It is almost impossible to comprehend what the Detroit River must have looked like when the French Voyageurs first paddled their canoes through the brilliant blue strait that connected Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
Peering out at the river today, particularly from downtown Detroit, it seems improbable that coastal wetlands and vast marshes teeming with wildlife once flanked the river on both sides, and covered the many beautiful islands strewn across the important waterway. The mind just can’t grasp this when standing atop the Penobscot Building or Cobo Hall parking structure. All the skyscrapers, smokestacks, concrete and steel, which have dominated the river’s shoreline for a century, have covered the river with a gloomy, rusty veil. 
Photos by David Stimac
It could be said this transformation, which some call progress, began in 1701 when Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac brought a couple dozen canoes filled with men and supplies, and founded Detroit in an effort to help France control the fur trade with the native peoples of the area. It was certainly a strategic location, but Cadillac also found it to be a land of bounty. In 1702, he penned the following description of the strait that connects the upper and lower Great Lakes:
“This river is scattered over, from one lake to another both on the mainland and the islands with large clusters of trees surrounded by charming meadows. Game is very common, as are geese, and all kinds of wild ducks. There are swans everywhere, there quails, woodcocks, pheasants and rabbits, turkeys, partridges, hazelhens and a stupendous amount of turtledoves. This country is so temperate, so fertile and so beautiful that it may justly be called “The Earth Paradise of North America.”
Even if you take into account that Cadillac always had an agenda, namely trying to convince King Louis XIV to send him more resources, there was much truth to his descriptions. Other French observers of the time had similar accounts of the river’s environs. Robert Cavelier LaSalle, who earlier traveled through the area in 1679, wrote an even more idyllic portrayal of the river. “The banks of the straight are vast meadows and the prospect is terminated with some hills covered with vineyards, trees bearing good fruit, and groves and forests so well arranged that one would think that Nature alone could not have laid out the grounds so effectively without the help of man,” LaSalle wrote.
It is safe to say that the river the French fell in love with, and the Native Americans had known for some 6,000 years before, is long gone, buried under the crush of a modern, industrial metropolis. In fact, more than 95 percent of the river’s historical coastal wetlands have been replaced by concrete pilings or steel.
Yet, if you take a walk among the woods and wetlands that make up Humbug Marsh, which clings to the shoreline near Gibralter, you can begin to get a feel for the world Cadillac found some 300 years ago. The 410-acre site is the last undeveloped stretch of Detroit River coastline on the American side of the river.
It is also the crown jewel of the newly created Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, an area of about 7,500 acres along the Lower Detroit River, from the confl uence of the Rouge River south to the mouth of Lake Erie. The refuge, which is part of the National Wildlife Refuge system, encompasses coastal wetlands, islands, marshes, shoals and riverfront.
It also offers a tremendous opportunity to save what is left of the Detroit River that once was.
 Creation of a refuge
Humbug nearly suffered the same fate as the rest of the shoreline on the American side of the river. A development company called Made in Detroit was close to building 300 luxury homes and a golf course on Humbug’s vital wetlands. The developer even began clearing some of the site of saplings and other vegetation in preparation of construction.
Right from the beginning, when Made in Detroit proposed the plan in 1998, it was met with stiff opposition - from environmental groups like Friends of the Detroit River, to local residents and even U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who has represented portions of Downriver in Congress for more than five decades.
Despite all the opposition, however, Made in Detroit moved forward with the project, and even had the blessing of Wayne County economic development offi cials. That is until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers refused to allow the company to build a bridge from the mainland to the small island known as Humbug Island, where they intended to build the golf course. Made in Detroit, which vowed to fi ght the decision, ultimately declared bankruptcy and lost title to the property.
The San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land obtained the land after paying off Made in Detroit’s creditors at a cost of $4.8 million. The organization sold the land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last September for inclusion in the refuge.
The fight to save Humbug provided the impetus or spark to create the wildlife refuge, according to Dingell, who has said it had long been his dream to protect Humbug from development. An avid outdoorsman and conservationist, Dingell wrote the legislation that created the refuge. He had little trouble getting the bill through Congress, and it was signed into law by President Bush in 2001. It was a tremendous victory for proponents of the river, who were even more thrilled when Humbug was saved and added to the refuge.
“It’s a marvelous opportunity to have the last onemile of natural coastline open to the public. It’s an opportunity to see such diversity of wildlife, to have a wilderness experience in such an urban area here. Its proof that the two can coexist if we do it right,” Detroit Audobon Society President James Bull told the Detroit Free Press last year, shortly after Humbug Marsh became part of the refuge.
