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Thanks to the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor's Bureau for this news!

This Saturday (Sep 24) is National Public Lands Day. NPLD is the nation's largest, single-day volunteer event for public lands in the United States, and last year. The impact is huge, especially in this era of declining budgets and last year's 170,000 volunteers worked at over 2,080 sites in every state:

• Removing an estimated 450 tons of trash
• Collecting an estimated 20,000 pounds of invasive plants
• Building and maintaining an estimated 1,320 miles of trails
• Planting an estimated 100,000 trees, shrubs and other native plants
• Contributing an estimated $15 million to improve public lands across the country

The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is inviting you to be a part of this by helping to clean up beaches in the Lakeshore on Saturday from 12-3 PM. Admission to all national parks, including the National Lakeshore, is free Saturday, and volunteers will receive a voucher to use for entrance to various parks at a later date.

Below are your 2011 Labor Day Weekend happenings - if you know of more, add them into the comments!

Summer is almost over - fortunately we get to say farewell over a three-day weekend. Here are some ideas for Leelanau Labor Day fun!

Do something like this ------------------------------>

Start the weekend off Friday night in Northport, at the last Music in the Park for the season with Music in the Park featuring the Leo Creek Band.

The annual Alice Busby Walk - Miles for Mammograms kicks off Saturday at 9 AM in downtown Northport. Monies raised in this walk, which honors Alice Busby who died in 1994 at age 43 of breast cancer, go to pay for mammograms for women who otherwise could not afford them. The walk is sponsored by the Zonta Club of Leelanau County.

As long as you've got your running shoes on, how about the Port Oneida 5k Barn to Barn Run & Walk? It takes place Saturday  in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. 9 age categories, awards, food and great give-aways!  1/4 Kids Schoolhouse dash also. A fundraiser for Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear - an official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service since 1998.

On Saturday night, Suttons Bay will hold their annual Labor Day Fireworks at dusk.

Sunday from 1-9 PM the village of Lake Leelanau hosts the Lake Leelanau Barbecue & Blues Festival! Artists include the Sub Prime Blues Band, Broken Arrow Blues Band, Laith Al-Saadi , Pete Fetters and others and there's great food & fun to be had.

On Monday, Leland hosts their annual Labor Day Bridge Walk beginning promptly at Noon on the M-22 Bridge. Certificates, lemonade and cookies will be available for all on the lawn of the Old Art Building following the walk.

You'll have to make a choice because the Labor Day BridgeWalk/Party happens at noon on the Narrows Bridge between Big & Little Glen Lake!

Labor Day Weekend is also a great time to explore all the great beaches in the area.  Many people have heard that the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is the most beautiful place in (Good Morning) America. For one look at why, check out North Bar Lake with everything from lounging in the sun to swimming in toasty warm North Bar, playing in the waves on a pristine stretch of Lake Michigan shore and even enjoying Leelanau's best skim boarding on the tiny channel that connects the two lakes!  For more, visit our Sleeping Bear Dunes page.

Looking for more things to do, check out the Leelanau Calendar. Please feel free to leave your Labor Day suggestions as comments! We look forward to hear what everyone has planned!

Of course just kicking back with a fishing pole or a barbecue with some friends may be all you need for the perfect holiday weekend, which we at Leelanau.com heartily wish for you!

Photo:  These are days to remember... by John Levanen

"It looks like nothing else in America."
~Josh Elliot of Good Morning America

Good Morning America has named the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as their Most Beautiful Place in America!

Tens of thousands of viewers voted online for this Michigan park, which is one of the nation's best-kept secrets. The hidden gem boasts 64 miles of beaches along Lake Michigan, two islands, 26 inland lakes, more than 50,000 acres of land, and the monumental sand dunes from which it gets its name.

..."GMA" viewer Jim Madole of Grand Rapids, Mich., nominated Sleeping Bear for its natural beauty.

"It is peaceful and serene, a place for gazing out into the world, night or day, and realizing that the universe is truly a magical, majestic mystery, and humans are just a very small part of it all," he wrote in his submission. "Here at Sleeping Bear, I sit in awe and wonder at the perfection of Mother Nature."

Click through to see what Mario Batali has to say about the Sleeping Bear Dunes and explore it in depth at the official Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore website and in our clairvoyantly titled section,  America's Lakeshore: The Sleeping Bear Dunes! Get some amazing photos in the Sleeping Bear Dunes slideshow from the Leelanau.com group on Flickr!

Photo Credit: Visions in the Manitou Passage by Happyhiker4

The Record-Eagle has a report on our silly heat. Check it out and also see Five Things You Need to Know Heatwave Edition: Beat the Heat in Michigan on Absolute Michigan.

Joel Dinda took this shot up near Northport.

Here's some videos from presenters and performers who will be at the Benzie County Water Festival, along with some videos of the beautiful water they'll be talking about!

The First Annual Benzie County Water Festival is a community water celebration that takes place on Saturday, March 18-19 south of us in Frankfort. This will be a unique event designed to engage folks in the stewardship of the Great Lakes and the cultivation of a vibrant and sustainable local culture in our region.

