Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge and Friends of Shiawassee NWR kicked off another year of their monthly, Nurturing Nature Wednesday Series, January 10. 

An audience of 55 people was transported back in time to the year 1840, when a party of scientists suveyed Michigan's rugged and remote shoreline of Lake Superior. 

Kyle Bagnall, manager of nearby Chippewa Nature Center's historical program, presented his first-person portrayal of expedition member and geologist Bela Hubbard.  Using Hubbard's journals, Bagnall enthralled the group with stories of the cliffs and outcroppings, trees and wildlife, and traders and native peoples encountered along the route.

The 1840 party's report set off the copper rush that forever changed the face of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

  The Nurturing Nature Wednesday Series is a monthly program that features a variety of topics by many presenters.  This year's line-up includes such topics as wildlife of the refuge, wetland conservation and restoration, wilderness survival, landscaping with native plants, environmentally sound gardening, nature photography, bats of the world, and Michigan's Federal Junior Duck Stamp program. 

The Friends of Shiawassee NWR help organize the programs and sponsor the speaker fees.