Groups committed to preserving buildings in Lakeshore.

"The fact that we exist is indicative of the park’s desire to get the job done. It’s up to us to engage the public to help through donations and volunteer projects."
—Susan Pocklington,
Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear

PHOTOS SHOW the Olsen farm in the Port Oneida Rural Historical District before and after restoration efforts. The house is being adaptively restored by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear as an office and a cultural resource center.

By next summer, it’s Susan Pocklington’s hope that the public will be able to walk into the Olsen house at Port Oneida and see a period kitchen nearly identical to the one that was in the home before it was left to rot.

Work on the Olsen house, and other projects relating to some of the 366 structures in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, are examples of efforts to preserve the historical resources in the national park.

Pocklington is acting director of Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB), which is hoping to create a new exhibit and kitchen in the home, part of an effort to tell visitors the story of once-thriving Port Oneida. And PHSB isn’t the only non-profit group that is dedicated to preserving and maintaining historical buildings and landscapes in the national park.

Organizations like Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, and the Glen Arbor Art Association, are also working to keep the culture alive. Each of the groups has provided funds, organization and volunteers to help restore the structures.

Tom Ulrich, the assistant superintendent at the Lakeshore, believes in the importance of the structures and appreciates the groups’ important roles.

“We don’t have the money to keep all of them up, but they are extremely important,” he said of the many homes, barns and schoolhouses that now exist on public property,” he said.

“The fact that we exist is indicative of the park’s desire to get the job done,” added Pocklington. “It’s up to us to engage the public to help through donations and volunteer projects.”

Pocklington said the key to success is working in concert with Lakeshore officials and other groups.

“It’s so important that the park be recognized for the tremendous job they are doing of saving these buildings and landscapes with the resources they have. There’s probably not a day that goes by between May and September that there isn’t a park crew out there somewhere working on these structures,” Pocklington said.

PHSB has worked on many structures in the park, including the Olsen farm house. Restoration work on the house and barn began in 2004 as part of a project that revealed a beautiful building underneath years of decay. Original decorative woodwork inside the home was returned to its original state, and the home now serves as the headquarters for the organization.

“The public said ‘we want to preserve these buildings,’” Pocklington said, and that’s what the group is committed to doing.

Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, meanwhile, has worked with the park by donating money and resources to aid the maintenance of historic buildings. Chairman Kerry Kelly said that the group’s broad mission helps the park in multiple ways.

“The group was formed to help the park complete its mission which includes the restoration of cultural and historical resources,” he said. That includes working to secure grants, and sponsoring events like this weekend’s Port Oneida Fair.

The Glen Arbor Art Association has also worked with the park to restore another Port Oneida area farmstead. Thoreson farm is settled amid trees and rolling hills, and sweeping views of Lake Michigan and the Manitou islands are seen from the hill located adjacent to the home and barns.

“We’ve been restoring the buildings with the help of the park,” said Peg McCarty, GAAA director. “We go on a year-to-year basis with the park, and continue to work on restoration.”

It’s not a quick process. Because the GAAA doesn’t have a long-term lease on the buildings, or the funds to complete an entire restoration at once, the progress is slow. To date, the outside of the farmstead’s buildings, including the barn, have been restored.

In order to use the buildings, each non-profit organization must have an agreement or lease with the National Park Service, said Ulrich.

“It can’t be closed off to the public,” he said. “These places belong to the public. These groups are all very encouraging, saying ‘come see us.’”

Ulrich said the groups follow parameters that ensure the park’s mission is maintained.

“Fundraising efforts by our partners have to meet certain guidelines to be certain you’re raising funds and recognizing donors in a way that doesn’t compromise the park,” Ulrich said. “No one wants to see a billboard in Port Oneida saying, ‘These farms are brought to you by Coca-Cola.’ Donor recognition must be tasteful and unobtrusive.”

Most important, he said, is keeping the historical resources available for everyone to enjoy.

“This place tells stories,” said Ulrich. “It’s rare for a place to have historical physical reminders that convey those stories so well. That’s the reason we need to preserve them.”

Kelly agrees. “How do we get where we are if we take away all that historical background?” he said, adding the buildings tell the story of the area and allow visitors to imagine what life might have been like in Leelanau County 100 years ago.

McCarty said the buildings and locations serve as a source of inspiration.

“People can go out to Thoreson farm and feel the same inspiration someone felt 100 years ago,” she said of the Thoreson farmstead. “We’re still making history today by using these buildings.”

For Pocklington, the work provides a living testament to the value of hard work.

“There’s something about (the Port Oneida settlers) connecting to their way of life, their triumphs and tragedies,” said. “Their life was, in many ways, very different and yet very much the same as ours.”

Each of the groups welcomes assistance, both in donations and volunteerism. to help reach their goals. Here’s how to contact the groups:

• Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, 334-6103, or www.PHSB.org.

• Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, www.friendsofsleepingbear.org.

• Glen Arbor Art Association, 334-6112 or www.glenarborart.org.

• Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor’s Center also has information, including maps of the historic Port Oneida district. Call 326-5134, or visit www.nps.gov/slbe.