Talk:Isle Royale National Park

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This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected areas worldwide. It may include the protected area infobox.
Michigan Isle Royale National Park is part of WikiProject Michigan, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Michigan.
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Contents

[edit] Merge from Isle Royale

[edit] March 2004 merge

I am not sure we want to do this merge. Isle Royale is the largest island in the park but not the only island in the park. Look at Yosemite National Park, Yosemite Valley, etc. Rmhermen 16:16, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

Besides we know have an article about a park that starts out about an island and only talks about the park halfway through. Bad form. Rmhermen 16:16, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
I personally think the island should have its own page, and that the park page should be about the park per se, with a "box" like all the other national parks. -- Decumanus 16:24, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I just saw a lot of redundant information and didn't think there was enough to merit separate articles. The opening to the NP article is just as it was before the merge. If you want to separate, that's OK with me, but I'd like to see less redundancy and a clearer distinction between them. Bkonrad | Talk 16:26, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I agree with you that is was a mess before the merge.-- Decumanus 16:27, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I reverted the merge. And now I see that I originally wrote what I was complaining about. Now we can work on fixing it. Rmhermen 18:40, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

Reworked article - still needs something on lighthouses and shipwrecks. What else? Flora? Rmhermen 22:53, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

Great start Rmherman. I'll take a closer look when I get a chance. Bkonrad | Talk 23:20, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merge: reprise

Though I see it has been tried unsuccessfully, I'd still like to see this national park article merged to Isle Royale; I think it can be properly done. Isle Royale is the only notable island in the park, unlike Yosemite Valley which is only 1% of the park it is in. The other islands in this park could easily be described in the main island article; they aren't notable except as islands in the National Park or as small islands near the much larger island.

As for merging into the Island article instead of the Park article, the island was here first and is notable and unique in itself, with quite a bit of history prior to the park. However, there are arguments for keeping it here, such as the presence of the infobox.

There isn't anything to say about the park that you couldn't say in a section of the article about the island, or vice versa. In fact, this article says almost everything that is said in the other article. Leaving them separate, when they are about almost the exact same subject, makes for redundancy and/or partitioning of information. If some people agree with me, (and there isn't much disagreement) I'll tackle it. -DDerby-(talk) 03:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the articles could and should be merged. My inclination is to merge Isle Royale into Isle Royale National Park, as the National Park includes the entire island and surrounding area, and the park is currently the sole use and attraction of the island. Isle Royale could redirect to Isle Royale National Park, or it could simply be a one paragraph geographic summary with link to the national park article. -- BlueCanoe 18:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I personally prefer a redirect over write about the geography and leave out the history, etc. Which is why I also prefer to merge into Isle Royale - the history goes back long before the park, and the area can be described in the island article. -DDerby-(talk) 21:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I've no problem with leaving things as they are (I was the one who attempted to merge the two a while back a discussed above). However, if there is to be a merge, I would very strongly prefer that the island article be merged and redirected to the National Park article. There are quite a few such national park articles that seem to have a standard naming convention and an active wikiproject working on them. But before merging, consider that there are precedents for having separate articles on the geological feature and nearly coterminous park: Yosemite Valley and Yosemite National Park, Channel Islands of California and Channel Islands National Park, Mackinac Island and Mackinac National Park (among others). older≠wiser 22:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As almost two months have past without action, I am tempted to remove the merge notice, but I'll give it a few more days. My vote: Merge the island into the Nat'l Park, as the NP also has a few smaller islands and therefore (technically) the island is a subset of the NP. Also, the island article is less developed. — Eoghanacht talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

No action, I'm removing the merge notice. -- dcclark (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date of authorization

hey everyone, i am doing a project on isle royale, and i just put in the date of authorization, i hope this helps someone in the world

{BF}Doom

I removed it as the content of the box is standardized at Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected Areas. Also it is not clear what this date signifies. Rmhermen 16:19, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Island dimensions

Minor quibble - the article says the island is over fifty miles long, but I believe the maximum length is closer to 45 miles (and maybe short of that). Can someone confirm the number? (I've hiked it four times so I have a pretty good idea, but can't precisely measure from my maps.)

You are correct, the island is 45 miles long according to the NPS website. I corrected the dimensions in the article and added a reference. Epolk 23:33, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nearest City

