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

This photo is part of Joe Burda's Fishtown set (slideshow) and also a part of the Manitou Islands group on Flickr.

And yes, it's wallpaper-sized!

Sugar Loaf area resident Bryan Poirier - who was up late practicing for the upcoming New Third Coast tour opening for Neil Young - was startled Sunday night to see "a bunch of lights zooming up and down the face of the mountain, but I just figured it was Jim Rennie 'sleep-grooming' again."

Rennie, another area resident, admitted that he had sought treatment for the rare sleep disorder. He said that he had been headed over to the Loaf to set a few gates "just for practice" when he too saw the strange lights. Upon arrival, he realized that the lights were a remarkable array of unidentified flying objects. By morning, county law enforcement officials and a growing crowd of curious onlookers were on the scene.

Calls to Sugar Loaf's owner, attorney and realtor went unanswered, setting people's minds somewhat at ease that it was still business as usual at the long-shuttered resort. Shortly after noon excitement was rekindled when, at a hastily called press conference, it was announced that Sugar Loaf Mountain had been sold ... to aliens!

The purchasing party is a consortium of several alien species who are calling themselves INVADER (Intergalactic Negotiators for Very Amicable Development of Extra-species Relationships). INVADER spokesman Klaatu announced the sale of Sugar Loaf for an undisclosed sum and pledged a massive investment in anti-gravity chair lifts and advanced alien snowmaking technology that would render the hills skiable 10 months out of the year.

When pressed about the selling price, Klaatu said "Long ago, we abandoned the concept of money ... along with war, starvation and reality television but I can tell you that all parties are happy with the outcome."

Alien attorney Zoth the Destroyer dismissed as "outrageous" speculation that the resort would be used as the beachhead for an alien invasion and regrettably ate our photographer, cutting the interview short. We did receive a lovely fruit basket by way of apology, however.

Glen Haven was first founded as a wooding station to provide fuel for the passing steamers. In 1857 a sawmill and an inn were built on the beach west of Glen Arbor by Charles C. McCarty, brother in law of John E. Fisher, the founder of Glen Arbor. McCarty called the area Sleeping Bearville. In 1865 a dock and the Sleeping Bear Inn were built. The Inn was used as a boarding house for lumberjacks and passengers. In 1868 McCarty built a sawmill on Little Glen Lake. Horses were used to transport the lumber from Glen Lake to Glen Haven. At that time 100 to 300 cords of wood were used by a steamer for a full trip from Chicago to Buffalo. By 1870 a two mile long tramway had been built to transport wood cut by the sawmill of Glen Lake to the docks at Glen Haven. During the winter of 1870-1871 214 people died because of shipwrecks on the Great Lake. In 1871 the U.S. Life-Saving Service was created. The Life-Saving Service conducted rescues from shore. That year the first Life-Saving Station was opened in the area.

In 1878 the President of the Northern Transit Company bought Glen Haven in order to make sure that there would always be a reliable supply of wood for the fleet. At that time D. H. Day moved to Glen Haven as an agent for the Northern Transit Company. In 1881 D. H. Day bought the town of Glen Haven. In 1901 the Sleeping Bear Point Lifesaving Station was built. At that time most of the workers at Glen Haven were of Norwegian and Swedish descent, a small group of workers were from a small Native American settlement a few miles away. As steamships began changing from wood burning to coal burning D. H. Day realized the need to expand his operations and changed his sawmill into a hardwood mill, which sold oak and maple boards to the building industry in Chicago. D. H. Day also promoted managed forests and farming. In 1910 he owned more than 5,000 acres of managed forest and 5,000 cherry and apple trees on his 400 acre farm. In the 1920s the Glen Haven Canning Company began canning and shipping D. H. Day’s fruit. In 1931 the Sleeping Bear Point Lifesaving Station was moved to its present site in order to protect it from the encroaching dunes. That same year the Glen Haven docks were closed. In 1972 the Sleeping Bear Inn closed and the buildings in Glen Haven were purchased by the National Park. Glen Haven has been restored to resemble the town in the 1920s. Just down the road is the Sleeping Bear Point Life Saving Station which has been restored and is now The Sleeping Bear Point Maritime Museum.

Glen Haven Links

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore page on Glen Haven

Photo credit: Glen Haven Canning Co. by cyoas55

Here's a cool video from the tail-end of last winter. There's still a lot of ice boating going on!

Yesterday at The Leland Report Molly Grosvenor wrote:

This morning George Firestone Grosvenor, our Bumpa, passed away. He went peacefully in the company of his children and with the kind assistance of all the great people at Effie's Place. This truly marks the end of an era. I know that many people have a story or two or many about Bumpa. It's great comfort to know that he will live on in these stories... may we all keep telling them. May the seas be calm in heaven! In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the South Manitou Island Memorial Society's project "relight the light" or to Munson Hospice.

