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This photo by m•cole•m is so awesome (see larger in her slideshow) that I had to post it with the Legend of the Sleeping Bear. The tale is kind of the Leelanau creation story, and I rewrote it because I couldn't find a version online that I liked. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know or post a comment.

Years and years ago, in the great forest that covered the place that is now named Wisconsin, lived Mishe Mokwa (Mother Bear) and her two cubs. One day, a roaring fire swept through the woods, burning everything from horizon to horizon and driving Mishe Mokwa, her cubs and all the animals before it. Soon they came to a place where they could go no further, the great Lake Michigan.

Like all bears, Mishe Mokwa and her cubs were powerful swimmers, and at her urging they plunged into the lake. Mishe Mokwa knew there would be no food after the fire was spent, so she kept the light and smoke of the fire behind them and swam east. Now bears are powerful swimmers, and Mishe Mokwa and her cubs were fat from the bounty of the forest so they were able to swim through that day and through the night. Somewhere in the dark she lost them.

Late in the next day, she sighted the tall white dunes of Michigan. When she reached the shore and looked back,  her cubs were nowhere to be seen. She called to them with no answer, finally climbing the dunes to look back. As the sky turned red with sunset, she saw her cubs struggling far offshore through the cold waters. Her heart broke as first one and then the other slipped beneath the waves.

Heartbroken and exhausted, she lay upon the dune for days and days, watching the places where her cubs had perished. Gitche Manitou was moved by her sorrow and faithfulness and raised two islands, North Manitou and South Manitou to celebrate the bravery of the cubs. Knowing that her heart would never mend, Gitche Manitou laid a slumber upon Mishe Mokwa and drew the sand over her like a blanket.

Spring is an excellent time for new or frequent visitors to enjoy Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. From signs of spring at the farmsteads of Port Oneida learning about returning migratory birds along Lakeshore's magnificent trails, a Ranger-led hike in the park can be a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Every Saturday afternoon at 1 PM you can meet a Park Ranger at the Philip Hart Visitor Center in Empire. They'll introduce the afternoon's topic and then lead a car caravan a short distance to where the walk will begin. Each week features a different topic and location, and hikes last 1 to 1 1/2 hours and are no longer than 1 1/2 miles. Dress for the weather!

• The Best of Both Worlds (April 7) - Experience the best of both worlds at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Rangers will take you to a place where history and nature both share the spotlight.
• What’s the Point of the Dunes? (April 14) - Explore the Sleeping Bear Point Trail and learn why the dunes are here.
• Picture Yourself at Sleeping Bear Dunes (April 21) - For the official start of National Park Week, join a Park Ranger for a hike with some magnificent views. Bring your camera to capture the scenery.
• National Junior Ranger Day (April 28) - Join Park Rangers for a day of fun exploring, learning about and protecting Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Events start at 10:00 a.m. and the swearing in ceremony is at 3:00 p.m.

The Saturdays at the Lakeshore program is held every Saturday from now until mid-June when summer programs start. Hikes are free. Participants need only purchase the park entrance pass or have an annual pass displayed in their vehicle to join in the fun. Please call 231-326-5134 extension 328 to make reservations and for details, or visit www.nps.gov/slbe visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sbdnl.

The Glen Arbor Sun reports that a Glen Arbor couple has offered a challenge match for Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail:

Glen Arbor residents Bill and Vicki Anderson, who were among the first supporters of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail (SBHT), have issued a challenge pledge with a 2:1 match for all donations to the new trail through the end of March. The campaign still needs to raise $30,000 in order to secure the full Anderson Challenge match of $50,000. Bill Anderson shared with Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation (TART) Trails his family’s motivation for posing the challenge match.

“This summer, 10 years of planning and effort will become a reality for the first five-mile link of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail,” he said. “To help sustain the momentum and encourage additional financial support we are offering a match of $50,000 if the $100,000 goal is reached by March 31st.”

The first section of trail connecting Glen Arbor to the Dune Climb will be completed this July. The trail will provide easy, car-free access to amenities and attractions including the DH Day Campground, Glen Haven, Glen Arbor and the Dune Climb.

Read on at the Sun and learn more about the trail and make donations at sleepingbeartrail.org or by calling Pam Darling (231) 941-4300.

"I like to take trips like this, to get out of the rut of ordinary life and test myself. I don't have a lot of kayaking experience, but I like getting out and seeing how far I can go."
~Steve Snyder

Hello boys and girls, today we have the story of The Very Lucky Kayaker.

Once upon a time there was a man named Steve Snyder, who paddled from Glen Haven nine miles to South Manitou Island in a brand new kayak to camp. He ran into trouble two miles into his return trip when the spray skirt came off. With no wetsuit and taking on water, he was, as Jim Stamm pointed out when he emailed it over, incredibly lucky to survive.

He was lifted off the island by a Coast Guard Helicopter, hopefully wiser. mLive closes their article:

Michigan paddlers are fortunate. There are two excellent multiday sea kayaking symposiums every year. A symposium is slated May 25-28 in Muskegon County by the West Michigan Coastal Kayakers Association. See wmcka.org for details. The other is the Great Lakes Sea Kayaking Symposium, July 18-22, in Grand Marais. See downwindsports.com/glsks for more details.

If you are new to kayaking, consider attending. You won’t be sorry — and it could save your life.

We'll close ours by sharing the words of northern Michigan's own Song of the Lakes:

These are not lakes, these are the world's eighth seas, and her bottoms are littered with the wreckage of over 8,000 ships.

Try not to join them, OK? Don't treat Lake Michigan like a lake, she's a whole lot bigger than almost any lake in the world and demands your respect.

Photo credit: Winter Swirls on Sleeping Bear Point by Mark Lindsay

Ken shot this on Saturday night in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He says that the brightness of the night sky is a reflection of iso and shutter speed (5 photos @ iso 1600 and 30 second exposures). Click to view larger on black!

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!)

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.