"Military Road Might Lose Its Soul:" Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

by Dennis McCann Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=575105

Military Road Might Lose Its Soul With Its Trees

Three Lakes - That Military Road is a historic passageway is told by an oversize marker on the road's northern end.

You are on the location, visitors are told, of a military wagon road begun near the end of the Civil War to link Fort Howard at Green Bay with Fort Wilkins in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. Before that it was known as the old Lake Superior Trail, a moccasin path for Indians for centuries and later used by trappers, travelers and drovers heading to mineral-rich northern Michigan and by lumbermen who came to clear the great northern forest.

That Military Road is scenic needs no such explanation.

Simply drive it. The stretch from Highway 70 on the north to Three Lakes on the south is a narrow, winding, rolling road bordered by towering pines that close together high overhead, like hands folded in prayer, a drive so beautiful that in 1990 it was designated a National Heritage Scenic Byway. In autumn, when the maples blush, Military Road is a popular destination for leaf-peepers, though last week's fresh snow provided a just-as-lovely winter wrap.

But drive it soon, because change could be imminent. Today Military Road has become its own battleground, pitting those who would keep it canopied and, yes, crooked against those who would modernize the road by widening it in places, putting in ditches along the sides and straightening some of its curves, even at the cost of many of those tall pines and wildlife habitat.

You can guess which side has the money.

"Improvement," is the word backers of the $1.7 million project use.

That's the last word opponents of the reconstruction would use. They don't deny that Military Road needs work in spots, but in a late attempt to save the trees - bids are scheduled to be let in May and reconstruction would start by fall - they have launched an effort to save the road from "improvements" that would alter its scenic value. What they don't want to do, said one area resident in a letter to the editor of the local paper, is "turn Military Road into just another country road."

No local money

The fight over Military Road broke out last month after the Three Lakes Town Board voted 3-2 to spend $1.7 million in federal money - no town tax dollars are involved, which opponents say is just the problem - on the reconstruction. The vote came despite pleas from those associated with Teaching Drum Outdoor School, a wilderness-skills school located on Military Road, to spare about a dozen tall pines that stand along the road.

"Just from our standpoint," said the school's Glenn Helkenn as we stood in the road one day last week, "this is our storefront."

After the vote and subsequent attention brought to the project, said Helkenn, opposition to the plan "has just ballooned since then. Native Americans have gotten involved, neighbors up and down the road . . . people from all over the community have got concerns over this project."

A meeting to form a "Partnership to Save Military Road" attracted about 40 people, said Evan Cestari, also with Teaching Drum, and launched such efforts as a Web site, www.savelakesuperiortrail.blogspot.com, a letter campaign to town board members and a petition drive that will be presented at an informational meeting at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at the town offices in Three Lakes. Engineers for the project are scheduled to explain their plans, and representatives of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation will be available to answer questions.

They'll no doubt get some. Goldie Longtail, cultural preservation officer for the Mole Lake band of Chippewa Indians, said it is likely there are remains of tribal members buried along the road that would be disturbed by reconstruction. Tribal officials "don't want Military Road disturbed at all," she said, calling it "a spiritual thing with us."

Helkenn and others argue that if the issue is safety of motorists, as backers of reconstruction claim, the so-called improvements might actually make it more unsafe. As it is, the hilly and winding route demands slow going. But if the road is widened and curves straightened, higher speeds could lead to more accidents, he said. In fact, opponents have collected accident reports that they say show Military Road has had only three non-alcohol or non-drug-related accidents in 20 years, and those were caused by a deer, a tire blowout and bad weather.

Main attraction

Beyond that, Helkenn said, reconstruction could forever change "the last road of its kind in the area - an irreplaceable scenic and historic treasure and a unique contribution to tourism."

That notion was seconded by a woman working in a Three Lakes business when she learned I had just visited Military Road. "That's what people come here for," she said.

Helkenn and Cestari say they are hopeful of reaching a compromise with the town board that would allow some needed fixes along Military Road, including repaving, but without removing the trees doomed by the current plan.

"There seems to be a growing base of concern," Helkenn said, "so I'd like to think the chances are pretty good. There are lots of compromises. The whole partnership is just looking for a compromise position."

Dave Hapka thinks otherwise. A pharmacist in Three Lakes who lives just off the Military road, Hapka was one of the three town board members voting for reconstruction and he said the controversy won't stop the project from going forward. By providing the town with all federal funding for the road, the U.S. Forest Service, which has jurisdiction over the Nicolet National Forest, "basically gave us a gift," Hapka said, by paying for a project the town could not afford on its own. Going forward with the project as designed will improve the road for the next 20 years, he said, while anything less would mean further work would be needed in the future.

Hapka, who said he was struck by a logging truck while driving on Military Road in the 1980s, said safety is the issue, not scenery, and that even the road's designation as a national scenic byway carried no special weight.

"I definitely can see (Teaching Drum director Tamarack Song's) position on the road. I love trees. There's no vendetta against the trees. There's no vendetta against the people (who oppose the project).

"It's just: Do we want a road that's going to last 20 years? Do we want a road that's going to be safer?

"It's a terrible road to drive everyday. I could probably provide you with six to eight people who won't do business in Three Lakes because they have to drive down Military Road."

And if put to referendum, Hapka said, the project would be easily approved.

Word is out

Opponents aren't so sure of that. They're heartened by the support of summer residents who are just now hearing of the scope of the project, like Chicagoan Jay Franke who criticized the plans in a recent letter to the Vilas County News Review, which has endorsed reconstruction. Franke said the record shows not a serious accident on the road in at least 20 years and said the town was acting "on the ancient principle of OPM - Other People's Money."

And, Franke said, "whatever Military Road may have been 200 years ago, it is now the delightfully slow way to get from, well, nowhere to nowhere."

Maybe that's the problem. Not enough people are satisfied with going nowhere slowly, especially when there's free federal money for the taking.

E-mail dmccann@journalsentinel.com.