By Bill Herd

This story originally appeared on Leelanau.com

Seeing wildlife on your vacation to a national park makes the trip extra special. It makes no difference if your primary objective was to see mountains, canyons, swamps or beaches; seeing the park’s wildlife is always a welcome addition to your visit. Viewing wildlife in its natural habitat requires knowledge, patience and lots of time. Most of us, including national park staff, do not have all three of these requirements, especially time. Professional wildlife photographers know that seeing wildlife may take weeks of quietly waiting in just the right spot and still there is no guarantee that they will get a good picture.

However, with just a little information and planning you have a better chance of seeing animals on your next visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

For most of us, seeing wildlife in the National Lakeshore is just a matter of chance — of just being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. A surprising number of times, wildlife is seen not while hiking a backcountry trail but while riding in the car. Park Rangers know that when these lucky occurrences happen, you need to be prepared to take full advantage of them, so keep your camera, binoculars and field guide handy. You never know if you will get another chance to see the animals again on your visit. If you see a mother deer and her fawn soon after entering the park, stop and enjoy the sight. Do not hurry on to the beach and assume you will have another chance later. Inside the park don’t be too destination-focused but be ready to respond to these unexpected opportunities. If you discuss the matter and take a vote you will be too far down the road and the opportunity gone.

Stop slowly and safely, and pull as far off to the side as possible. Stay in the car. The local wildlife are very used to the sight and sound of cars and are not frightened by them. But when you get out to take a picture or a better view they are often scared away. Because animals are use to them, vehicles make an excellent blind and they have much more comfortable seats than the traditional hunter’s blind. See as much as you can from your present location. If conditions permit, safely and slowly move the car for a better view. If you sit quietly and move around slowly inside the vehicle, the animals will return to their normal activity and more animals may come into view.

You do not need to just depend on chance or luck to see wildlife during your visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Knowing how to be in the right place at the right time can greatly increase your success.

For many years my seasonal naturalists had good success helping groups of visitors to see beaver. First, find out from park staff where beavers have been recently active. Right now one location is on Bass and Deer Lake at Trails End. They have dammed the creek between Bass Lake and Otter Lake with a lodge at the outlet of Bass Lake into this creek. Another dam is between Bass and Deer Lake with the lodge at the far side of Deer Lake. When looking for the lodges in this area, be aware that our local beaver do not build their lodges out in the lake like we are use to seeing in books, but along the bank. So look for a big pile of chewed sticks, and packed mud.

Another area of beaver activity this year on Tucker Lake just north of Glen Arbor on Westman Road. Get to either site in early evening and check out the lodge, dam and fallen trees. Even if you do not see a beaver just seeing their work is always impressive. No other animal manipulates the environment more than the beaver. Around sunset find a comfortable spot where you can see the lake in front of the beaver lodge. Sit quietly, enjoy a snack, don’t forget the insect repellent and maybe a quiet game or book to keep the younger ones from getting antsy. Beavers are active at night and just around sunset they will leave the lodge through its underwater entrance and swim across the lake. You will see a V shaped wake and at the point of the V a dark head. Kids may be disappointed if they thought they were going to see a beaver up close and doing tricks like the Otters at the zoo. It is important to let them know ahead what to reasonably expect from their efforts.

Likewise, deer are most active just after sunset and just before dawn. Deer like to eat a variety of plants and when they venture into the open fields they can be easily seen, especially at the beginning or end of the day. Try driving slowly along the back roads of the Port Oneida Historic District or along Norconk Road, which parallels M-22 just south of Empire. Or you can hike the Bayview Trail up to the overlook, but you must be very quiet if you want to see deer. For a few years, my summer naturalists gave a deer-viewing hike at sunset on this trail with great success even with large groups of 50 hikers and more. They had to really work to keep that many people quiet. The very best time to see deer in these fields is in the winter when we have had enough of a thaw to melt the snow in the open fields but it is still deep in the woods. Then all day, but especially at sunset and sunrise, deer can be seen in the fields as numerous a cattle feasting on the grass. Imagine a hillside with 65 grazing deer.

