If you unbuild it, they will come. Rabbit Island + Detroit.
We’re working on a new Rabbit Island conservation project and installation in Detroit. In the city’s September tax foreclosure auction of over 20,000 city owned properties we collaborated with a friend from Paris (which seems somehow fitting given that Detroit was settled by French missionaries) and purchased a vacant lot on the east side of Detroit. 1545 Pennyslvania Street. Have a look.
We’re currently brainstorming several ideas for the lot but are thinking about transplanting young pines and other trees from Rabbit Island and simply walking away, leaving the parcel to its own fate. The context will be different than on the island, of course, which is important, yet restraint will continue to constitute the notable intention. A sign alluding to wild lands might be placed on the parcel stating only, “Leave No Trace”, and thus our claim will be staked.
The project will become, over time, an example of the ethic of Rabbit Island amidst the re-invention of an American city. It will be an ongoing exemplification of restraint and evidence of the opposite of traditional market forces; a decision based upon the widest possible balance sheet; a criticism, perhaps, of how American cities and suburbs were cut from the land in the first place.
It is a pretty simple idea, which is why we think it should work. And it will only get better with time. The idea of Rabbit Island will spillover to Detroit, as it could any place. Art and the organization of land will further mingle and there will one day be an old growth climax-community stand of trees at 1545 Pennsylvania Street representing the bloodline of an unscathed remnant of Michigan’s north woods. Forever.
In the future it is our hope that when the parcels adjacent to ours come up for sale we will be able to buy them via a crowdfunded effort, have the property lines in the plat book removed in legal terms, and increase the size of the project. Un-subdivision will be thus exemplified. The concept will hopefully spread.
Details:
+ The lot was purchased for $600 in the yearly Wayne County tax foreclosure auction.
+ We outbid someone who had bid the $500 minimum two minutes before the auction ended. (Gotcha!)
+ Our taxes are $49 per year.
+ We used www.whydontweownthis.com to search for and facilitate our purchase. Many thanks to Jerry, Larry, Mary and Alex at Loveland Technologies. These guys are on the forefront of some very big ideas. (See 1454 Pennsylvania on WDWOT?).
+ The Detroit land auction happens every year in September. This year 11,972 properties sold to 2,198 bidders while 8,686 went unsold at $500. It is estimated that 43,000 more properties will be seized by the city and added to the auction for 2013 due to failure to pay taxes. Get some friends together for next September and take a leap. There is so little downside.
With the Rabbit Island + Detoit our fundamental proposition is that doing less is more with land in the context of the contemporary state of unbalanced and irrationally distributed subdivision and development, which has historically served markets before ecosystems and society. Some related essays can be found here, here and here.
With this initial physical gesture we will be working to spread the idea of un-subidivision of land as a cultural premise that allows for better organization of the urban and the wild relative to one another. People living close to one another and sharing resources is better for the environment, of course, and undivided natural space is better for the environment, of course, but what we now have is a muddling of these pure ideas across much of our land, which is nuts from the perspective of the future. See this print of every street in America.
In a twist to this story there were a few other people who shared similar sentiments and purchased land in Detroit with the intention of not developing it and re-aggregating it on the map. It just happens that one of these people was John Hantz, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist from Detroit. Through his company, Hantz Farms, he just purchased more than 1,500 non-contiguous city-owned lots for $520,000, or about $300 per lot, between Van Dyke and St. Jean Street and Jefferson and Mack avenues, including the majority of the land behind our project at 1545 Pennsylvania–an open space which happens to be one of the largest open spaces within city limits. On this land his company will be planting an oak forest. After four years—if the company is still in compliance with all city-imposed conditions—it has an option to acquire an additional 180 acres within a mile of the original purchase site. A forest!
Just think about it–a 140 acre oak forest three miles from the Detroit Opera House. This could very well represent the closest proximity of forest to Opera House in the world. The citizens of Detroit will benefit incredibly from this diversity as the ends of the spectrum from nature to higher civilization become bedfellows.
This is profound. This has never been done before in the context of a major American city. Hantz has executed a rational re-organization of land on a significant scale in favor of un-subdivision. He used an economic model favoring open space over development, combined, perhaps, with philanthropy. Regardless, this is an act seldom accomplished. He is using land for the benefit of both nature and society, on a large scale, in its near natural state, on property that was previously developed and divided. We tip our hat. It wasn’t without controversy, but he realized it.