A family-oriented, community-centered program will feature Michigan musicians, speeches from water luminaries (including Tom Kelly of Inland Seas Education Association and GTB Tribal Chairman Derek Bailey), interactive multimedia projects and presentations, artisan foods and beverages, workshops, visual art, theater and dance, children's activities, an ice fishing contest, as well as connections to campaigns and projects protecting our water locally and/or addressing global water challenges.

A highlight is the showing of the showing of the award-winning documentary WATERLIFE on Friday night (March 18) at the Garden Theatre in Frankfort. If you have not seen this extraordinary film and love the Great Lakes YOU SHOULD SEE IT!!!

The Benzie County Water Festival is co-sponsored by the Benzie Conservation District and Absolute Michigan. For more information, check out the Benzie Water Festival Facebook and contact Sarah Louisignau by calling 231-871-1075 or by e-mail.

The first Michigan Water Festival was held on the Straits in Mackinaw City in August of 2006 and attracted 500 people from all over the state. The Water Festival moves around Michigan every year, bringing the message of the vitality of Michigan's water all around the state (there's a video in the series above). Learn more at water-festival.org!

Photo Credit: 'Lighthouse Dawn' Point Betsie Lighthouse, Lake Michigan by Michigan Nut

Next Friday (March 11, 2011) at 7 PM at Brilliant Books in Suttons Bay, Loreen Niewenhuis will release her book, A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach. The book chronicles her walk around the shoreline of Lake Michigan and her observations along the way. Absolute Michigan caught up with Loreen and asked her a couple of questions.

ABSOLUTE MICHIGAN: What prompted you to do this?

LOREEN NIEWENHUIS: I've always felt connected to Lake Michigan.  It has always been the place where I relax, walk, and recenter myself.  When I turned 45, I wanted to take on something large, something that would challenge me on many levels.  So, I pulled out my maps of Lake Michigan and plotted a 1000-mile route around it.

ABSOLUTE MICHIGAN: What was your favorite stretch of Michigan beach?

LOREEN NIEWENHUIS: I fell in love with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and Leelanau Peninsula all over again.  The natural beauty is amazing, the towns are very connected to the lake along this stretch, and there are several excellent independent bookstores along the way.

Visit Loreen's blog for photos from her trip through the Sleeping Bear, read an excerpt from the book over at Absolute Michigan and meet her next Friday at Brilliant Books!

Thanks to the Wikipedia entry for Leelanau County, Michigan, I learned something cool this morning:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 2,532 square miles (6,557.8 km²), of which 348 square miles (901.3 km²) is land and 2,184 square miles (5,656.5 km²) (86.24%) is water. The county has the second-highest proportion of water area of any county in the United States, behind only Keweenaw County, Michigan. Lake Leelanau is the county's largest body of inland water...

Seems like something we should be spreading around!

To see some of this water, check out the Water slideshow from the Leelanau (dot com) group on Flickr.

Photo Credit: i'll be on the water by todd richter

The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore page on the village of Good Harbor begins:

Good Harbor is located in the northern part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore at the Lake Michigan end of County Road 651. The only evidence of the village is a few dock pilings near the Lake Michigan shore.

The earliest logging activity in the area was in 1863 just two miles west of this site, H. D. Pheatt, a partner in Fayette and Thiess built a dock on the bay and began cutting cordwood fuel for passing steamers. He was a veteran seaman, who retired here having sailed the Great Lakes for 41 years. Wood and logs were cut between Lime and Little Traverse Lakes and taken across Little Traverse Lake on scows pulled along a cable stretched from shore to shore. A tramway extended from the shore of Little Traverse Lake to the company dock on Lake Michigan. In 1869 Pheatt sold the business and bought 200 acres about a mile down the bay. He built a gristmill in 1882 powered by Shetland Creek, which connects LimeLake and Little Traverse Lake.

The village of Good Harbor was started in the mid-1870s when a man named Vine built a small sawmill and dock. He got white ash logs from the surrounding area, which he cut into 4" lumber for wagon tongues and shipped it by boat to Milwaukee and Chicago. His mill was in operation for a couple of years before he sold out to Henry Schomberg of Milwaukee and Jake Schwartz of Leland, who began making barrel staves, headings and hoops to supply packaging for shipping pork, fish, apples and other products around the Great Lakes.

Read on to learn about Schomberg's mill that cut 8,000,000 board feet of lumber per year at its peak, which side of Main Street you had to be on to go to a tavern and the folding of the town in the early 20th Century.

Photo Credit: G.H. Dock Piers by ETCphoto

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Today the Grand Traverse Light recorded winds in excess of 60 MPH and Buoy 45002 out in the middle of Lake Michigan is recording winds of 20-40 knots with wave heights of 20+ feet! Tune into our Leelanau County Webcam page for scenes from Empire, Good Harbor & Leland! You can get a rundown on the havoc from the Record-Eagle, which included dock destruction in Suttons Bay and downed powerlines all over the county resulting in over 2,500 without power in Leelanau County.

They also talked with Mike Boguth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gaylord about the storm:

"It probably will go down in history books as one of the strongest storms in Great Lakes history," Boguth said of the weather system that started Tuesday. "It's one of the elite few."

Today's winds could be stronger than those that blew through Tuesday, along with heavy rain and local tornado watches.

David posted a set of photos from the beaches of Leelanau - check them out in his Gales of November slideshow!