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- Loren Eiseley The Immense Journey, 1957 |
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More than perhaps anything else, Leelanau is a land defined by water. Ninety-eight miles of Lake Michigan shoreline frame Leelanau County and its numerous inland lakes, large and small. |
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| For those who visited the county as children, deepest memory surely marks a special place as "Leelanau". Be it half in and half out of Lake Michigan's waves on Northport Point, playing in the warm and calm waters of Big Glen Lake watched over by the dunes or fishing with Granpa on one of the many lakes whose name is not known by more than a handful out of walking distance, Leelanau is the point where water, land and sky join. |
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 The Wreck of the Josephine Dresden Courtesy of Leelanau Historical Society |
It is water that brought the very first settlers to Leelanau County and water that continues to bring fleets of pleasure cruisers every summer. | |
| The water and its interplay with light and shadow serves as the lifeblood for the painters, Nell Revel Smith, David Grath, Suzanne Wilson, Melanie Parke and the countless others who never sold or wanted to sell a painting. |
 At the Edge of Great Waters by David Grath |
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| At the deepest level, the mood of the water becomes the mood of the county. | ||
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Locked by ice in the winter, we slow our pace and have time to breathe the sharp air and space to wander where we will, among hills of ice and across frozen lakes.
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| In spring, fog hangs thick in the morning as ice-covered lakes groan like whales and release the green waters. | ||
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Summer and the water is everywhere, blue as the sky and warm as the sun and filled with those at play.
Fall winds whip the Lake into white waves that pound the shore, and the high clouds that roll across the sky cause the water to change color from moment to moment. |
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There is magic in Leelanau and surely it is contained in water. |
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