviceberries found locally. We’ll also see heart-leaf birch, sedges, and bilberry, a disjunct population of a shrub that is typically found nearer the West Coast.
Alex will also show us a fen community and point out the mosses and lichens living on the bedrock.
An ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service at the Northern Research Station in Rhinelander, Wis., Alex is well-versed in the flowers, grasses, and sedges of the northern Great Lakes. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northern Michigan University, where he studied biology and plant community ecology.
After picking up an interest in plant identification during a Michigan Botanical Club foray in 2012, he spent much of the next decade focused on exploring and learning the region’s flora and natural communities.
Directions to Hunter’s Point Park
- Head north on US-41 until you reach Copper Harbor.
- Turn left onto M-26 S/Gratiot St. In 0.7 miles…
- Turn right onto North Coast Road. In 0.3 miles…
- Turn right onto Harbor Coast Lane. In 0.3 miles, you will be at
- Hunter’s Point Park, Copper Harbor