The Leelanau News Blog
leelanau county news • traverse city news • michigan news

Dick's Pour House by John Levanen

The Almanac took a break for the holiday season but you can get all the weather data for late December in Leelanau from Weather Underground.

Click for the Leelanau news archive from December 2006!

We at Leelanau.com: Jeremy, Fred, Steve, Jen, Andy and our families would like to wish all of you the happiest of holiday seasons and the very best for the year to come.

We very much appreciate the business we have received and also everyone who visits our site and shares our love for this beautiful part of the earth.

If you have a holiday message to share with everyone that you please post it in the comments below!

The photo is Christmas at Tamarack Gallery by tamarackgallery, and you can see more photos from the gallery right here and also visit the web site for Tamarack Gallery in Omena.

Molly recently posted about a strange visitor to her clothing store (Molly's of Leland):

Sometimes strange things can happen in Leland. One day last spring I had a visitor in the store that I would have never expected. I opened my office door and was surprised (maybe as much as he) by a screech owl. I just received these photos via email from Rebecca Lessard at Wings of Wonder which is a raptor education, rehabilitation and research center in Leelanau County. Rebecca was kind enough to come and rescue this little guy from my store. She thought he was a little on the skinny side, so she kept him for a while, then released him near Empire, MI. The best we could figure, he must have gotten in these old buildings somewhere and ended up entering my store through my basement door…who knows?

She has a bunch of posts on her blog: looks at new products in the store and photos of everything from the holiday decorations to out and about in Leelanau.

Check out Molly's Blog ... and if you have ideas for a better name than "Molly's Blog" I know she'd love to hear them!

Manning Memorial Lighthouse, Empire, MI by Jim Sorbie

News from the Week

Be sure to follow the link on the photo above for more info on this lighthouse and to get it "wallpaper size"! News from the week included a story on Leelanau native Alisha Glass helping to lead Penn State to the National Volleyball title. We also had a story on a special preview screening of Rich Brauer's new film Mr. Art Critic at the State Theater, news that Bingham Township is considering ways to boost agricultural tourism and a link to the Winter 2008 edition of the Beechnut Review from Leland School.

The Week's Weather

Last week was cold cloudy & snowy up until Tuesday when it became warm, cloudy and less snowy. Kidding ... mostly. The important thing is that even with the warmer temps, we still have solid snow cover!

December 13, 2007: Snow & 30s (33/21)
December 14, 2007: Flurries & 20s (32/10)
December 15, 2007: Light snow & low 20s (24/1)
December 16, 2007: Snow, wind and 20s (30/24)
December 17, 2007: Flurries & upper 20s (30/21)
December 18, 2007: Partly sunny & upper 30s (39/28)
December 19, 2007: Light freezing drizzle, flurries & mid 30s (35/28)

Click for the Leelanau news archive from December 2006!

The Winter 2008 edition of The Beechnut Review (Leland High School's literary magazine) has been posted. The current edition has deliberately muted titles with the authors focusing on their voice.

Here's the voice of Ryann Collins from Across the Bay:

The "promise" was a camping trip on Power Island. After weeks of planning, my sisters, mom, step-dad, and I were finally ready to set out across Grand Traverse Bay for the island. We wasted valuable time that day packing our camping gear. The original plan was to load everyone and all the gear into our dinghy, christened "Big Red." After much deliberation, arranging, and rearranging, the conclusion was reached that there was no way everything would fit. The obvious solution was to bring everything across in our family's canoe. Sounds like a foolproof plan, right? Just load up the gear in the canoe, stick the kids in the dinghy, tie 'em together, and we're off, no problem.

Well ... not quite.

On Saturday night, Leland native Alisha Glass set her Penn State volleyball team to the national championship. From Nittany Lions lay it all on the line in NCAA title win at ESPN:

After losing two straight games, the second by 11 points -- letting Stanford tie the match at 2-2, Penn State simply regrouped, slapped on a happy face and took the championship. With Glass setting for Christa Harmotto and Nicole Fawcett, the Lions reeled off seven straight points in the deciding game to win 30-25, 30-26, 23-30, 19-30, 15-8.

