Harpers Ferry Center National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Ice Age National Scenic Trail Long-Range Interpretive Plan OCTOBER 2013 PLANNING FOUNDATION Boulder Creek, Devil’s Lake State Recreation Area, Sauk County 2 Ice Age National Scenic Trail Long-Range Interpretive Plan Ice Age National Scenic Trail America’s Great Outdoors (AGO Project): Ice Age Complex at Cross Plains (Dane County) to the Aldo Leopold Shack (Sauk County) Long-Range Interpretive Plan Prepared under Order No. P12PD14250 Task Order No. 25 Interpretive Planning Services for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail Prepared under Contract No. C1180070004 with the National Park Service Interpretive Planning Services Harpers Ferry Center P.O. Box 50 Harpers Ferry, WV 25425 By: Interpretive Solutions 732 Westbourne Road West Chester, PA 19382 October 2013 COVER PHOTO: View of Hawks Bluff at Lodi Marsh State Wildlife Area, Dane County INSET: Ice Age Trail at Black Earth Creek, Village of Cross Plains, Dane County All photos NPS unless otherwise indicated. National Park Service 3 PLANNING FOUNDATION Devil’s Lake in winter, Devil’s Lake State Park, Sauk County. Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources 4 Ice Age National Scenic Trail Long-Range Interpretive Plan Introduction Foundation for Planning 7 Introduction About the Long-Range Interpretive Plan Legislative Background Purpose Statements of Significance Primary Interpretive Themes Management Goals Audience Segments Desired Visitor Experiences Issues and Opportunities Existing Conditions 21 Background Information and Orientation The Audience Experiencing the Trail Interpretive Partners Personnel Recommendations 37 Introduction Next steps for the Long-Range Interpretive Plan The America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) Project Programs, Services and Media Interpretive Infrastructure Evaluation Background Material 57 Map for all Themes Map for Theme One: The Landscape Map for Theme Two: People and the Land Map for Theme Three: Environmental Conditions Map for Theme Four: Ice Age National Scenic Trail Map for Theme Five: America’s Great Outdoors Project Map for Theme Six: Stewardship Images of AGO Sites Matrix: Geologic Features / Characteristics Matrix: Environmental Features / Characteristics Matrix: Cultural Features / Characteristics Glossary of Geologic Terms National Park Service 5 PLANNING FOUNDATION La Budde Creek Segment of the Ice Age Trail, Sheboygan County. Photo courtesy Ice Age Trail Alliance 6 Ice Age National Scenic Trail Long-Range Interpretive Plan Foundation for Planning people (including Milwaukee and Introduction Chicago), it is a prime candidate to help the nation meet those goals. In The Ice Age National Scenic Trail (Ice addition, the segment supports AGO Age NST) is one of only eleven such goals that include large landscape trails in the United States. The trail conservation, preservation of natural follows the edge of the extent of and culturally significant areas, and the Wisconsin glaciation of some support for creative public-private 10-30,000 years ago, highlighting an partnerships. amazing array of glaciated features that includes moraines, kettles, The trail segment selected for the kames, drumlins, erratics, kettle lakes, AGO program – and for interpretive potholes, eskers, marshes, melt- planning – includes two Ice Age water channels, gorges, ice-walled National Scientific Reserves (Cross lake plains, outwash plains, and Plains Complex and Devils Lake State glacial lakebeds. These features are Park), the Baraboo Range, which considered to be among the world’s is the Midwest’s largest National best examples of a glaciated landscape. Natural Landmark, and the Leopold Shack, a National Historic Landmark. While many of the nation’s 19 The Long-Range Interpretive Plan National Historic Trails have (LRIP) may serve as a model plan for interpretive plans, the Ice Age NST the interpretation of other Ice Age is one of the first National Scenic Trail segments in the future. Trails to create one. This plan will center on the (approximately) The AGO segment of the Ice Age 70-mile segment of the trail that NST presently includes two operating stretches from the Ice Age Complex at Cross Plains (Dane County) to the Aldo Leopold Shack (Sauk County). This segment was recently identified by the Federal government as one of 100 America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) projects. (Two projects were selected in each state; the other Wisconsin project is the Lake Michigan Water Trail). These projects center on outdoor recreation, and are intended to help Americans connect or reconnect with nature, with special emphasis on urban populations and youth. With the AGO segment of the Ice Age Trail within a two-hour drive of a population of over 11 million National Park