“Sitting in the pew to me is not spiritual. It may be community, it may be music, but where my soul is and where my spirituality is, is in these outdoor spaces.”
- Nancy Franz, Ames, Iowa.
I spent an afternoon interviewing Nancy Franz, Iowa State University Professor Emerita of Education, about Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains.
The Porcupine Mountains, or the Porkies as they’re commonly called, is home to the largest old growth forest east of the Mississippi in the United States. Once 150,000 acres, it now stands at roughly 38,000 acres in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan along Lake Superior.
Per Michigan.gov, the Porcupine Mountains “arise abruptly from Lake Superior to form a 12-mile long escarpment which parallels the lakeshore...at 2 billion years old, the mountains are a section of one of the oldest mountain chains in the world.”
Your What’s Good site is the Porcupine Mountains. Can you describe that place for me?
“I first saw it in 10th grade when I backpacked on a 10-day trip there with a girl scout camp. And the first view of it was ... Lake Superior...I fell in love right there with Lake Superior the first time I ever saw it. This endless freshwater of blue and brilliance...and it's all of this large old-growth hemlock and white pines. To this day, white pine is my tree. If I had a religion, it would be the white pine religion...My spiritual being is that old-growth forest…And that's where everything feels peaceful, comfortable, right in the world. When there were tough times in my life, that's where I could go to regain balance.
And so that's part of why I think the Lake Superior has always been…my church. If there was such a thing, right? It's because when I'm there, I'm in church. The spiritual part of me is fulfilled, and I think that's part of what people might describe as solitude or peace or whatever else, and it's also what fuels my need to give, right? So that [place] fills up that need to to be kind, that giving-ness, all of that.”
What if that place didn’t exist?
“So for me, that would've been different. I would've found a spiritual place, but it wouldn't have been that experience. For communities and the world at whole, it's…just having wilderness. Having 50,000 or 90,000 acres of wilderness. Where…there's no wheels, there's no fires…There would be less ecosystem services, things like clear air and clear water. From an economic perspective, there would be less jobs for the people in that region, and [there] would also probably be other non-tangibles, it would be like taking the air out of a spiritual balloon.
There would just be things missing socially. There would be more people who would be struggling with mental health. There would be more people struggling with physical health. There would be more people who don't understand why nature's important because they couldn't experience it.
Yeah.
So if that place did not exist, there would be impact on several things.”
Want to visit? Check out some travel suggestions and a weekend itinerary in the Porkies.
Like what you see? Invest in a painting or a limited edition print of the Porkies.