Another project underway as a result of the recent auction is that of Jerry Paffendorf and the guys at whydontweownthis.com. Their team collectively purchased 10 houses in the Springwells neighborhood of Southwest Detroit and are tearing them down. We can’t wait to see where this goes.
Though we found out about the location of the Hantz Farm deal after having sited and purchased our parcel, we surely assigned value to the lot we purchased in a similar way Hantz Farms did. Our interest stemmed from the simple fact that 1545 Pennsylvania was surrounded by significant open space with novel environmental potential. It struck us as a perfect opportunity to explore the concept of un-subdivision in an urban environment where the toothpaste was already very much out of the tube.
Hantz Farms was also the subject of a July, 2012, Wall Street Journal article. It is worth a read and if you view the interactive map you will see that the backyard of the Rabbit Island + Detroit project is highlighted for purchase by the group. It can also be seen here, highlighted in yellow, on our Flickr page.
Every person deserves to have access to open space which represents functioning natural systems. The larger the size of these open spaces, the better. These are ideas that are possible to reinvent on an significant scale at this moment in time in Detroit and other post-industrial cities across the nation, which is wildly exciting. The idea that we can fix our large scale development mistakes is even more so.
Please check-in on the lot in 100 years and see if our thesis proves reasonable. And please get in touch if you’d like to collaborate.
p.s. We’re planning a camping trip!
A Lake Trout native to Rabbit Island. Fall in love with this fish. It represents a very big idea.
“The great abundance of fish and the convenience of the place for fishing have caused the Indians to make a fixed settlement in those parts. It is a daily mana, which never fails.” - Antoine Cadillac, French explorer of the Great Lakes and founding father of Detroit, 1695
“What of the Great Lakes… and where are the fish?” - Chicago Times, 1881
Swimming amidst the rocky shoals surrounding Rabbit Island is one of the last remnant populations of native “lean variety” Lake Trout on the southern shore of Lake Superior–a rarity indeed. In the fall of each year Lake Trout migrate from the depths of the lake where they pass summer months and congregate around shallow, rocky features to mate, as they have for thousands of years.
Little trout. Big idea. This little trout is a wonder. It swam past our camp as we were doing our dishes and with one lucky swipe of an enamel bowl we were afforded a brief and rather spectacular moment. (That is dish grease on the tips of fingers three and four.)
We might as well have been holding a California redwood in the palms of our hands as this trout carries with it a bloodline undisturbed for thousands of years and is an heirloom if ever there was. It hatched from an egg between sandstones in the shallow water around the island, laid by a mother and fertilized by a father, both of whom spent their lifetimes swimming in water clean enough to support biologic function, in virgin form, on the largest of of environmental scales (as did every generation of lake trout before them). For this to continue to occur, year after year, the system didn’t need anything from us humans except for our relative absence. Our relative restraint.
Since the glacial age, lake trout in all five Great Lakes had sustained themselves in similar fashion until very recently. The northernmost lake, Lake Superior, however, (that grand lake!) is the only remaining lake that has endured the additive influence of human settlement over the past 300 years and yet maintained a naturally reproducing population of wild trout–that is, a population of trout that didn’t rely on artificial stocking and that wouldn’t die out if not replaced by fisheries biologists. It has gotten some help along the way, of course, but it never lost a viable pulse.
Put another way, perhaps, one could wash dishes on the shores of the other four Great Lakes and never see a Lake Trout of this size swim by because it simply wouldn’t exist. It wouldn’t be possible biologically. The ecology of the lakes has changed so much at the hands of man that Lake Trout are no longer born of native parents in these four lakes, but rather stocked for the benefit of fisherman from aquariums in government building. By 1950 the Lake Trout was extinct in Lake Michigan and they have not been found to reproduce naturally since. Nobody knows exactly why. A wild strain was found in 2007 on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, which is exciting, but the overwhelming pattern persists.
This is a story that is seldom told but represents a profound and symbolic idea: over only a few human generations thousands of years of natural history have ceased to exist for the largest predator in 4/5ths of the largest freshwater ecosystem on the planet. Intellectually this is amazing.
If this concept were painted upon every other terrestrial and aquatic American (or French, Guatemalan or Chinese, for that matter) ecosystem what else would be shown to have been lost?
The California golden bear comes to mind, which now exists only on a state flag. Salmon runs of the mid-atlantic do as well. Gray wolf populations in much of the country. Sturgeon. The list would be very long and exemplify specifically the byproduct of ecosystems divided by settlement without a logical framework or muddled by runoff of our various activities.