The Platte River can get crazy during the afternoons in July and August with canoes crashing into each other, kayakers having water fights and tubers towing ice chests of beer down the river, but come early or late and it’s a different place. Vacationers don’t get on the river very early by the time they have made all the preparations and got the car positioned near the end of the trip. If you can get started down the river by 10 or even 10:30 most days you will be one of the first and a variety of wildlife will be waiting along the banks. Turtles will be sunning themselves on logs, kingfishers will be skimming over the surface hunting, duck will be feeding near the bank and herons flying overhead.

You may spot deer, a raccoon or even a weasel. You never know what you may see. One day I told a group of school kids that just ahead we will see the remains of an old beaver lodge but we would not see any beavers because the lodge had not been used for many years. Just then all of us saw a beaver swimming just ahead of the group. If you do not make it early, late is OK too. An evening paddle is an excellent time to see wildlife along the river and a special treat. If you have your own canoe, a moonlight trip is a special adventure but if you do not have your own, 6 p.m. is the latest time you can rent a canoe. Still, I am always amazed at how quickly after the craziness of the afternoon ends, wildlife returns to the river to hunt, fish and drink. An early evening canoe trip is almost as good as early morning. If you are not into paddling, plan on being the first on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The drive officially opens at nine but often the gate is open much earlier. You are likely to see deer, raccoons or other woodland creatures.

The porcupine is an icon of the north woods, but few visitors have ever seen one. Winter is the best time to find its home. Any of the thousands of folks who have been on one of my snowshoe hikes know that I like to leave the trail to follow animal tracks in the snow. The porky is active all winter but with its short legs its track is more like a trench as its whole body pushes through the snow. Look for its tracks in a forest of big hardwood trees and follow them. Getting around in the snow is hard on the little fellows so they do not travel far. Shortly, the tracks will lead to a tree with no tracks leaving it. If it’s hollow, the porky is likely inside, if it is not hollow, look up. Somewhere up there the porcupine is chewing on the tender bark or sleeping on a limb. If it’s a hollow tree, tap hard on the trunk and you will hear the critter scuttering about inside. Winter hiking is also the time to find the den trees of raccoons and old nests of your favorite birds so you will know where to look come spring.

Unfortunately, wildlife is too common in campgrounds. Chipmunks, raccoons, skunks and opossums are fun to see but in the campground they have lost their natural fear of people and can be hazardous. They are still wild animals; not only can they bite and claw but they may also carry rabies. Watch them from a distance and keep them out of your campsite by keeping food stored in the car and chasing them away if necessary. You are not doing them any favors by giving them food. As the signs in the campground say, “A Fed Raccoon is a Dead Raccoon.” A few years ago, there were so many raccoons in the D. H. Day campground that professional exterminators had to be hired. They captured and removed about three dozen animals, which were then put to sleep.

An early summer wildlife viewing opportunity is to stop and see the nesting Piping Plover. The most reliable place to stop is at the mouth of the Platte River. The nesting area is closed and a fenced enclosure is set up around each nest to protect the parents and chicks from predators. Piping Plover are so rare that a ranger, intern or volunteer watches each nest from a distance with a telescope. The “plover patrol” folks are happy to answer your questions and give you a chance to view the birds through the telescope. You can ask at the Visitor Center for other locations around the Lakeshore where you can view the rare Piping Plover.

Enjoy your Lakeshore vacation, keep your eyes open, and add some wildlife viewing to your activity list.

Bill Herd is a retired National Park interpreter.

From staff reports

Whether we tuck in for a winter’s night of DVD-watching or make the snowy trek to one of the area’s theaters or cinemas, we can’t consider our experience “complete” without some hot, buttered popcorn and a frosty beverage. It’s a time-honored tradition. — Submitted by Pat Stinson, movie-and-popcorn lover and Glen Arbor Sun contributor.

Photos courtesy of Mr. Empire, Dave Taghon

(Reprinted by permission, Empire Area Heritage Group. From “Some Other Day: Remembering Empire,” pages 38-39.)

