Local organization plays vital role at Devil’s Lake State Park
Just one of the many state parks Wisconsin has to offer, Devil’s Lake has more than state employees working behind the scene.
The over 9000-acre park plays host to over 2 million visitors a year, and while the park employs a good size staff to keep things running smooth, it is a monster task. Thanks to the non-profit organization Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park that play a vital role in the parks upkeep, visitors are assured not less than a spectacular experience.
The Friends supports the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) through their mission that states it was organized for the charitable and educational purposes of supporting, assisting, and promoting the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources with interpretive, scientific, historical, educational, recreational, and related visitor services at Devil’s Lake State Park, Sauk County, Wisconsin.
At a recent clean up event at the park, I had the opportunity to talk with Bernadette Greenwood, president of the Friends organization. A geologist, Greenwood is originally from Illinois and moved to the area in 2010. Loving the study of rocks to begin with, her first experience with the park was in the 90s when she did a geology field trip for one of her classes. “It's just an amazing place. That's it. There's no place on earth that has all the geological features or historical features or cultural features. There's no place on Earth that's as special as this place. So, it's pretty easy to want to help and to keep it preserved for people to enjoy. I became a board member in 2017. And I think I became president in 2019, but don't hold me to that.,” she said with a chuckle.
The organization, Greenwood shared, is really quite versatile with their work contributions. “They did a lot of invasive species removal, garlic mustard, things like that. They also started with repairing memorial benches. We did the memorial benches throughout the park and they did that for about 20 years or so, until the park kind of decided that there were probably enough benches. So, over the years, some of the benches have become very, you know, they've either been taken out or they need repair, so that's where we're trying to focus. Unfortunately, today we couldn't do it, but are instead doing a pretty thorough park cleanup. We have our dedication pavers now; we've been transitioning from benches to pavers. So, there are pavers out front of North Shore Chateau that we sell and that's just basically donations of money to support the park.”
The organization also accepts passive donations and sells memberships. “We have about 200 active members right now. We hold events, we sponsor Music in the Park, which we're allowed to do again this year, we are really excited. So, we booked bands for the last Sundays of June, July and August. We also sponsor events like this volunteer day. We've done geology field trips, sometimes we do members-only kayak trips, things like that,” Greenwood said.
The Friends use their funds to pay for projects like the boathouse and the fire rings. Getting creative with funding the Friends seek out matched funds from stewardship grants and heritage grants through the state grant program.
Devil’s Lake, known to the indigenous people of the area the Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk), have always called the lake Spirit Lake. When asked what involvement if any the tribe has, Greenwood had this to say, “As far as the tribe’s involvement, you probably heard about the interpretive center that we want to be constructing, and we know first of all that's going to be a huge part of the process. We actually just had a discussion amongst ourselves last week that we wanted to, for our annual meeting, we were going to reach out to Board member David Parr's wife who has several connections with the Hoocąk. Education is huge, but I know the long story short to say if there are any ideas they may have, any concerns, anything, all ideas are good, you know, to bring it to the table, and then if there's something that we can do, and help change to make it better that’s what we would be looking for.”
When asked if the name Devil’s Lake might ever be changed to “Spirit Lake”, Greenwood said that it has been mentioned and acknowledged that she did not know if the name would ever change. “I don't know that the name will ever be changed, however, we can play a role in getting that on our website. I don't even think we have that listed or talked about it, so that's something that we could do better and we could add it. I know there’s a blip in the park paper, they talk about Spirit Lake, but there's just so many different versions.”
Devil’s Lake State Park offers concessions and souvenirs and even features an ice-cream parlor of sorts run by the Devil's Lake Concessions Corporation a non-profit. Established in the 1940’s and incorporated in the 60’s, the entity generates a huge amount of money for the park. 90% of their revenue generated goes directly back into the park and 10% goes to the state of Wisconsin. Some of the money from the corporation that goes back into the park is shared with the Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park in the form of grants.
Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park Social Media Director Seth Taft encourages volunteers to join the organization and noted that they meet every Second Saturday at the park to work. As the Social Media Director. Seth shared, he comes out and takes photographs and videos to develop enticing content of what it is to be a Friend of Devils Lake State Park, and show exactly what the organization does.