This is, of course, not an argument against the urban environment, but a conceptual argument for better organization of developed space relative to the undeveloped as a fundamental value, and a simple celebration of a place spared an irreparable flight to the middle ground. It is an argument for maintaining and restoring open space of scale where natural cycles can occur with the original number of moving parts. It is an argument for the conscientious maintenance of places where we are absent, for our own benefit. It is a suggestion that something equal to the highest points of our social order exists in our most expansive intact natural spaces.
The Metropolitan Opera, the MoMa, the subway system, our governmental bodies, networks of business, universities, means of energy production, computers, medicine; these exemplify a fantastic display of organization and human reasoning. Similarly, the act of setting aside wild places on scales large enough to support grand and delicate ideas such as the one this little trout represents is an equally civilized thought. The act of restraint is virtuous in natural contexts. The act of creating and promoting systems to restore higher cycles to places where they no longer exist is equally so; perhaps even more so. These concepts were overlooked by a large portion of our country as it was settled from from east to west.
It is said that people protect what they fall in love with. Fall in love with this fish. Fall in love with the idea this fish represents. Make sure that it persists in your culture. Each generation has the responsibility to be stewards of the land and it will soon be our turn to take the reins. And, if we’re lucky, to use the science we have inherited to make ecosystems expand and remain according to reason, adjacent to our civilized culture… because of our civilized culture.
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If you google Traverse Island Strain Lake Trout many related articles come up. This specific genetic line of fish has been used to stock Lake Ontario, Seneca Lake in upstate New York, and many others. (Traverse Island is one of the two historical names of Rabbit Island).
ps. If this native trout isn’t reason enough to close the Chicago Shipping Canal to prevent the Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes ecosystem we don’t know what is.
Will Holman is a designer based in Chicago who was one of the three winners in our architecture competition last year. He arrived in the Keweenaw in early August with a bag of tools and a willing spirit and spent close to a week on the island. His intention was to get a sense of the location as a basis for future collaboration. This he accomplished. Below are some of his experiences in his own words as well as photos of the frame-up of our sauna, which he helped design and build.
+ Rabbit Island - by Will Holman
Besides architecture Will works as an assistant to artist Theaster Gates and designs furniture using found and recycled objects. He is also collaborating with us on the fabrication of an island medical kit. The perfect island medical kit–one that has everything you need and nothing you don’t.
More by Will:
The first person to swim to Rabbit Island
On July 29th, 2012, Sara Maynard swam to the island from the Hannula’s pier in Rabbit Bay. The crossing took one hour and fifty one minutes–A record! The lake was calm that day and the afternoon sky started out sunny and became slightly overcast as she neared the rocky northwestern shore of the island. She touched a foot down in waist deep water and was greeted with howls as she climbed out of the lake to a waiting bonfire.
At the time we had talked about inviting a reporter from our local newspaper, the Daily Mining Gazette, to cover the event but busy days came and went in the preceding weeks and Sara pulled the trigger on a whim amidst a window of promising weather. Regardless, it was the kind of thing where news was made in a small town and we find ourselves still thinking about Sara vs. the Lake in terms of newsprint and smudgy photographs. Grandkids will definitely hear about this one.
Sara had this to say about the experience:
Being on the island allowed me to jump in and swim at any time, for as long as I wanted, without worrying about things like sharks or seals which are always on one’s mind where I train in San Francisco Bay. Also absent was the constant stream of motors zipping around which happens on most inland lakes.
Another thing was the mental component of long distance swimming in the wide open lake. Its one thing to be a competitive pool swimmer where you are racing for a few seconds or minutes, but when you start to get into distance you enter a different mindset. While the island crossing was one of the longest I have done thus far, the actual distance in the water wasn’t something I was terribly concerned with physically. What I was focusing on during training swims around the island and finally during the crossing was what to do when all you hear is water, or silence, for hours. Swims around the island were great and then having the support kayak and dinghy to guide me across the bay was amazing (not to mention the surprise boat visit from you guys). Being removed from the noise of the city for an extended period beforehand also prepared me to be in my own head and with my own thoughts.
