Across the country there are dozens of "friends groups" that help national parks in myriad ways. Just recently the Yellowstone Park Foundation announced a drive to buy bear-proof lockers for front-country campgrounds in Yellowstone National Park. At Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, the friends group actually provides the TP!

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is sometimes described as the "Holy Grail" for lighthouse buffs. Nowhere else in the country can you find such a wide variety of lighthouses in such a compact area. The area's annual Lighthouse Celebration is underway with special tours through September 12.

Perhaps one of the least publicly intriguing issues when you're talking about national parks is that of the general management plans used to guide a park's growth and use. But when these documents come up for revision, the opportunity is ripe for you to have your two cents considered. For instance, should the lighthouses at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore be turned into bed-and-breakfasts?

Change is under way in the Great Lakes, the source of 84 percent of North America’s fresh water and more than 20 percent of the world’s supply. It is a progressive sweeping change that threatens to greatly transform the ecosystems of these inland seas by warming their waters and supplanting native species with harmful invasives. And it is a change that ultimately may threaten the viability of the common loon and dozens of other birds that depend on the lakes.

National Lighthouse Day is being observed around the country on August 7, and there are some excellent examples of those beacons in NPS areas. Some parks will host special events this weekend; one of them is more often associated with a famous battle than a lighthouse.

A historic lighthouse had a role in one of three recent rescues at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin, and quick work by the park staff averted several potential tragedies.

Sure, it's summertime, and the weather is hot, but there's talk of winter at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore next week.

There's just something about a lighthouse that appeals to history buffs, romantics, and lots of other people. The National Park System includes some great lighthouses, but the NPS can't save them all. Sometimes, the best way for the feds to preserve one is to give it away.

This week’s quiz will find out if you are a winterwise park visitor. Answers are at the end. If we catch you peeking, we’ll make you explain why the Bergeron-Findeisen process grows snowflakes only because the equilibrium vapor pressure of water vapor with respect to ice is less than that with respect to liquid water at the same subfreezing temperature.

Planning to visit Apostle Islands National Lakeshore? If you fear for your safety in national parks, you'll have to either skip this lakeshore or go it without your firearm and hope for the best.

A cantankerous black bear on an island in Lake Superior is proof that bear problems in the National Park System are not restricted to the West or the Appalachians.

No one postcard can fully capture Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Indeed, "lakeshore" might just be the wrong category for this jewel of Lake Superior, as the park's essence is an archipelago of 21 islands.

Fishing in waters of Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks national lakeshores is going to be a bit more difficult this year, as emergency restrictions are being implemented in an effort to prevent the spread of a deadly fish virus.

The National Park Service and the Grand Portage Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa have agreed to work together on efforts to protect park and tribal fishery resources in Lake Superior from a deadly fish disease known as viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS.

Loons, mergansers, cormorants and other waterfowl are dying by the thousands in the Great Lakes due to an invasion of non-native species that are threatening to turn the lakes' ecosystem upside down. At Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore even piping plovers, a threatened species, are dying.

Climate change slowly is changing the landscape of America’s national parks. As temperatures warm and storm traits alter, ecosystem change is anticipated and expected to carry a range of impacts.

There are parks across the national park system that have decidedly watery settings: Voyagers National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Channel Islands National Park, Acadia National Park, Biscayne National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park, just to name some of the most obvious. And then there are the national lakeshores.