Flipping the Island

Abstract

Flipping The Island examines the relationships between wolves, climate change, copper, and transness. I posit the ecologies of Minong or Isle Royale, an island in Northwestern Lake Superior, as a kind of trans ecology, or an ecology that relies on speculative, responsive change. The shorthand of “flipping” refers to the process of hiking from one end of the island to the other and back again, as well as the act of turning over as an act of change. This speaks to human presence on the island and the ways in which ecological relationships (human and nonhuman) interweave despite its isolation from the mainland. Drawing from the way the ecologies on this island also “flip over” on themselves, such as through the of wolves and moose as an isolated ecology, I speculate through art making what kinds of transformations might be possible if we take the ability to move, shift, or change radically as a given for navigating precarity, rather than a distant possibility. Questions of the pastoral interweave through considerations of management of the island as a National Park, ranges of human uses of and approaches to the island, and the interplay of wolves, moose, humans, and the spaces in-between.