November 3, 2022: Dark Sky Light Management Workshop Recap

We held a workshop on Thursday, November 3rd, 2022 that covered the dark sky park designation process and light management, which led to a discussion about what the Lodge is doing to foster dark-skies in the Keweenaw.

The Lodge has been working to reduce it’s light pollution on the dark sky for the past several years. KML’s John Mueller has been responsible for the international dark sky park designation, and working with team members on light management and inventorying the lighting at the Lodge. As part of that activity, he has been able to see where the Lodge has been able to achieve designation and continuing to improve both lighting and energy efficiency. This has helped move the Lodge forward with the International Dark Sky Park designation application that is currently being reviewed by the International Dark-Sky Association.

In this workshop, John went through the process of achieving the designation to give the attendees a perspective of where the Lodge has come from with the designation, as well was what makes the Keweenaw and the Lodge so special — including for stargazing. He went through the effects that artificial light has on one’s environment, and then what the Lodge team has been doing to decrease light trespassing and pollution in the park and at the top of the Keweenaw. 

Here is a bullet point of the topics covered:

• Brief Lodge/Keweenaw history and background
• International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) background info
• Process that the Lodge followed to achieve the international dark sky park designation
• Defined Light Pollution, its varieties (glare, cluster, light trespass, and skyglow), and explained the effects of light pollution on the environment (fireflies, sea turtles, birds and insects specifically), as well as the negative effects on humans.
• IDAs various requirements for outdoor lighting
• The Lodge’s strategy for choosing our dark sky lighting and our lighting management plan
• Q&A

The recording of the workshop can be viewed via the link below. 

The slide deck used during the workshop can be viewed by clicking on the image below.

[ Download the the slide deck ]

About the Instructor: John Mueller

John is the interim General Manager at the Lodge, and spearheaded the Lodge’s International Dark Sky Park application. He is intimately involved with implementing dark sky park initiatives at the Lodge, including the light management.