You can also see a video report from the match right here (Alisha is #6 and you can see her in a lot of the action!)

In addition to seeing Alisha take charge in the final game with some key plays, I thought it was especially cool in the little video bits of players telling where they're from that ESPN does to hear Alisha say: "My mom was my high school volleyball coach and my grandpa was my high school basketball coach." Congratulations to Alisha and her team!

The Enterprise reports that the Bingham Township Planning Commission held a public forum to discuss ideas that may enhance agricultural tourism in the township, including model zoning ordinance language from the State of Michigan. They quote planner Rochelle Rollenhagen on what is being considered:

"The ideas we're exploring involve expanding the types of activities that might be allowed on agricultural land," Rollenhagen explained. "Agritourism involves some land uses that can be pretty commercial in nature; and a broader range of uses could become allowable in the township’s agriculture district if we follow through with some of these ideas," she said.

The point behind expanding opportunities for agritourism in the township would be to allow farmers and the owners of agricultural properties to stay in business and on their farms, Rollenhagen said. Such opportunities might help prevent residential sprawl.

Read Bingham gathers input for boosting 'agritourism' in the Leelanau Enterprise.

Photo: Harvest II by Andy McFarlane (available in wallpaper size)

The newly re-opened State Theatre will host a special Sneak Preview of Mr. Art Critic, the latest movie by Traverse City filmmaker Richard Brauer. The Preview begins at 8:30 PM on Thursday Dec. 27th and tickets are available at the door or online at the State Theatre web site.

Mr. Art Critic tells the humorous story of M.J. Clayton (portrayed by Bronson Pinchot, "Balki from Perfect Strangers), a high profile art critic from Chicago known across the country for his heartless commentaries. After a scolding from his boss, Clayton takes a vacation (to Mackinac Island) to clear his head and runs into a recent victim of one of his particularly nasty reviews. Clayton then makes a drunken proclamation that any idiot can make art, followed by an impossible wager. What ensues is a heartwarming tale illustrating how the ability to create art is indeed a gift.

Mr. Art Critic is the fifth full-length feature film by Rich's company Brauer Productions and was filmed in Traverse City and on Mackinac Island. You can learn more about the film and see a trailer at the official site and read about the filming in this article from the Mackinac Island Town Crier.

It's kind of a full-circle thing, as Rich announced the project at the Traverse City Film Festival.

A Lot Like Christmas by Andy McFarlane

News from the Week

With the holiday event season winding down, we were actually able to spend some time building out our Ski Leelanau section, taking a look at the good and bad for northern Michigan ski resorts, exploring Lake Manitou on North Manitou Island and Florence Lake on South Manitou with help from the Enterprise and the National Park and checking out the long-vanished Northport Beach Hotel. Expect us to focus more on things like this over the winter!

The Week's Weather

The weather was once again wintry and snow on the slopes and trails is better than we've seen for many Decembers.

December 6, 2008: Flurries, breezy & low 20s (24/18)
December 7, 2008: Light snow and upper 20s (30/23)
December 8, 2008: Light snow, a bit of sun and low 20s (25/17)
December 9, 2008: Light snow & 20s (27/19)
December 10, 2008: Partly sunny & low 30s (32/14)
December 11, 2008: Snow, light freezing drizzle and low 30s (34/28)
December 12, 2008: Partly sunny & upper 20s (30/16)

Click for the Leelanau news archive from December 2006!

I found this cool 1905 postcard from the Northport Beach Hotel in the collection Benzie County's Don Harrison. Don scans all of his postcards in large and his collection of postcards from Michigan (especially Benzi & Leelanau) is a great place to while away a few hours.

The Leelanau Enterprise article Autos help, hinder 'resorting' has another view of this impressive structure and relates that the 110 room Northport Beach Hotel opened in July of 1903 but burned down on July 6, 1908.