On August 20, 2026, the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge golf course was designated a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary by Audubon International. It makes our historic wilderness 9-hole course at the top of the Keweenaw one of just over 900 courses in the world to hold the designation — and it closes out a road that turned out to be a long one.
As with our other designations (international dark sky park, national register of historic places, etc), we did not pursue this to hang a badge on the wall. We pursued it because the process itself makes us a better steward of this land — it forces us to take stock of our resources and our liabilities, and to keep evolving practices that let people enjoy getting closer to nature without diminishing the nature they came for. The certificate is just the part we can frame. The work is the point.
The property first dipped into the Audubon process around 2010–2011, when Keweenaw County still owned it, but that effort went quiet after 2011 and never really got off the ground. The real work is ours: we bought the Lodge in 2018 and took up the golf course sanctuary in earnest in 2020–2021, hosted our on-site visit in 2024, and saw the final categories approved this summer — roughly five years of steady effort to get it done.
What the certification actually covers
The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses asks a course to demonstrate real, documented environmental quality across six areas:
- Environmental Planning
- Wildlife and Habitat Management
- Chemical Use Reduction and Safety
- Water Conservation
- Water Quality Management
- Outreach and Education
We earned the first categories through 2024 and 2025, and this August the last two pieces — Chemical Use Reduction and Safety, and Water Quality Management — were approved. That completed the set.
Some of the work behind it
A wilderness golf course gives us a head start here, because so much of what Audubon rewards is already built into how we play: Hickory. Natural Fairways. Walking. Natural fairways are the direct tie to the sanctuary — conditions shaped by the land rather than by water, sprinklers, and chemicals, which is exactly the low-input, habitat-first relationship the program is built around. Walking-only play keeps riding carts, their emissions, and their compaction off the course, so it stays quieter and gentler for the wildlife. And hickory clubs ask a golfer to take the course as nature presents it, rather than expecting a manicured one. It is the same instinct behind how we tend the course day to day: our care goes into great greens and flat tee boxes, and the fairways are left natural — which is why the person who looks after it all is our Keeper of the Greens.
But certification asked for more than a philosophy — it asked for evidence. A few of the things that got us there:
- Our “Monarchs in the Rough” pollinator plots, where we sowed milkweed and added Maximilian sunflowers to give monarchs and other pollinators a place on the property.
- Minimal chemical inputs across a significant amount of acreage, a real integrated pest management program, hybrid and electric maintenance equipment, and lower-toxicity products.
- Protecting our water — vegetative buffers and raised mowing heights around our water features, and pulling weeds and debris out by hand instead of reaching for aquatic herbicides.
- Co-existing with the wildlife that lives here rather than chasing it off. The sandhill cranes, the fox families, the deer, and the geese that pass through each spring and fall are not a nuisance to be managed off the course — they are the reason to bring your camera. We share their turf, not the other way around.
We also share this corner of the Keweenaw with good conservation neighbors — The Nature Conservancy, which owns roughly 32,000 acres surrounding us, and the Michigan Nature Association, which owns the land along our northern border. Certification is one more way of holding up our end of that neighborhood.
And the golf course is not the only part of the property Audubon International has recognized. Back in May 2024, the Lodge itself earned Certified Gold status in Audubon International’s Green Lodging Program — a look at how we handle water, waste, energy, and resources across the whole operation. The course certification just brings the greens and fairways in line with the rest of the place.
This was a team effort, led on the ground by John Mueller with several members of the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge team, and a lot of good guidance from our program manager at Audubon International, Scott Turner, along the way.
And now that we are certified, the expectation — theirs and ours — is that the work continues and expands. That suits us fine. Getting people closer to nature was never a project with an end date.
The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge is a four-season historic wilderness resort at the top of the Keweenaw, established in 1934 and focused on outdoor activities, rustic worldly food, and education. Our historic wilderness 9-hole golf course is hickory-only and walking-only, and is available to cabin guests. We provide information; we do not sell — so you can self-select in, or self-select out. If you like what we are doing, come stay with us.
Learn more about the certification and our progress at keweenawmountainlodge.com/projects/audubon-international-certified-golf-course.