So what did I actually do during the 1:51 that it took me to swim close to 4 miles? I have to admit (sadly!) that that silly song was stuck in my head for the beginning of the swim (“So call me, maybe?”). This dissipated, thankfully, and I found silence and the rhythm of swimming. I felt moments of complete awe of where I was (a lake with a fjord!), of the fact that I was spending three weeks on an island in Lake Superior, and that I still had so much ahead of me. I was overwhelmed with feeling completely fortunate to have had this opportunity. Then, when I felt like I had thought a lot about all that, I started counting to 100, until I got to 1000. And then counted some more!
Read more about Sara’s experiences cooking, camping, sauna building, trips to town and view more of her photos on her blog here and here.
p.s. Her trip to the island was sponsored by the Kickstarter community. Thanks y'all.
The No Island is a Man artifact kit from Andrew Ranville and the DeVos Art Museum. A limited-edition of only 60, proceeds will benefit the Rabbit Island Residency program, the Keweenaw Land Trust and the Superior Watershed Partnership.
The kit is two CNC-machined and laser-engraved pieces of red oak sourced from the Keweenaw Penninsula held together by powerful magnets. Contained within is an infosheet, the exhibition catalogue and postcard set, a signed Rabbit Island Quadrangle print, an eco USB stick containing field recordings from the island (mp3 and Quadraphonic audio formats), a forestry-certified pencil and a brass matchcase with compass hand-made in Idaho by K&M Matchcase.
Get the artifact kit here.
The No Island is a Man exhibition is still running and is on display until December 14th. If you are in the area please come out to see it.
Two new books for the Rabbit Island library via the Royal Geographical Society.
Being based in London I had the opportunity to attend the RGS for the 2012 Explore Conference this past weekend. It was a very inspiring few days with many more than these few highlights—
+ Donating one of the Rabbit Island Quadrangle map prints to be preserved in the Royal Geographical Society library and archive.
+ Meeting artist/explorer Luce Choules and Simon Beckmann, co-founder of the Joya: art + ecología residency. Plans were set in motion to work together and share experiences/research in the near future.
+ Learning lots more about GIS and GPS in the field mapping workshop. Can’t wait to put the techniques to use out on the island.
+ The passionate introduction and closing comments from affable adventurer Paul Rose.
+ Hearing stories of survival and survey from such brilliant speakers as Sarah Outen, Ed Stafford, Mark Kalch and many others.
While Rabbit Island may be a small island and not as remote as some of the examples seen this past weekend, I know some amazing “micro-expeditions” will happen there over the next few years. The conference highlighted the importance of pursuing good research – both scientific and cultural – no matter the relative size or proximity to home.
Get outside, go explore.
—Andrew
Rabbit Island was just added to the national Conservation Registry. The Conservation Registry is an online database that tracks and maps conservation, restoration and wildlife projects across the U.S. It was launched in 2008 and to date it is the most comprehensive repository of geospatially-specific project information in the U.S. By scrolling across the site’s map you can see most of the conserved land in the nation.
We came across this site while researching websites that combine mapping with prospective conservation planning.
It is a dream of ours to become involved in this space and collaborate with developers and designers to combine crowd-sourcing with mapping tools that document property lines, watersheds, and existing open spaces. As real estate evolves will property transactions occur with a conscience? Picture Things Organized Neatly applied to land use and you get the idea, as currently land parcelization is anything but neat from an ecological perspective anywhere outside of the mountains. We definitely need a better way to create islands amidst the grid!
At some point we need to choose what is needed of the environment prospectively, according to the science of sustainability (i.e. how much land is needed and where exactly it should be located to sequester/offset the byproduct of the rest of our activities), and then secondarily create policy and market solutions to obtain this in the context of disjointed lands previously cut up and assigned various non-natural functions (roads, parcels, parking lots, subdivisions, etc). Celebrating the value of the intact nature of the island (art!), exemplifying restraint with regards to its potential development, and then (hopefully) using this to help promote the idea that everybody should be able to access nature and learn from it, is, perhaps, one of the larger premises of the Rabbit Island project.
Lately we’ve been brainstorming with the team from Why Don’t We Own This? in Detroit and are working on some interactive maps using the 2012 Keweenaw Country Land Atlas and Plat Book. Stay tuned. With a little luck this will develop into a functional tool that helps the community buy and sell land with purpose. If you are interested in collaboration please get in touch.
The Rabbit Island Conservation Registry page can be seen here.
Other finds:
Take five minutes for a realtime sunrise over Lake Superior from Art’s Rock, Rabbit Island. August 31st, 2012.
-by Andrew Ranville