By Tim Bauer

Park Manager-Hayes State Park

Not so many years ago, I would lie on my back in our backyard and stare at the stars, gazing up at the Milky Way. I always thought the attraction was indeed the connection with the Mars candy bar. We lived on a main street, in those years, in a small southwestern Michigan town.

Well, time passed and so did that way of life. Over time I forgot about those quiet moments looking into the heavens. Little did I know that our need to illuminate the night for our protection, and ability to see, would all but eliminate the celestial experience. Light became a new form of pollution. Something that seems so benign had taken from us, the means by which ancient mariners traveled the world. Those twinkling lights high above, which once conjured legends and beliefs, were now all but obscured in our modern world. Light that humans developed to better our world was now removing a part of it. I don't think this is what Thomas Edison meant to do.

Then came a bright moment when two men set out to preserve the dark skies in their area.  Jim Whitehouse, an employee of Albion College, and Wes Boyd, a reporter for the Hudson Gazette, saw Lake Hudson Recreation Area as an opportunity to have something done that has never happened before -- setting aside a piece of public land as a dark sky preserve. Under their guidance and gentle nudging, Michigan enacted 1993 PA 57, which officially made Lake Hudson the first night sky preserve on public land in the country.

We do have sufficient lighting in the park, but it is installed and utilized so it puts no light pollution into the night sky.

It should be noted the original law did have a sunset clause. This hurdle was most positively leaped in January 2002, when Sen. Bev Hammerstrom introduced legislation to make this law permanent.

So, here we are four years later, and though night sky watching is not the park's most noticeable recreational use, it certainly is one of the most positive, quiet and unobtrusive uses. The quiet moments enjoyed by several astronomer's clubs and individuals is truly a unique experience in our state park system.

But it has changed a little. Most of these folks don't lie on their backs and gaze in silence. Now they whisper to each other using a special lingo about what they are seeing. They speak in numbers and letters, and I have never heard anyone shout, "There is the Big Dipper!" Even the ancestors of Sputnik don't seem to overly excite them, but you can be sure their hearts beat a little faster and their smiles, if you could see them in the dark, would be noticeable.

(Editor's note: The Lake Hudson Dark Sky Preserve is one of only two in the United States.)