Great Indoor Folk Festival ~ Feb 12, 2012
The 4th Annual Great Indoor Folk Festival takes place this Sunday, February 12 in Building 50 at the Grand Traverse Commons. The festival runs from noon to 5:30, and it is family-friendly and free, though you're encouraged to donate through "busker buckets."
There will be 6 different stages with over 50 musicians on seven different stages.
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The Lake Leelanau Renaissance, which began a couple years ago, is thriving today with two ventures open for business in the former Thunderbird store and another one planned to open in June.
And two more businesses — a wine tasting room and an Italian restaurant — are also preparing to open this spring.
...Trish’s Dish opened on the east side of the New Thunderbird building last October. And Northern Latitudes Distillery, in the middle of the building, is expected to open this summer.
Another example of the renaissance is the purchase of the former LeNaro Pub building by Jane Fortune and her partner Bob Hesse. Powell “Smitty” Smith of Venture Properties of Leland is guiding the remodeling of the former Powerhouse Tavern next to NJs Grocer.
Smith said the couple, based out of Indiana, have a residence near Leland. They have always wanted to own an Italian restaurant.
They plan on a soft opening of their new restaurant, Bella Fortuna North, in early June, with a grand opening at the end of the month.
In addition, David and Jane Albert of Leland will open the wine tasting room for their Boathouse Vineyards winery sometime this spring. The couple planted vineyards and have been producing wine from their Amore Road property for the last three years.
Read on at the Enterprise for details on these businesses and also how The Fish Hooked is capitalizing on the great fishing that Lake Leelanau offers!
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.
Over on Absolute Michigan, we post a "Weird Wednesday" on the last Wednesday of every month. They often feature something from Linda S. Godfrey, the author the definitive book of Michigan mysteries: Weird Michigan. Today is no exception and has a very cool Leelanau County focus!
The story of an early 20th Century sea monster sighting was sent to The Shadowlands Web site by a reader whose great-grandfather was the witness. The boy was fishing for perch one day in 1910 in the shallows of Lake Leelanau in Leelanau County. The lake had been dammed in the late 1800's to provide water power for the local mill and to enable logging. The dam also flooded much surrounding area, turning it into swamps and bogs punctuated by dead, standing trees.
On that particular day, the young great-grandfather, William Gauthier, rowed out to a new fishing spot near the town of Lake Leelanau. Looking for good perch habitat, he paddled up close to a tree that he estimated to stand about five feet tall above the water, with a six-inch trunk. He was in about seven feet of water, and after deciding this would be a good place to stop and cast a line, began tying the boat to the tree.
That's when young William discovered the tree had eyes. They were staring him dead in the face at about four feet above water level. The boy and serpent exchanged a long gaze, then the creature went, "Bloop" into the water. Gauthier said later that the creature's head passed one end of the boat while the tail was still at the other end, though it was undulating very quickly through the water. The writer noted that Gauthier always admitted to having been thoroughly frightened by his encounter, and that the event caused him to stay off that lake for many years.
The writer added that his great-grandfather came from a prominent area family and was very well-educated, and that he knew others who would admit privately but not publicly that they, too, had seen the creature. No sightings have been reported in recent times, but who knows how many people have believed they were passing by a rotting old cedar when in fact they had just grazed the Leelanau lake monster?
The Lake Leelanau Community Association will host the Lake Leelanau Barbecue & Blues Festival this Sunday (September 4th) from 1 PM - 9 PM. It takes place in the Township Parking Lot on 204 across from NJ's Grocery. 2011 Artists include the Sub Prime Blues Band, Broken Arrow Blues Band, Laith Al-Saadi , Pete Fetters and others.
Click the poster and visit lakeleelanaumi.com for all the details. Here's a video from Pete Fetters to take it home...
The Leelanau Farmers Markets Association will hold their Annual Kick-Off Meeting and Potluck next Wednesday, May 11 from 6-8 pm at the Leelanau County Government Center, 8527 E Government Center Drive, Suttons Bay. Join Board members, market vendors and community supporters for information, networking and camaraderie. Guests are asked to bring a dish to pass and their own table service; beverages are provided.
