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The Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition invites you to help celebrate the incredible place where we live. The FREE two-day event will be held at the Michigan Tech Great Lakes Research Center in Houghton March 23 & 24.
This year UPEC has reached out to Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (FOLK) and the Michigan Tech Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC) to hold an event that would not be possible for each to accomplish by themselves. Organizers Linda Rulison, president of FOLK and Joan Chadde and Michael Abbott of GLRC have decades of experience in environmental activities with strong educational credentials. With UPEC, they agreed to celebrate diversity…diversity in activities, in places and with peoples of color and ethnicity.
To highlight the diversity in people, Celebrate the UP! 2018 will feature two African American outdoor adventurers, James Mills and Dudley Edmondson, to speak about their own experiences in nature and working to encourage greater African-American participation in outdoor activities.
James Mills is a journalist who branched out to other media work in outdoor recreation, environmental conservation, and sustainable living practices. He developed skills in the outdoor field as a guide, outfitter, and writer over the past three decades. Mr. Mills along with eight African-American climbers scaled Mt. Denali in Alaska from which a documentary, American Ascent, was crafted to celebrate their odyssey. He wrote:
“As we see a gradual increase among people of color entering into the world of outdoor recreation I believe that it is important to acknowledge the accomplishments of past heroes in order to more firmly cement the roots of the present.”
He wants the larger world as well as his own people to be aware that the typical view of them and they of themselves can be portrayed in a larger, more positive fashion.
Celebrate! will present Mr. Mills and his film on Friday, March 23rd, at 6-9 pm at Michigan Tech Great Lakes Research Center. Mr. Mills will talk about his career and the film, the documentary will be viewed, followed by an audience discussion.
Dudley Edmondson is our featured speaker on Saturday, along with numerous other speakers from 9 am – 4 pm. Through his visual and writing activities he has become a proponent of the great outdoors. Dudley will offer insights from his 25 years of experience. He will talk about his book and efforts to make African Americans not only aware of the outdoors, but to engage, to see themselves as part of the ‘conservation conversation’.
At the end of the sessions on Saturday, organizers will offer a tour of the Great Lakes Research Center. For those who need to stretch their bodies after a day of intellectual exercise, we will offer cross country skiing, guided snowshoeing and fat tire biking.
A detailed schedule may be found at www.upenvironment.org. See you there!
