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About a week ago now I came across this photo by Mark Lindsay. I asked former Park Ranger Bill Herd, and he told me what has since come out in the media. From 140-year-old shipwreck piece washes ashore on remote stretch of Sleeping Bear Dunes beach in mLive:

Sleeping Bear Dunes historians believe the schooner fragment, estimated to be about 40-feet long and peppered with twisted metals spikes, is part of the ship’s bilge keelsons, which the Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archeology says were long timbers running most of the ship’s length, strengthening the keel.
It’s one of several fragments of the wreck to wash ashore over the years, said Laura Quackenbush, museum technician with park service. In fact, wreck fragments from the Jennie and Annie, as well as other ships which foundered off the dunes coastline, wash ashore once or twice a year.
“It’s a very dynamic shoreline,” she said. “It’s a common occurrence around there.”

Over the weekend photographer Ken Scott made the hike and posted the video below of the Jennie and Annie and also of the other (as yet nameless) wreck that we reported on last year.

Photo credit: Sleeping Bear Point Wreck by Mark Lindsay

Taking a truck loaded with people tearing around the Sleeping Bear Dunes would land you in jail. But long before the days of endangered pitcher thistle plants and piping plovers, back when most people thought that a fragile ecosystem was something you better pack with extra styrofoam, there were the Dune Rides.

It all began, according to the brochure:

"In 1935 Louis C. Warnes equipped a car with special motor and giant tires for personal pleasure trips into the vast sand lands near his home. Friends begged him to take passengers. Soon he added other cars and trained drivers...."

The website Oh Ranger! adds more detail, noting that Marion Warnes (D.H. Day's youngest daughter) was a gig part as well of Sleeping Bear Dunesmobile Rides out of Glen Haven.

They started the rides with a used 1934 Ford that took four people at a time to the crest of the dunes and back for 25 cents each. By the time the rides ended in 1978, there were 13 dunes wagons each carrying 14 passengers on a 12 mile, 35 minute excursion.

I haven't been able to find anything specifically on the "Dunesmobiles" themselves, but to the left is a photo of a Travelalls made by International Harvester. The book A Nationalized Lakeshore by Theodore J. Karamanski notes that Warnes, backed by his new ten-year concession agreement, purchased ten brand-new Oldsmobile 88 in 1956. They used balloon tires and the two that I've seen around Leelanau are both Olds 88s.

For over 40 years the Dunesmobiles rode over one of the most breathtaking landscapes in the world, bringing those to young, old or lazy to walk closer to the beauty that dwells in the heart of the Sleeping Bear. With the coming of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the days of the dune rides were numbered and in 1978 the dune rides ceased altogether.

Today, the trucks have been pressed into service by Manitou Island Transit and far fewer people get back into the "real" dunes. The result is certainly best for the health of the dunes, but it also means that for folks who won't journey more than a few hundred feet from their cars, memories of the Sleeping Bear Dunes will consist of a few runs up and down the dune climb.

There's a couple of photos from the brochure below and you can see some more (with a few from the dune rides at Silver Lake Dunes thrown in) from Don Harrison's postcards of the dunesmobiles. The photo above is Sleeping Bear Dunesmobile by Seeking Michigan (click to see it bigger!)

Sleeping Bear Dunesmobile Headquarters by UpNorth Memories

The Bear -- which has since disappeared

A "Dunesmobile" on the specially constructed gravel road

 

The Glen Arbor Art Association offers several residencies each year for practicing artists who would like the opportunity for creative exploration in an idyllic setting in northern Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula. The purpose of the residency program is to provide visiting artists with a respite from daily responsibilities to enable them to concentrate on their work.

Participants use studio space provided at Thoreson Farm, a farmstead in the historic Port Oneida district of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A small apartment is provided in the Art Association building in Glen Arbor at no charge for the residency period. Residencies are considered in writing, visual arts, photography, sculpture, fiber arts, ceramics, music, philosophy and creative research.

Applications may be submitted until March 1 for the 2012 season. For more details and how to apply, see their web site!

photo credit: The Road to Pyramid Point by Matt Callow> (produced during a GAAA residency!)

Ken caught the sunrise - click to see it bigger and check out Ken's snow slideshow!

This photo of the Northern Lights over Fishtown was taken by Ken Scott in October of 2011. Today on Absolute Michigan we posted a feature about a solar flare that may bring northern lights to Leelanau's skies tonight (and potentially over the next few days):

NASA's Space Weather site is the place to go for Aurora Borealis forecasting as they help make sense of the data the space agency receives about solar flares and their impact on earth's atmosphere. Yesterday they gave Northern Lights watchers a lot of hope with this news:

This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash (shown right or in short movie right here)

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft detected a CME rapidly emerging from the blast site: movie. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the leading edge of the CME will reach Earth on Jan. 24 at 14:18UT (+/- 7 hours).

That means it's hitting the Earth 11 AM - 6 PM EST, but this level of intensity makes the Northern Lights a real possibility for the next couple of days so definitely LOOK UP tonight and tomorrow if there's any break in the clouds! If the northern lights hit, our Northern Lights Log will light up with reports. You can also learn a lot more about the Northern Lights at Michigan in Pictures and also at aurora borealis on Leelanau.com!

This week's photo was taken by Mark Miller at Empire Beach. Last week we featured another of his photos from this spot - what a difference a few days and a Lake Effect storm can make!

Check it out big as the beach and compare it with last week's photo in Mark's slideshow.

This week's photo was taken by Mark Miller at Empire Beach. See more of his great work in his slideshow.

Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
~Old Farmer’s Almanac

Speaking of wolves and January, last month the US Fish & Wildlife Service removed wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the federal endangered species list. Wolves are now managed by states in the region and the ruling takes effect on Friday, January, 2012. Read the release from the Michigan DNR about wolf de-listing.

Photo credit: Moon over Lake Leelanau by Missy Luick (a February full moon...)

This week's photo is Lake Michigan ... from Empire Bluff with a Christmas Eve sunset, from and featuring photographer Ken Scott. See this photo and nearly 300 more in Ken's snow slideshow!

via Michigan in Pictures...

Leelanau photographer Ken Scott had a nice New Year's surprise when his photo was selected as the Earth Science Picture of the Day for Dec 31, 2011. NASA writes:

The photo above showing twin iridium flares piercing the night sky was captured above Glen Arbor, Michigan during the evening of September 24, 2011. Iridium flares occur when sunlight is reflected off the solar panels of one of the 66 Iridium satellites that are in orbit around Earth. To correct for changes in the angle these panels make as they orbit, the satellite rotates to reposition the solar cells. It's during this short 10-30 second rotation period that sunlight bounces off the cells towards the Earth's surface. On the ground, the Sun has already set, and the sky may be quite dark. If you're looking at the right spot, you'll notice that the reflection gradually brightens and then may suddenly flare before quickly fading. The brightest flares achieve a magnitude of approximately - 8 or about 85 times brighter than Venus at its brightest. To see when you should be able to see an iridium flare at your location, visit the Heavens Above: Iridium Flares web page.

The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) is a service of NASA's Earth Science Division that highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. You can see the latest photo and contribute photos right here.

You can see Ken's photo bigger on Flickr and check out more sky stuff from Ken.