Sleeping Bear pauses controversial Segment 9 trail extension indefinitely

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will pause work on Segment 9, the final extension of a paved, multi-use trail through the park.

The decision comes after growing opposition to the four-and-a-half mile trail extension, including from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

Sleeping Bear Superintendent Scott Tucker said conversations with the tribe ultimately influenced the park’s decision to pause the project.

“The Grand Traverse Band, through all of our consultation conversations, were opposed to the route through this section of the National Lakeshore,” Tucker said at a news conference on Wednesday.

In August, Grand Traverse Band tribal Chairwoman Sandra Witherspoon penned a letter of opposition to the proposed route.

“Our opposition is grounded in serious concerns regarding the potential impacts on wetlands, tree removal, and the treaty gathering rights of our Tribal members,” she wrote in the letter addressed to U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), U.S. Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Scott Tucker.

Tucker said the tribe’s concerns are the reason the park is putting the brakes on Segment 9.

“Out of respect to the [tribe’s] ancestral homelands, we are pausing that project,” Tucker said.

Tucker said the pause is indefinite and the park will prioritize other projects.

“We look forward to continuing the consultation process with the National Park Service and appreciate their willingness to work with us,” the Grand Traverse Band’s Witherspoon told IPR in an email.

TART Trails, a Traverse City nonprofit focused on non-motorized transit, was leading fundraising for Segment 9.

TART CEO Julie Clark said roughly $2.6 million has been raised and that those donations are restricted for use on the project. Clark said the nonprofit will talk with donors on what “possibilities may be” for the money.

Clark said TART respects the decision to pause the project but is disappointed that the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail might remain uncompleted.

“We lose safe access, right?” Clark said. “It is not a safe place to bike or run along M-22 and that section of the park, it is not comfortable. We know that the community wanted [a] separated trail, so we lose this opportunity to build a facility that provided safe, responsible, managed access to the Lakeshore.”

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore had contracted with a construction firm through the Michigan Department of Transportation for an initial design.

Tucker said that the design draft is still expected this winter but the park won’t act on it.

He said it will serve as a foundation for future conversations with the tribe if the park chooses to revisit the project one day.