By Fernette Frehse Walls

One of the smallest business concerns of the village of Empire was the popcorn business. It was owned and operated by Clarence and Etta Thompson. Clarence will always be remembered as “Tompy.” Tompy was probably the shortest man in town but his size was no deterrent to his ambition.

They produced their own popcorn, husked and shelled it by hand, and knew exactly where to store it so that it always popped. Tompy did the popping over a kerosene stove burner in a large wire corn popper, which hung from the ceiling of the popcorn wagon by way of a bale on the popper and a hook in the ceiling. Etta did the buttering, sacking, and selling. She used genuine butter, and the corn was buttered right down to the last kernel in the sack. The price of a good sized sack was 5 cents.

The wagon was an enclosed box with windows that opened all around, mounted on a buggy chassis. There was plenty of room inside for both of them. The means of mobility were not reckoned in horsepower but in a man power — one man power, Tompy himself. He had made for himself a leather harness which he wore and hooked it onto the thills, between which, ordinarily, a horse would be hitched. He moved it like this from his home to a spot in front of Bowen’s Barbershop, next to the bank. They never missed a Saturday night through spring, summer, and fall in all the years that they had it. They also had a place allotted them at the Benzie-Leelanau Fair Ground, and they made a trip to the Old Settler’s Picnic every year. For the trip to the Old Settler’s picnic, they hired a horse from Mike Horen’s livery barn.

The money they realized from this business was deposited in a separate account to be used for the purchase of an automobile. The day finally came when they bought a bright, shiny black and brass Model-T Ford.

George Tweddle and son, David, in their Empire ginseng garden. Photo courtesy of Empire Area Museum

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

All the farmers drove Mercedes,
the occasional BMW,
and all that they were farmin’
was a mere hectare or two.
What in heaven’s name
could be the source of all this wealth?
It’s just a funny, gnarled root
that some folks nibble for their health.
And they call it

You can hear the cash registers ringin’
Ginseng, ginseng
All the wealth it could be bringin’.
Across the wide Pacific,
in China far away,
a billion folks think it’s terrific.
They eat it every day.

From the song “Ginseng” ©1995, Alex Sinclair.
Used by permission.

They sleep in the shade of maples, poplars and oaks, their parents’ aged, yellow heads nodding above them. In October, a stiff breeze or squirrel’s impatience knocked their berry-red cradle to the ground. Now, they wait for a blanket of decaying leaves to cover them, so the earth’s moist breath can force new sprouts from their tiny husks. Two springs will pass before they emerge from their leaf layer and slowly grow a single leaf of their own, while sending down a root that can grow to eight inches in length and thicken and twist for more than 50 years, if left in peace.

These roots belong to ginseng (Panax quinquefolis) prized by Asians for centuries for their purported herbal healing properties. The older the root, the more beneficial it’s said to be, whether sipped as tea, eaten in slices or popped as pills.

Ginseng grows wild in this area, as it does it many parts of Michigan. Long winters and mature forests satisfy the plant’s requirement for months of dormancy and shade. Before the turn of the last century, fur companies and others discovered that the aromatic roots could be dried and sold for a handsome sum. They dug as many as they could, until lumbermen stole the shade that the plants needed to survive. Foragers then searched under young trees, and the number of ginseng stalkers grew as its popularity and price increased.

Today, the plant is protected by the Michigan Ginseng Act of 1994 that declared the once-abundant Michigan “Man Root” a threatened species and, thus, illegal to harvest. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Management Division strictly enforces the law with close monitoring and collaboration with other agencies. Stings in coastal areas downstate have reportedly occurred in the last decade, and poachers continue to wander not only wild woods but also private land in search of ginseng, wild or cultivated. Those who cultivate the herb legally for personal use will hardly admit to it, as a result.

Fradds made their backyard beds.