You can share your memories here or over at the Leland Report's tribute to George Grosvenor. George captained boats that went to the islands, most recently the Manitou Isle to North Manitou. My favorite tales from him were those of delivering the mail across the ice to the Manitou Islands. He said his dad would tie a rope to him and make him walk in front of the mail truck as they crossed the ice.

Was it true? I don't know but I do know he was a great guy who will be missed.

Photo credit: NMI Pickup by migolfer who writes: North Manitou Island. For those of you old enough to remember the island pickup/dropoff point off the beach by Bourniques. This was before the fancy dock they put in. If the weather was bad, the drop off point was on the south beach off The Big Windfall. The boat is the "Manitou Isle".

John Levanen took this photo titled If you're bored on a Sunday afternoon in Leelanau County...

It demonstrates the time-honored tradition of "berging" down the Carp River in Leland from North Lake Leelanau to a stopping point that is curiously close to the Blue Bird.

Keith Burnham over at The Leland Report has complete coverage of Berging the River Carp - 2008 including a trial run on Saturday, and the photos from 2007, 2006 and 2005.

The photo is by Chris Burda, part of his Fishtown Docks photo gallery (view slideshow).  The University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web's entry for the Mute Swan (cygnus olor) includes photos and information and begins:

Mute swans are large birds, measuring 144 to 158 cm. The wingspan is 2 to 2.5 meters. The two sexes are alike in appearance, except that males are generally larger than females. The plumage is white. They are best distinguished from North American swans by the knob at the base of the upper bill, and the color of the bill itself, which is orange, with the tip and base colored black. The head and neck may sometimes be stained brown from water and mud containing iron.

March 12

The Record-Eagle has a feature on  Leland's 72-45 loss at the hands of Muskegon West Michigan Christian in the Class D quarterfinal:

"I thought we were playing some of our best ball as of late, but we just did not get it going tonight. I give West Michigan Christian credit. They took us out of our game. We had a hard time shooting it over the top. We had a hard time getting it inside. They're a fine basketball team."

Marcus Whittaker paced Leland with 22 points.

"They played great defense," Whittaker said. "Defensively, they were prepared

Congratulations on a great year, Comets!

March 10

The Record-Eagle has a cool feature titled Links to the past that compares Leland's team with the Northport team that Leland coach Jason Stowe played on:

"I was joking with the kids about the unheralded guy hitting that last second shot," Stowe said, "because 20 years ago on the exact same court, the exact same basket, I got the chance to do the exact same thing."

Stowe's buzzer-beater in 1988 propelled Northport to a 67-65 win over Glen Lake in a Class D district final at Central a victory the Wildcats used as a springboard to winning a state championship.

March 6

The Record-Eagle reports that Leland Comets (21-4) pulled out a 48-46 thriller over Bellaire to win the Regional championship. Leland will face Muskegon West Michigan Christian Tuesday's quarterfinal at Traverse City West at 6 PM. Check out Larsen lifts Leland to regional title for more (including photos).

March 4

Leland survived a charge by Mio and went on to a 83-59 victory in the first round of Regionals last night. They will meet Bellaire (who managed to hold off a tough Posen club 67-60) on Wednesday at 7 PM at Traverse City Central.

March 3

Leland captured the District title on Friday night at Northport, handling St. Marys 76-28 to become the last team standing in the 2008 high school basketball tournament.

Leland faces Mio tonight in the Regional opener at Traverse City Central at 7:30 PM with the regional final on Wednesday.

For a nice preview of the tournament road ahead for the Comets, check out Boys' Class D District survivor going to T-C in the Leelanau Enterprise.

The Muskegon Chronicle reports that the Sleeping Bear Dunes are going to get a little envelope time in 2008 with the release of the latest Nature of America educational series. It was painted by artist John Dawson of Hilo, HI under the art direction of Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD (kind of a curious combination it seems). Michigan is the freshwater dunes leader, with 275,000 acres of dunes. The 27 different birds, insects and vegetation featured on the stamps are representative of the flora and fauna found in Great Lakes dunes. Feel welcome to post a comment with any or all of those you can identify below!

Read Postal Service honors sand dunes with stamps. Stamps will be available later this year (after the rate hike) and if you want a really big version, click over to download the Great Lakes Dunes stamp from the US Postal Service.

I've been thinking that it would be nice to have a place where people can post a little note about a cool event, mention something interesting in the news or natural world or just say something about the weather. Here's our first for March of 2008 and we'll post a new one each month!

The photo is Yellow Plane by Andy McFarlane. It was taken on March 17, 2006 on North Lake Leelanau just outside Leland and I have it on good authority that it's pretty much his favorite photo ever.

Here's the April 2008 page.