05/07/2026
The cradle of coldwater conservation
by Beverly Smith TU VP for Engagement
We’ve just wrapped the last of our spring Regional Rendezvous. Well over 500 volunteers from every corner of coldwater across the US showed up to one of these. So many new faces. So many new ideas. I haven’t felt this level of energy from the grassroots, perhaps ever, but certainly not since before COVID. I am so encouraged and hopeful and proud.
To close out the very last of our Rendezvous in the Upper Midwest, volunteers and staff went on a “conservation tour” to the Grayling hatchery reconnect project and the Knight track along the Au Sable. In the very cold rain, Bryan Burroughs, with the Michigan TU Council, told us about how this project reconnected the mainstem Au Sable to the East Branch, reopening over 20 miles of high-quality coldwater habitat that had been blocked for over a century. He talked more about partners and the community than he ever talked about TU. It was clear that this was no small undertaking. Unsurprisingly, larger and more abundant wild trout now move up and down this reconnected stretch. Under the hoods of their parkas and puffies, I saw sparkles of pride in TUer eyes from as far away as Kentucky, Nebraska and Wyoming who had absolutely nothing to do with the project, but who nonetheless sure felt like we did.
I nearly bailed on part two of the conservation tour, because I had to catch an afternoon flight in Traverse City, which was the opposite direction. But, volunteers that I’ve worked with for nearly two decades, like Robb Smith and Greg Walz, told me, “Oh, Beverly, you’ve just got to go.” I hurriedly parked and hustled down to the rock inscribed with the founding TU philosophy, where we were met by TU volunteer, Dave Cozad, who reminded us we were standing at the cradle of coldwater conservation. I then walked out on top of this beautiful bluff, overlooking the holy waters of the Au Sable… and much to my surprise, and maybe everyone else’s too, I cried. Like full on, tears streaming down my face, cried.
I’ve been doing some thinking about why. It may be because the night before I stayed up way past my bedtime at the Rendezvous around a campfire howling at the (full) moon with volunteers. Sure. But, still. Why?
I think it was that pride.
At the Rendezvous, I was asked to do a bit on TU history, so I recently re-read what I could about the beginning of our organization. In 1950, George Griffith and George Mason put their Au Sable skiffs into that river just upstream of my teary burst – a chance meeting between the two that sparked the idea of TU. Nine years later, right there in Grayling, mighty close to where Michigan TU did that impressive reconnect project, the organization came together. I thought of TU’s founders. I thought of their despair at what they were seeing, of the courage to imagine something different and to do something about it. I thought of Art Neumann, who I had the privilege of meeting early in my career, and who asked Chris Wood months before his passing, “what are you going to do to keep up the fight for fish?” I thought… they’d be proud.
They would be so proud of a grassroots army that last fiscal year raised and spent nearly $20 million dollars towards our conservation mission; so proud of the volunteers that implemented more conservation, science and monitoring projects than we’ve ever reported before; so freaking proud of the 121,000 kids we connected to fish and fishing just last year. They are smiling down on that reconnect project, to be sure.
I breathed in that pure Michigan air, as it warmed and rose from the Au Sable after the rain. I saw a few Hex emerge with it. I was viscerally connected with the why we do what we do, and I was surrounded by the people, that are for me both the how and also the why. So, at the cradle of coldwater conservation, I cried. I gave big hugs to volunteers and staff I’ve known for nearly half my life and some I met the day before. We then laughed, a lot. And, I still caught my flight.
To the volunteers behind the TU mission: I hope you feel that same sense of pride knowing you are part of something far bigger than any one of us or any one chapter or council. Together, we are carrying forward a legacy TU’s founders began. It’s work that matters, in places that matter, done in a way that will last. We should all be proud.
P.S. If you haven’t yet had a chance to stand side-by-side with TU leaders and participate in a “conservation tour” first hand… prioritize coming to CX3 Twin Cities on Sept. 24. Registration is open. Cx3.tu.org. I hope to see you there. I'll try to hold it together 🙂