Partnerships
Though managed by the USFWS, the refuge is really a partnership with the Michigan DNR and Environment Canada as well. To this end a comprehensive conservation plan was drafted, which is to guide the refuge for its first 15 years. The initial boundaries of the refuge were expanded to an area of some 7,500 acres in 2003, though much of the land is privately owned, which forces some creativity on the part of refuge planners and managers.
As a result, they have entered into a number of cooperative agreements with private landowners to manage their lands to benefit the diversity of wildlife that can be found along the river. For example, the USFWS reached an agreement with Detroit Edison to manage more than 600 acres of the companys 1,200-acre Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Plant property, which is home to hundreds of species of animals, birds, trees and plants.
Another example of this cooperation between private and public entities is BASFs decision to transform its 1,200-acre Fighting Island from a brownfield site where the company dumped its alkaline by-products to an ecosystem of vegetation and aquatic shoreline habitat. Many birds, including raptors, shorebirds and waterfowl, are often seen at the site now.
Refuge officials also plan to reclaim as much of the once-industrialized riverfront as they can. An example of this is a former Chrysler factory site in Trenton acquired by Wayne County that will someday serve as the gateway to the refuge. A visitors center, nature trails, and wildlife viewing areas are all planned for the 44-acre property. The first step will be to open up a creek, which years ago was put into an underground pipe.
At a public open house last year, USFWS officials said they would ultimately like to protect some 12,000 acres, and acquire outright about 9,000 acres for the refuge.
The Detroit River is one of the great rivers of North America. Not only has it been a cradle of civilization for man, it has also provided habitat for countless species of animals. The bison and caribou that could once be found along its shores may be gone, but the river is still a great place to see wildlife, particularly birds.
The river is at the intersection of the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways, which means an estimated three million ducks, geese, swans and coots visit the river every year. Among these are 300,000 diving ducks, which provide excellent hunting to water fowlers, who pump more than $22 million into the local economy.
Pheasants, bob-white quail, swallows, red-wing blackbirds, geese, woodcock, common loons, belted kingfishers and many species of raptors, including bald eagles, also live around the Detroit River. In fact, there are several bald eagle nests within the refuge boundary. In 1999, more than 50 eagles were spotted during the annual waterfowl survey. The eagles, or course, are attracted by the multitude of fish that live in the river.
The Detroit River is one of the finest urban fisheries in North America. The diversity of fish is staggering really. There are close to 50 species of fish that spawn in the lower Detroit River, including pike, muskellunge, largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleye and even lake sturgeon, which are beginning to return to the river. And like the eagles, these fish also attract many anglers, who also pump millions of dollars into the local economy.
Challenges abound
Despite all the progress, the picture isnt completely rosy. Were still talking about the Detroit River. It faces many challenges, including contaminated sediments, continued habitat loss and degradation, restrictions on fish consumption because of mercury pollution, and most recently a rash of invasive species that threaten to alter the ecological balance of the river. Perhaps the biggest threat to the river, however, are the many combined sewer overflows, which continue to plague the river a scary thought considering the river supplies about five million people with drinking water.
John Covert of Friends of the Detroit River recalls taking a boat ride last spring, after heavy rains caused flooding throughout Southeast Michigan and overburdened area sewers, resulting in countless gallons of untreated sewage getting into area waterways. Covert said much of this sewage found its way into the river, particularly the Trenton Channel, where it collected and covered the surface of the water like a smelly, toxic sludge.
Covert, who believes a growing dead-zone in Lake Erie can be attributed to these overflows, said more has to be done to correct the problem or the people trying to restore the river will just be spinning their wheels.
We treat the river like a big toilet. You cant just keep dumping that shit in the river, he said.
Still, Covert is optimistic about many of the changes he has seen in recent years. He can often be found fishing or hunting waterfowl somewhere along the river that he has developed a kinship with. Something that can also be said of Dingell, when he is able to get away from Washington. Both men acknowledge that the river, which is a mere 32 miles long, is vital to the regions prosperity.
It may never look like it did when Cadillac came ashore in 1701, but steps are being taken that will preserve some aspects of that world for future generations. Dingell discussed his optimism for the future with journalist Emilia Askari last year. We can have thriving industry, recreation, and at the same time preserve wildlife, Dingell insisted. 
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Michigan's Streamside Journal