Lately we've had some changes: nearest city was Duluth, MN, it got changed to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and reverted. It seems from the map that Thunder Bay is much, much closer than Duluth. Since we've had some reverts already, I'm posting here first: what's up? Why the changes back to Duluth? -- dcclark (talk) 22:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I would image that is has to do with nationality but clearly Thunder Bay is the closest of the two. On the other hand, Grand Portage, Minnesota seems to be about as far away. Park headquarters are some 56 miles away in Michigan. Rmhermen 22:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I would say that Grand Portage isn't anywhere near large enough to be the nearest "city." Houghton, Michigan as the HQ, might be a good choice, but I think it's still farther than Thunder Bay. -- dcclark (talk) 23:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Grand Portage and Thunder Bay are around 20-25 miles away - Park headquarters more than twice that. Grand Portage is the nearest place to get a ferry to the park, Thunder Bay is the closest if you have your own fairly large boat. Thunder Bay is still the best bet, I'd say. Rmhermen 03:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Not to sound like some kind of nationalist, but I prefer the closest U.S. city since it is a U.S. park. In the case of let's say Waterton Lakes National Park, I would prefer the closest Canadian city as it is a Canadian Park, even though it is closely aligned with Glacier National Park (US) which borders the park on the south and even though they are essentially one park and recognized as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Probably a silly notion on my part, but similar to how I prefer American measurements for distance, etc in article pertaining to the U.S. and metric for all other areas that this measurement system is standard.--MONGO 03:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, this begs the question: what is the point of the "nearest city" field? Is it for potential travellers? In that case, something in the same country makes sense. Is it for locating the park geographically? Then the nearest city, no matter which country, is probably best. Personally, I think the latter is the case, but I'm open to other ideas. -- dcclark (talk) 04:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not beholden completely to demanding it be the way I state. There is much ambiguity as to what constitutes a city. In some of the articles I have written, I state the nearest point of population, be it even a village or where the nearest post office is located. Sometimes I mention the nearest city as being where the protected area is Headquartered at...even though this may be some distance from the site in more remote locations. It's actually quite arbitrary. But I think the most important thing is the coordinates, which should be at the point of most visited entry to a protected area, and not at the city itself. If someone wants to reinsert Thunderbay, that's fine, I just prefer we find a U.S. location in this case. I encounter the delimma even on areas well inside U.S. territory, as in the case of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument I put down St. George, Utah, even though the entire protected area is located in Arizona. I suppose the question I ask is that since this is a U.S. Park, do the majority of U.S. citizens that visit the park enter Canada to do so, to catch the ferry, or do they access the park from the south. I am not familiar with the information, so I suppose where ever the closest launching point for a trip would be is fine.--MONGO 04:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
There is no ferry from Canada at all. The only ferries are from Grand Portage, pop. 500 or so, and from the Keweenaw, over twice as far away. Most people do come by one of the ferries, although some fly in on floatplanes or use their own boats. Which ferries carry the most people I couldn't say. Rmhermen 05:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I changed it because "Duluth is the nearest city" is objectively incorrect. The "nearest city" is Thunder Bay. The "nearest city in the same country" is Grand Portage. The "nearest city in the same state" is Eagle River. The "nearest city of over 5,000 in the same country" is Houghton. Up the population requirement to 10,000 and you get Marquette, way the heck on the other side of the Keweenaw. Duluth finally qualifies if you increase the population requirement to 20,000 (which it meets easily), but you still have to leave the (yes, it's nationalist) country requirement in there because Thunder Bay is even bigger. It's not Wikipedia's place to interpret what "nearest city" really means or to second-guess what people might want this information for. Maybe they want to look up weather forecasts (for which Duluth is useless), maybe they want to find it on a cities-only map that doesn't have parks outlined (not really relevant in this case, but for other parks)... it doesn't matter. If they're looking for how to get there, Thunder Bay makes more sense, because people actually do it that way. Maybe not a lot of Americans, but more than sail all the way from Duluth, a city with no discernable association with the park. Because of the ferry service, Grand Portage certainly makes more sense from the travel-info perspective, but Copper Harbor is probably marginally more-heavily used (judging from ferry service capacity). But really, if they're looking for instructions how to get there, they should be consulting Wikitravel (which is intended to give guidance), not Wikipedia. (And if it's guidance you want to give, that's where you should be giving it.) Bottom line: Either "nearest city" means the objectively nearest city, or it should be renamed to whatever elaborate criteria you're actually using, or it shouldn't be included in the infobox at all. 161.57.55.36 14:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge III

I have proposed a merger of Isle Royale into this article, which I support and is supported by a majority of those commenting above. Please discuss at Talk:Isle_Royale. Thank you. Kablammo (talk) 23:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The last merge discussion was years ago and the majority did not support it either time. Rmhermen (talk) 00:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Not by my count. Look above at Talk:Isle_Royale_National_Park#Merge:_reprise; two years ago five editors supported a merge, and no one opposed it; they only differed in which article should be merged into which. In any event I am copying this discussion to Talk:Isle_Royale so the discussion can be centralized. Please post further comments there. Thank you. Kablammo (talk) 01:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
As one of the participants at that time, I did not support the move, I offered a suggestion if the merge were to proceed. I don't see any reason to alter my opinion at this time. older ≠ wiser 03:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
You are correct-- my apologies. I will cross-post to the other discussion page. Kablammo (talk) 04:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In order to keep discussion in one place, please post comments at Talk:Isle_Royale. All above comments have been copied there.

[edit] Withdrawal of merge proposal

As neither this merge proposal (discussed more fully on the Isle Royale talk page) nor the two articles themselves have attracted much interest, and as there is neither a consensus to merge nor much work being done on these articles, I am removing the merge proposal.

For the reasons I mentioned above, I will leave further editing of these to articles to others, as I frankly don't know where to put new additions and Wikipedia has many other projects which could use attention. I hope that those who take an interest in Isle Royale will be able to give it the treatment it deserves.

Some thoughts:

  • Midcontinent Rift has some good sources on geology.
  • Geological history of Isle Royale, now the third link under External links for the Isle Royale page, does not really add anything and contains some unscientific information.
  • There is a book by a member of the Sivertson family with some good human history on Island Royale. It would be a useful resource. The history of those families on the island did not end with establishment of the park.
  • There are a number of published sources on the wolf study. Wolves and Moose on Isle Royale has many; this is a useful starting point as well.
  • The ecology sections of these articles are entirely unreferenced—as a matter of fact the articles only share 7 footnotes between them.

Best wishes. Kablammo (talk) 16:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)