Working on Great Lakes Issues From the Edge of the Map
When people picture work happening across the Great Lakes region, they often imagine conference rooms in major cities or policy conversations centered in Washington, D.C., Chicago, or Toronto. Those places matter. But they aren’t where the region begins—or where many of its realities are felt first.
I work from the Keweenaw Peninsula, at the far northern edge of Michigan, where Lake Superior shapes daily life in direct and unavoidable ways. Here, the Great Lakes are not an abstract system or a policy focus area. They are weather, infrastructure, economy, and community, often all at once.
From this vantage point, “regional work” looks different. Not smaller, just wider.
The Keweenaw: Far From Central, Close to the Work
The Keweenaw sits at the literal end of the road in Michigan. Winters are long. Infrastructure is tested. Distances between communities are real. And yet, the region’s relationship to water, land, and climate is immediate.
Storms are not statistics, they’re shoreline loss, road damage, and ice pushing into places it didn’t used to reach. Seasonal shifts aren’t abstract; they change how ports operate, how tourism functions, and how communities plan year to year.
Working from a place like this offers constant reminders that Great Lakes issues don’t happen evenly across the map. They arrive earlier, hit harder, or linger longer depending on geography.
That perspective is invaluable in regional conversations.
A Region That Takes Seven Hours to Drive
That understanding has been reinforced through my work across Michigan’s Great Lakes district with the Surfrider Foundation a stretch of coastline that takes seven-plus hours to drive end to end, from Lake Superior down through Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
Spending time working across that entire district makes one thing clear: there is no single “Great Lakes experience.” Each community, large or small, interacts with water differently. Some face erosion. Others grapple with access issues, aging infrastructure, tourism pressure, or industrial legacy. Many are managing it all at once, often with limited staff and resources.
Seeing the full length of that coastline underscores how regional coordination must account for scale, distance, and uneven capacity. What works in one place may not translate cleanly to another. And policies or messaging developed from a single geographic lens can miss critical context.
Regional Work Doesn’t Require a Power-Center Address
Great Lakes challenges don’t concentrate neatly around population or political centers. They surface where infrastructure is most exposed, where systems are stretched thin, and where communities don’t have layers of redundancy.
Being physically distant from major hubs doesn’t mean being disconnected from work. In many cases, it means being closer to its consequences. Frontline communities often experience the early signals of regional stress—whether environmental, economic, or infrastructural, long before they appear in reports or agendas.
That proximity encourages a kind of clarity that’s essential for regional collaboration.
Frontline Communities Are Diagnostic, Not Peripheral
Smaller and mid-sized Great Lakes communities often operate with overlapping roles and limited capacity. That reality forces prioritization. It also reveals quickly what is functional versus performative.
From the edge of the map, it becomes clear that regional initiatives succeed not because they are ambitious, but because they are usable. Coordination has to respect local bandwidth. Communication must be consistent across geography and jurisdiction. Strategy must recognize that a single decision can ripple across housing, transportation, the environment, and public trust simultaneously.
These communities don’t sit outside the regional story; they test it.
Distance Sharpens Regional Thinking
Working across long distances, whether driving the length of a district or coordinating remotely, changes how you think about time, scale, and impact. There’s less tolerance for short-term thinking when infrastructure has to endure harsh seasons and limited replacement cycles.
Distance also strips away excess. It prioritizes systems thinking over soundbites and long-term stewardship over quick wins. That mindset is especially useful in binational and multi-jurisdictional work, where alignment matters as much as ambition.
Regional Work Is Translation Work
At its core, effective regional collaboration depends on translation between policy and practice, between cities of different sizes, and between local experience and shared goals.
Working from the Keweenaw and across Michigan’s full Great Lakes district makes that translation tangible. You see how regional narratives land differently depending on place, how decisions are interpreted on the ground, and where clarity builds trust—or confusion erodes it.
That feedback loop strengthens regional work. It keeps strategy grounded and communication accountable.
The Region Is Bigger Than Its Centers
The Great Lakes region isn’t defined only by its largest cities or loudest rooms. It’s shaped by hundreds of communities spread across thousands of miles of shoreline, each with a distinct relationship to water, infrastructure, and place.
Working from the edge of the map doesn’t narrow that view. It widens it, reminding us that strong regional collaboration depends on listening to the full length of the coastline, not just its centers.