Service 7 FOUNDATION FOR PLANNING visitor contact stations, and one a forward-looking document that planned for the future. The contact concentrates on actions needed stations are the Visitor Center and to create or sustain a vigorous and Nature Center at Devil’s Lake State effective interpretive program for Park, and the Aldo Leopold Center. the future. A future visitor center will be located at the Cross Plains Complex. While The Long-Range Interpretive Plan the visitor and nature centers offer process features two phases. One, opportunities for interpreting the the Foundation phase articulates trail’s stories, the LRIP focuses significance, themes, and target on the trail only, not on interior, audiences. The Foundation museum-style exhibits. Document addresses those elements of the plan, and includes a review of existing conditions. About the Long-Range Interpretive Plan The second phase of the LRIP process recommends interpretive The National Park Service (NPS) has services, media, and partnerships adopted a unified planning approach for the site. A Full Text Draft, for interpretation and education. which includes the revised Founda- This approach combines planning tion Document, articulates those for interpretive media, personal elements, and, after review, the Long interpretive services, and education Range Interpretive Plan is finalized. programs as a single initiative. The Long-Range Interpretive Plan is While the LRIP for the Ice Age Trail intended to help parks identify references and is based, in part, on target audiences, clarify objectives, elements of a recently completed and make programming choices. It General Management Plan (Record defines the overall vision and long- of Decision 2013) for the 1,700- acre term interpretive goals of the park, Ice Age Complex at Cross Plains, including recommendations for the LRIP for the AGO-designated the best mix of media and personal segment of the Ice Age NST is a services that will effectively convey separate, stand-alone document, park themes, and serves as a guide to with significance statements effective, goal-driven interpretation and primary interpretive themes by defining realistic strategies and centered specifically on the trail. actions that work toward achieve- ment of those goals. Although LRIPs share common elements, each is customized to meet individual park needs. While it considers past interpretive programming, the LRIP is primarily 8 Ice Age National Scenic Trail Long-Range Interpretive Plan FOUNDATION FOR PLANNING Legislative Background The idea for the Ice Age Trail began in 1958 with a Milwaukee lawyer named Ray Zillmer, who had a vision of a long, linear park winding through Wisconsin along the glacier’s terminal moraine. In 1964, Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to designate collections of the most significant geologic features left by the last glacial advance as the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, whose purpose is to protect, preserve, and interpret Wisconsin’s glacial landscape features. As a result, nine sites were identified as official units of the preserve. (They are Two Creeks Buried Forest, Kettle Moraine State Forest North Unit, Campbellsport Drumlins, Horicon Marsh Wildlife Area, Cross Plains Complex, Devil’s Lake State Park, Mill Bluff State Park, Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area, and Interstate State Park.) The entire trail is within the state purposes exist for it. The purpose Ray Zillmer, of Wisconsin. In 1980, Congress of the trail as stated in the Ice Age visionary founder of the Ice Age Trail recognized the national significance Complex at Cross Plain’s General of the Ice Age Trail by authorizing it Management Plan was adapted to as a National Scenic Trail through apply to the AGO trail segment. an amendment to the National Trails The purpose of the Ice Age NST, Systems Act in 1980 (Public Law AGO segment, is: 96-370; 16 USC 1244 (a)(10)). The Ice Age Trail passes through six of the • To ensure protection, preserva- nine Scientific Reserve Units. In tion, and interpretation of the 1987 the State of Wisconsin named it nationally significant resources Wisconsin’s first (and, to date, only) and values associated with State Scenic Trail. continental glaciation in Wisconsin, including moraines, erratics, potholes, outwash Purpose plains, kettle holes, tunnel channels, drumlins, swamps, Purpose statements describe why a lakes, and other reminders of site was set aside and what specific the Wisconsin Ice Age. National Park Service 9 FOUNDATION FOR PLANNING • Nowhere are the marks of conti- nental glaciation upon the land more impressive than along the Ice Age National Scenic Trail and in the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve units in Wisconsin. The meandering landscape that exhibits the marks of the glacier’s farthest