U.S. Senator Carl Levin and National Lakeshore Superintendent Dusty Shultz break ground on the trail last summer.
From staff reports
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.
The SBHT campaign must raise $400,000 for design and engineering to extend the trail south from the Dune Climb to Empire. Donors of $1,000 or more will be recognized at a permanent donor plaza located at the Dune Climb. Well-known local artist Glenn Wolff created an illustrated map of the trail and donors of $5,000 or more will receive a limited edition signed print.
To donate or learn more about the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail please visit www.sleepingbeartrail.org or contact Pam Darling, Development Director for TART Trails (pam@traversetrails.org or (231) 941-4300).
The Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail is a project of the Leelanau Scenic Heritage Route Committee (LSHR). Trail development is a partnership between the LSHR Committee, the Michigan Department of Transportation, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, and TART Trails. Funding for trail development comes from federal and state grants, foundations, and individual donations.
Update: Due to a power outage on March 8, 2012, we had to reschedule the “Art Talk Series” with Stephanie Mills. She had been reschuled for March 22, 2012 at 7:30pm here at the Glen Arbor Art Association office in Glen Arbor.
Since her galvanic Mills College commencement address in 1969, Stephanie Mills has been speaking, editing, writing and organizing for ecology and social change. The author of scores of essays, articles and seven books, Mills brings her wit, humor and intelligence to the Glen Arbor Art Association for the next “Talk About Art” presentation on March 8 at 7:30 p.m.
In 1969, Mills, then a college valedictorian, leapt into the fledgling ecology movement by announcing that she would never bring a child into an already overpopulated world. In succeeding years she plunged into San Francisco’s environmental activism, working with David Brower, Stewart Brand, Paul Ehrlich and Joan MacIntyre, among others. This winning memoir is both a retrospective of the movement and a personal account of Mills’s own shift from environmentalism on an abstract and global scale to bioregionalism, which is practical and local in scope.
Mills has called Cedar home since 1984. She built a modest studio on her property, and for decades processed her thoughts into words on a manual typewriter. These thoughts spring from years of keen, sometimes bemused, always deeply thought-through observation of both the human and natural worlds. Mills will talk about her writing life, its inspirations and influences. Copies of her books will be available March 8 after her presentation at the Glen Arbor Art Association.
“Talk About Art” presents regional artists in conversation about their artmaking and thinking. The series continues through April and is open to the public without charge. The Art Association is located across from Cherry Republic on Studio Lane. For more information, please call (231) 334-6112.
Are you nuts if you jump through frozen ice into a frigid lake in February? Perhaps. But if you jump, take a victory lap, and then jump again, you’re definitely nuts! Check out this video of Empire resident Gerry Shiffman (with Jack Gyr and others) taking part in the annual Polar Dip as part of Empire’s Winterfest this past weekend. And here’s Gyr making the case for the dip.
The girls shoot the ski; Tim relaxes. Photo by Margaret Michael
From staff reports
Art’s Tavern owner Tim Barr turned 60 years young on Feb. 14. Nearly 100 Glen Arbor locals came out to the tavern last night to celebrate him. Riverfront Deli owner Sue Nichols baked these cupcakes in Tim’s likeness (photo below), and Beach Bard Norm Wheeler recited the following poem for Tim (adapted from Stone Circle founder Max Ellison’s poem “50″):
“When you’re gettin’ up to 60, then I think you’d better stop
And recollect a little why you’ve never reached the top,
Before your time down here is over, and they chuck you ‘neath the sod
With a sure and solemn promise that you’re headed back to God.
Well, you never raised a fortune, least ways not the kind you bank,
But you did a lotta hellin’, and you stood above the rank
When it come to flirtin’ with women, you was johnny-on-the-spot,
And you flirted with a million, now you’re 60, you gotta stop!
‘Cause your back is gettin’ achy and your beard is turnin’ gray,
And you’ve surely raced your motor too damned much along the way,
And now you hear your hormones shuffling slowly down the line
Sayin’ “Brother, you’ve had it, now you’re 60 – TAKE YOUR TIME!”
Steve Yancho was Chief of Natural Resources at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
From staff reports
Steve Yancho, Chief of Natural Resources at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, retired on December 31 of last year after 36 years with the National Park Service (NPS) — nearly 34 of them at the Sleeping Bear. Yancho, a Michigan native and graduate of the Michigan Technological University School of Forestry, started with the National Park Service in 1974 as a seasonal ranger. After a series of appointments at Isle Royale National Park and Fire Island National Seashore, he began working at Sleeping Bear Dunes in 1978 and had been there ever since.
