An effort to preserve 200-plus acres of prime coastal land in Leelanau County took a massive step forward late last week, thanks to a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The grant, part of a second round of funding from NOAA’s Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program, will earmark some $6.5 million for the purchase and restoration of land near Northport that had previously been planned as the home for a large RV resort called Timber Shores. It’s the biggest milestone yet for a land preservation effort that began more than a year ago.

Funded by the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, NOAA’s Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program supports projects that “will have a transformative impact for coastal communities and tribes across the country.” Specifically, the program helps fund efforts to “sustain our nation’s fisheries, make significant strides in the recovery of threatened and endangered species, and help protect coastal communities and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change.”

The program’s first round of funding, announced last April, distributed more than $265 million to 38 projects across the country. The second round, which closed its grant application window all the way back in November, was finally announced last week, with NOAA recommending nearly $220 million for 32 projects. Among those recommendations is an $11.9 million grant for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB), with a significant portion of the money intended for the stewardship of the Timber Shores land.

Last June, the Leelanau Ticker broke the news that New Community Vision (NCV), a then-brand-new nonprofit organization, had an option to purchase the Timber Shores land from its current owners. Those owners had previously tried to develop the land into a sprawling RV resort, but were stymied by local controversy and pushback, including a 2022 ballot referendum.

NCV’s option to purchase the property was initially set to expire last October, but the landowners have extended that deadline several times to accommodate the large sum of money -- $10 million – the nonprofit has been trying to raise.

Earlier this year, NCV announced a new ally for the project: the GTB. Speaking to the Leelanau Ticker in June, NCV Vice President Beth Verhey pointed to the tribal partnership as a potential gamechanger, in part because it opened the door to “a collaborative application for a significant federal grant” from NOAA. For the GTB, the Timber Shores land also has considerable cultural importance, which the tribe’s River Restoration Project Manager Naomi Louchouarn outlined at a recent open house event.

“The name for this land is Mashkiigaki, which means marsh lands, but it also means the ‘place of medicine’ because this is where, in times past, tribal members would find food and medicine and connect with the earth,” Louchouarn said “To collaborate with NCV and everyone in the area is important for the ecological restoration of this place, but also for the restoration of the irreplaceable cultural and spiritual connections to the land as well.”

Tribal leaders have long held that much of Leelanau Peninsula – including the Mashkiigaki acreage – was illegally taken from the GTB as part of an 1855 treaty. That treaty ceded vast amounts of tribal-owned land to the United States Government with the understanding that the government would set aside some of the property as a permanent “reservation” homeland for tribal members and their children. Despite the supposed protections, the GTB claims the government over time sold approximately 87,000 acres of reservation land to non-Native American settlers and lumber firms, reneging on the 1855 treaty without providing any monetary compensation to the tribe.

If all goes according to plan, the ancestral land that makes up Mashkiigaki will soon be back under the purview of the GTB. While NCV would be the buyer of the property, the organization has shared its intention to transfer 187 acres of it to the tribe for restoration, preservation, and stewardship. NCV would hold back a separate 24-acre parcel for a future affordable housing project.

Verhey tells the Leelanau Ticker that “a significant element of the NOAA grant money is for acquisition,” and that grant monies “will be coupled with and integrated with NCV’s private fundraising” for the purchase of the Mashkiigaki land. She estimates NCV will have approximately $2 million left to raise after this grant. The tribe will also spend some of the grant dollars on ongoing restoration and stewardship work, post-acquisition. Per NOAA, the goal of the grant is to “restore habitats in urban areas and provide benefits to historically underserved communities that live close by.”

“[The GTB] will preserve and restore coastal habitat on Mashkiigaki, a parcel of sacred ancestral land along West Grand Traverse Bay,” the grant announcement notes. Some of the funding will also help pay for the long-delayed FishPass project in Traverse City, “to fully re-connect the Boardman-Ottaway River to Lake Michigan.”

“This project emphasizes traditional ecological knowledge and tribal-led multi-generational community engagement,” NOAA says of the dual-purpose GTB grant. The full grant will bring $8.9 million to northern Michigan in the first year and $11.9 million total over three years, with a little more than half ($6.5 million) going toward the Mashkiigaki/Timber Shores project.

GTB attorney Bill Rastetter says tribal staff and council “aren’t authorized to comment” on the NOAA grant at this time, but referred the Leelanau Ticker instead to the tribe’s initial application to NOAA, noting that “it speaks for GTB” on the matter. The application states that “comprehensive stewardship of Lake Michigan and its waterways is a sacred duty for GTB citizens,” and cites the Mashkiigaki land as a key opportunity to reconnect tribal communities with “the traditional places and cultural practices relating to coastal fisheries and the Great Lakes.”

“What was once referenced as a ‘nibbling effect,’ or erratic shoreline development patterns limiting habitat connectivity, has grown into omnipresent development pressures impacting the few remnant coastal habitats along West Grand Traverse Bay,” the tribe wrote in the grant application. “This funding opportunity presents a rare and significant pathway for GTB to advance regionally important habitat restoration projects while removing economic barriers that would otherwise prevent Indigenous acquisition of ancestral land.”