The Mudjekewis Wildlife Refuge will be protected as a place to inspire the community to interact with nature in a quiet and thoughtful manner, the YDWP announced.

“Ecologically, it’s pretty rare to get preserves that come into our ownership that are such a large parcel,” said Emily Whittaker, YDWP special projects manager.

Whittaker said there’s an advantage with managing a big landscape.

“Anytime you have a larger parcel like that, you have more cohesive management of it,” Whittaker said.

The Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve is the steward and owner of 1,000 acres of land on the Yellow Dog Plains. The land will be known as the Mudjekewis Wildlife Refuge. (Photo courtesy of Steve Caird)

For example, the land is not fragmented into smaller parcels, and she noted that most of the time, especially in the eastern Upper Peninsula, smaller parcels are managed for wilderness but are surrounded by urban areas or other land uses.

The property is the gift and legacy of June Rydholm and her husband, the late Fred Rydholm, as well as their family.

“Culturally and historically, preserving a slice of history on the plains is important,” Whittaker said.

The word Mudjekewis, rooted from the Anishinaabe language, appears in “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In the tribe’s mythology, Mudjekeewis — from the word majiikiwis meaning “first-born son” — is a spirit and featured in their stories, including the lore of the creation of the world.

According to the YDWP, based in Big Bay, Fred Rydholm’s interest in these lands was sparked when he heard stories while working at the Huron Mountain Club in the 1940s. He first saw the ruins of the Arbutus Lodge sometime in the late 1940s and he became captivated by its story of old-money industrialists finding retreat in the wilderness of the Yellow Dog Plains.

He purchased the site, including the remnants of the lodge and guide house, in 1949. Over time, he continued to add more land to this original purchase until his family became stewards of 1,000 acres. Most of the land has been owned by the Rydholm family for nearly 75 years.

The YDWP noted the property features a camp on the Bentley Trail, a 30-mile-long hiking trail that led from the Huron Mountain Club to the “Grand Camp” of American industrialist Cyrus McCormick, now the federally protected McCormick Wilderness Area. That trail was constructed and maintained by a crew of laborers, including Nels, Jim and Christ Andersen, who were immigrant homesteaders on the Yellow Dog Plains.

The sand plains became the site of a “Halfway Cabin” or resting point, also called Sand Plains Cabin, and Arbutus Lodge, where guests of the Huron Mountain Club and the McCormicks often spent several nights during their hike.

The Mudjekewis lands are documented in Fred Rydholm’s book, “Superior Heartland: A Backwoods History.”

“I know this community really values its history,” Whittaker said.

The landscape of the Mudjekewis Wildlife Refuge’s landscape is a sandy region of glacial outwash forested by jack pines, ferns, lichens, mosses and blueberries. First surveyed by W.A. Burt and sons in the 1840s, the Yellow Dog Plains were marked “Sand Plaine,” and later topographic maps added the ponds.

Located in the Michigamme Highlands, the Mudjekewis lands form a greenway that connects interior wilderness lands with the shoreline of Lake Superior, the YDWP said.

The property includes a variety of natural communities including jack pine barrens, northern meadows, vernal pools, spring-fed ponds, Bentley Lake and headwater wetlands. Freshwater forested shrub/wetlands play a prominent ecological role as they feed the Yellow Dog River and, specifically, the conifer swamps interspersed with isolated upland islands that provide a wide diversity of habitats for birds, mammals and plants.

Recent plant surveys yielded over 80 species throughout the varied natural communities, the YDWP said. Bird surveys resulted in the identification of at least 52 distinct species including the black-backed woodpecker, Kirtland’s warbler, boreal chickadee, Tennessee warbler and American bittern.

The Mudjekewis lands also support mammals such as wolves and moose, and are home to black bear, white-tailed deer, fishers, martens, red foxes and coyotes. Bentley Lake, which has a beaver-engineered system, is a refuge for riparian species and migratory waterfowl. The Bentley Ponds are a habitat for turtles, salamanders, snakes, migratory songbirds and diverse invertebrate populations.

YDWP’s objectives as caretakers include reducing fragmentation of larger landscapes, increasing biodiversity of forests on the plains and protecting critical freshwater resources for wildlife and ecosystem health.

YDWP will manage the property according to best ecological practices as well as the intent of the people who built its legacy, it said. Certain human activities will be prohibited, including commercial forestry, hunting and trapping, motorized vehicle use, industrial and commercial activities, and mining.

Activities that will be promoted focus on incorporating low-impact activities for the public to engage with the landscape. Silent sport recreational activities such as hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, birding and photography will be supported. Another plan is to incorporate the arts, with the possibility of future artist-in-residence programs.

The YDWP stressed the Rydholm family will continue to use 80 acres that include the ponds and cabins, and the public is asked to refrain from entering that area. However, the cabins eventually will be turned over to the YDWP, said Dan Rydholm, Fred Rydholm’s son.

He said his father was a seventh- and eighth-grade science teacher for Marquette Area Public Schools as well as a member of the Marquette City Commission and a three-term mayor for the city of Marquette.

His parents believed in conservation and preservation, he said, and the refuge was a dream of theirs that had been building for 70 years.

He said the refuge has three purposes: to be a refuge for wildlife, preserve the historic legacy of the Bentley Trail and have a legacy for his father.

“What a better way to keep Fred’s legacy than to have the Mudjekewis Refuge in his name and be preserved for all time,” Dan Rydholm said.

The YDWP will host an inaugural hike to the refuge on May 26. To reserve a spot, email emily@yellowdogwatershed.org.

People can support the new project financially by making a donation to the YDWP’s Land Protection Program, or become part of its Volunteer Land Monitoring Program. For more information, visit yellowdogwatershed.org, email ydwp@yellowdogwatershed.org or call 906-345-9223.

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250.