During his tenure at the Lakeshore, Steve held several positions and a variety of responsibilities, including law enforcement as a ranger first on South Manitou Island, then the Platte River District, and a stint as Chief Ranger; Fire Management Officer, Lands Officer, and Hazardous Materials Specialist, until ultimately becoming the Lakeshore’s first Chief of Natural Resources in 2003. As South Manitou Island Ranger, Steve was awarded the Department of Interior Valor Award in 1980 for his rescue of a drowning teen in the waters of the Manitou Passage.
After his appointment as Chief of Natural Resources, he made it a professional program, widely respected among peers. Steve’s initiative and diligence led to numerous accomplishments: The Lakeshore anchors the entire Great Lakes population of the endangered Piping Plover. His disturbed lands program has completely restored hundreds of acres of coastal dune and forest habitat, and controlled thousands of acres of invasive plants. He has led pioneering work on the investigation of bird die-offs due to botulism outbreaks related to invasive species in the Great Lakes.
In one way or another, Steve has influenced every natural resource success that this park has had in the past three decades, and in 2009, he was presented the Midwest Regional Director’s Award for Natural Resource Management. As U.S. Geological Service colleague Walt Loope said, using a football analogy, “He’s done everything but lime the field.”
Steve’s hard work, honesty, and courtesy earned the respect of people in local communities, even when relations were strained with the National Park Service. Steve noted that he retires with mixed feelings; “On one hand, I look forward to the adventures I hope to discover on the road ahead, but on the other, a big part of my life and passion will be left behind.”
He expressed thanks to colleagues in and out of the NPS, saying, “Knowing and working with each of you has been a big part of the special experience I have lived since I began with the NPS in 1974. It is not only the resources that make this a special place to work, but the people I have had the pleasure of working with. The passion and dedication you all bring to your work has made my many years with the NPS memorable and enjoyable.”
Steve and his wife, Dee, plan to enjoy retirement and travel, and to continue to spend time with their three grown sons, all of whom have worked for the National Park Service and/or Eastern National Cooperating Association bookstore at the Lakeshore.
For more information about the National Lakeshore, visit its website at www.nps.gov/slbe.
About the National Park Service: More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America’s 397 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov.
The sudden death of Ben Bricker, early on Monday, December 12, has saddened and shaken not only the Glen Arbor community, but people who loved him in places near and far: his children Cherrie, Bruce, and Beth and their spouses, his brother Bill and sister Barbara, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, in-laws, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances from the many phases of a life long and well-lived.
As the news spread, some were bewildered, exclaiming, “But we just saw him, and he seemed fine!” Others nodded knowing heads: “A heart attack, yes. He’d lost his wife less than two years ago, you know.” “Heartbroken,” still others murmured, wrapping both the departed and themselves in three sad syllables.
But the final melancholy notes of Ben’s passing say little about the person whose life encompassed nearly a century, and whose uncommon touch connected so many people in so many places. He carried the kind of graceful humility that comes from deep certainty, of knowing oneself rooted in strong family foundations, gifts nurtured and supported from an early age, and abundant energy and will. Yes, he had his feet of clay (he was, after all, a ceramist), and he might have felt embarrassed at fulsome public pronouncements of his many attributes. He also would have enjoyed the opportunity his passing has created for people to, “Bring a dish to pass, a bottle to share, a story to tell, and tears to spill,” at his memorial party on December 17 at his home on Little Glen Lake.
Benjamin Smith Bricker was a man of the four elements: First and always, an artist whose fire created objects of useful beauty in forged iron, precious metals and stones, and thrown clay. A man whose love of family extended to the many communities in which he lived — including Winnetka, IL, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Mexico, Tanzania as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1980s, and Glen Arbor – he inspired so many by example to live full, useful, and more interesting lives.
Artist Richard Kooyman of Bear Lake shared, “Ben helped create a place for creativity in this world. He is still a role model for all artists and craftspeople who believe that the arts are one of the most important things we have in life.”
Ben’s earthy side was shaped as a lifelong explorer and educator whose practical ideals energized students: from Nazareth College where he was head of the art department, to his blacksmithing forge, and the studio shared with wife Ananda (and often other family members), to the students at Glen Lake High School where he was still volunteer teaching, to Tanzania where he taught silversmithing, to the vessels he created as donations to the annual Empty Bowls food pantry fundraiser in the Grand Traverse region.