In his 1976 story, “The Legend of the Ginseng Plant and the Wilderness” (in Some Other Day (Remembering Empire), Empire Area Heritage Group, 1987) one-time Empire resident Frank S. Fradd told of building beds for ginseng in the family’s backyard in 1913. He and his dad fashioned a six-foot tall wooden canopy (of “lath”) above the beds to provide shade plus a bit more sunlight than would naturally occur in the forest to speed the growing process. Seeds and roots for the beds were harvested from the woods. Father and son grew the plants for “six or seven years,” but the seeds took too long to produce good-sized roots, and they were heavier and fetched a smaller price on the market. It was a short-lived experiment. The son, Frank, went back to harvesting wild ginseng, sold it to help support himself during the Depression, and hunted it for a total of 30 years.

Made in the shade

Only three large commercial growers in the state are currently certified (inspected and licensed) to sell ginseng, according to John Hill, ginseng project manager for the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA). Two growers cultivate and manage under artificial shade, which produces a more carrot-like root (fewer twists) in three years and brings far less on the market. The other, Great Lakes Wild Woodland Ginseng, uses the natural shade of an Upper Peninsula forest to cultivate its plants, producing a slower-growing product that more closely resembles the wild, gnarly ginseng of the Far East.

For anyone else thinking about riding the ginseng wave of popularity and prosperity, Hill offers a sobering reality. It can take three to five years for the plants to become established, and in that time growers might face a number of challenges that “reduce success and survivability” such as rodents, fungus and disease.

“I talk to somebody about ginseng for about 20 minutes every week,” he said. “I’ve grown some myself. It’s not as simple as sowing seeds.”
After reading Fradd’s account of gathering wild ginseng, the reader learns something about him that most morel hunters can tell you about themselves:

Looking for ginseng was a job I liked, but selling these roots for money was not my greatest reward. That came from learning about nature.

For more about ginseng, visit: www.michigan.gov/mda and search for “ginseng”

Read the local account by Frank Fradd in the excellent Some Other Day available for sale at the Empire Area Museum.

By Grace Dickinson Johnson
Sun contributor
There’s something about an island that lures the traveler from the mainland and beckons the voyager on a passing vessel. Times on South Manitou Island were spent within a mist of great natural beauty.
My sister, Terry Dickinson, and Sandy Holds were best friends during their school years at the Empire Rural Agricultural School. Terry grew up on the south shore of Little Glen Lake, and Sandy on Niagara Street in Empire. They kept in touch over the years. Nearby South Manitou Island, just eight miles off Sleeping Bear Point, is officially part of Glen Arbor Township but now under the jurisdiction of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service). Terry and Sandy’s connections to South Manitou Island were poignant and connected to the days when South Manitou had a resident population, some of whom were descendants of lighthouse keepers, Coast Guardsmen and farmers. Terry and Sandy recently returned to South Manitou to visit the places on the island that held their memories.

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By Larry Kaplan
The following chapter is excerpted from Kaplan’s manuscript, “Life and death on a Great Lake,” which chronicles the stories of local fishermen through the twentieth century: from the Carlson family in Leland’s “Fish Town,” to Native American struggles for fishing rights, to the more recent battles against the invasive sea lamprey.
You can’t stand inside Carlson’s Fisheries for very long without having your attention drawn to the 65-year old news clipping that hangs, framed, in the center of the front wall.
“FISHING BOAT BURNS, ONE MAN RESCUED, FATHER DIES,” reads the banner headline of the August 7, 1941 edition of the Leelanau Enterprise.

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By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
On June 2, the Empire Area Museum’s newest permanent exhibit came to rest on the front lawn after two years of planning and hours of restoration work by Empire museum members and other supporters.
“Most of the work was completed in the last month,” says Dave Taghon, the museum’s president. “We finished the final coat of paint on Thursday (May 29).”

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From staff reports
Rarely seen interior images of 50 cozy summer cottages and narratives provide a portrait of a special place and state of mind evoked by summer cottage living on beautiful Glen Lake. These cottages are viewed against the backdrop of early summer resort life in northern Michigan the first half of the twentieth century. Dietrich Floeter’s duotone photographs and author Barbara Siepker’s captivating historical narratives include personal anecdotes on each cottage. The cottage is shown in its glory and reveals its importance in the lives of its owners and the broader community. In total they document the essence of these wonderful old cottages as well as life and time of bygone years.

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