No Trace Traveling Trainers stop in the Keweenaw

HUBBELL — The Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers have been seeing the sights of the Keweenaw for the last week.

They’ve been sharing the seven principles of Leave No Trace to teach residents how to enjoy the natural world in a sustainable way that avoids human-created impacts. One of their stops was at the Quincy Mine, where the Trainers and residents explored the mine and discussed the fourth principle, “leave what you find.”

“Quincy Mine is part of the historical nature of this area. One of the things about Leave No Trace is we want to preserve that history. When it comes to going out and exploring areas that have historical significance and there might be some kinds of ruins or artifacts around, we want to make sure that we’re not taking those, taking that little piece of history and making it so that it’s difficult for everybody to get that ‘wow,’ but also for people to understand some of the things that did happen in the historical record,” said Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer Junaid Dawud.

Subaru/Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics partnered with the Keweenaw Land Trust to bring the trainers to the area. The main focus of the visit is to bring awareness to the many issues afflicting the Hungarian Falls gorge.

“Hungarian Falls is a place that we all know and love. We love to go hiking and sightseeing out there. The waterfalls are absolutely beautiful, but the landscape has been seeing a lot of negative impacts, thanks to all of our collective visits to that sight. Whether it’s hiking off the trail or accidentally littering as we’re hiking around, all these impacts are slowly adding up,” said Keweenaw Land Trust Project Coordinator Nathan Miller.

This Sunday, the public is invited to join the Keweenaw Land Trust and the Traveling Trainers to help out with various projects at Hungarian Falls, from invasive species removal to trail cleanup.