There will be a presentation by Local Orbit to learn about buying and selling local products for delivery at the new local “hub” - the Suttons Bay Market on Saturday mornings. Also on the agenda will be information on the acceptance of EBT Bridge Cards at the Suttons Bay Market, and a Q & A Session to answer any questions about any of the six Leelanau Farmers Markets.
The 2011 season begins at the Suttons Bay Market on May 14. Check out www.eatleelanau.org for dates and times of all the Leelanau Farmers Markets in Empire, Glen Arbor, Lake Leelanau, Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay. For more information contact Debby Disch, LFMA Board Chair, at 231-386-5686 or Leelanau MSU Extension at 231-256-9888.
The Leelanau Peninsula Chamber of Commerce announces the First Annual Leelanau Peninsula BirdFest, to be held Wednesday, June 1 through Sunday, June 5. This unique festival offers a wide variety of distinctly different field trips, including a Sunday morning sail aboard Inland Seas' schooner to see nesting gulls, cormorants and Caspian terns on Gull Island. Also slated are a bus trip to the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy's prairie installation near Arcadia Dunes to see nesting upland birds such as northern harrier, and several pontoon boat trips down the Leelanau Conservancy's Cedar River Preserve.
Other offerings include Birding by Ear with Tom Ford along the TART Trail, an afternoon with nesting endangered Great Lakes Piping Plovers and two separate field trips focusing on breeding birds in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Visits to Leelanau State Park, Veronica Valley, Saving Birds Thru Habitat, Leelanau Conservancy's Lighthouse West, Suttons Bay wetlands and two protected private properties round out field trip offerings.
On Saturday afternoon, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Staff will bring the Park's Family Fun Time to Fountain Point Resort. There will also be educational seminars for those who choose to attend.
Headquarters for the event will be Fountain Point Resort, where bird hikes on this heavily wooded lakeshore property will be conducted every morning, wine and cheese mixers for attendees every afternoon, and keynote speakers in the evenings. Keynote speakers will be Dave Barrons, MDOT wildlife biologist Dick Wolinski and well-known bird conservationist and author Paul Baicich from Maryland.
The owners of Boathouse Vineyards and “Treeridge, L.L.C.,” which owns the one-acre waterfront property, plan to build a new boathouse on the old piers for their personal use, then construct a 2,000 square-foot wine tasting room with a parking lot off St. Mary’s Street north of M-204.
Owners Dave and Jane Albert of Leland left downstate Ionia and their automotive supply business six years ago to adopt the “up north” lifestyle and go into the wine business...
“The vineyard is now producing grapes, and French Road Cellars has been making most of our wine,” Albert said, “We hope to start offering our wine to customers at our new tasting room in the spring.”
The boathouse will be used for the Alberts’ own pontoon boat – which they may use to deliver wine to customers residing on the Lake Leelanau waterfront. In fact, the boathouse will be completed before the tasting room, and will include a commercial dock parallel to the shore where customers may tie up their boats long enough to visit the tasting room.
The team stayed at historic Fountain Point Resort near the Lake Leelanau Narrows, where proprietor Erik Zehender had a 12-by-48-foot floating dock specially built in time to accommodate the U-M team as well as a Lake Leelanau Rowing Club now being formed.
No one had ever brought a rowing club – let alone a top NCAA rowing team – to Lake Leelanau before last week. Zehender said he hopes the U-M visit will attract visits by more rowing clubs to Leelanau County in the years ahead – a boon for local businesses in the sometimes slow fall and spring visitor seasons.
Prior to his visit, Rothstein said he was “testing out the lake to see if it will be a good rowing venue for future trips and races.”
The photo above was taken by Bill & Becky Ross of Flying Still Photography. Here's a video featuring some more great photos of the trip from UM!
Great Indoor Folk Festival ~ Feb 12, 2012
The Leelanau Enterprise reports that the village of Lake Leelanau is experiencing a new business boom:
The story of an early 20th Century sea monster sighting was sent to The Shadowlands Web site by a reader whose great-grandfather was the witness. The boy was fishing for perch one day in 1910 in the shallows of Lake Leelanau in Leelanau County. The lake had been dammed in the late 1800's to provide water power for the local mill and to enable logging. The dam also flooded much surrounding area, turning it into swamps and bogs punctuated by dead, standing trees.