Former Glen Lake art teacher and friend Gretchen Deegan Siebers called him, “My art angel,” and Empty Bowls volunteer Dianne Navarro of Empire lamented the loss of “my new best friend” with whom she was throwing clay pots recently.
In World War II, Ben discovered a love of flight and trained other pilots — the beginning of his lifelong vocation as an educator. He flew his own plane for many years, often on grueling solo journeys across the Midwest to Arizona and New Mexico.
His ideas soared as well, including an unassailable belief in democracy and civil discourse, and he loved to see the development of others’ intellectual and creative gifts. A former neighbor in Muskegon, Vicki Firme Stewart, wrote to Ben’s daughter Cherrie, “I treasure the memories I have of your mom and dad – I learned more from them than anyone would imagine. They shared themselves and their love of life with so many others. They gave us courage and supported dreams. Those gifts are never lost.”
His love of learning extended beyond his own death as well; he donated his body to the University of Michigan for study. One can imagine him leaning forward, white beard jutting, to look in delighted curiosity at the proceedings: “What will they find? How was I put together from this or that angle? How well did I hold up, here and here and here?”
Finally, Ben knew watery depths. As a young man, his skill at diving won him a place in the 1944 U.S. Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to the ongoing world war. He continued to love the water all his life, drawing inspiration and enjoyment from his home on Little Glen Lake; as recently as 2010, he trained and competed in a seniors’ swim race, despite some health problems and the loss of his beloved wife earlier in the year. Though his feelings ran deep, he wasn’t one to wallow in them, preferring to put his energy into whatever action he could in the given day.
What tools best measure a man’s life? Is it worldly success? Love for family? An artistic temperament? A passion for civic engagement? An athlete’s skill and grace? Ben had all of these, and he used them well throughout his 89 years.
Some of Ben’s history is well-known to the community, including his co-founding of the Glen Arbor Art Association. He also told many stories about himself (usually in a humorous vein), and others will continue to share their memories and anecdotes about him. One small tale, told during a holiday dinner at his daughter Beth’s house, aptly illustrates the boy who became the man we knew and loved.
By all accounts, Ben was the “golden lad” of his family in Winnetka. As a young entrepreneur in his father’s bakery during the Depression, he sold day-old goods out the back door in lieu of attending church with the family on Sundays. He gleefully reported that he made enough money to buy himself, at age 14, a new Ford automobile, which he drove out West with two friends in the summer of 1936 – with the blessing of his parents.
As soon as he got the car, he proceeded to take it apart, piece by piece. “The whole thing was only bolted together,” he laughed, “and I wanted to see how it was made.”
The friends traveled along newly-built Route 66, and Ben said that on some of the long journey, they unbolted part of the car’s brake assembly, “so we had more room in back!” As the car descended a long grade or approached a town, they would simply reattach the mechanism, he related very casually.
Periodically, the boys would need to wire home to get more money. Ben would tell his parents to send it to whatever post office was nearby, in care of general delivery, which they did with apparent sanguinity.
Among other adventures that summer, he traveled to southern New Mexico and explored the newly discovered Carlsbad Caverns with the man who had found the vast subterranean chambers. He also worked on a huge ranch, “riding the fence line,” to repair damaged livestock fencing, and eventually made his way home again to Winnetka, via the Great Plains states, in time for the beginning of school that September.
Several years ago, Ben decided to write down his wealth of life experiences, with the possibility of publishing a memoir. But after struggling with the scope of the project for a time, he gave up. The truth is, although he had many fascinating stories to tell, Ben Bricker just didn’t have a talent for sitting around chewing the bone of bygone times. He was too attuned to meet each new day as it came: good, bad, painful, serene, tiresome, or exciting.
But this uncommon man didn’t need to write his biography on paper. He had already etched his life on the hearts and in the characters of the people he had touched in his nearly nine decades. His legacy lies in the continuation of that creative spirit through each of us, as celebrated in the words of Walt Whitman: “… and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the rich fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
A memorial service will be held Saturday, from 2-5 p.m. at the family’s cottage on Little Glen Lake — 6847 South Dune Highway. Bring a dish to pass, a bottle to share, a story to tell, and tears to spill. Also read Arrowood’s feature and Ben and Ananda Bricker’s improbable 1942 honeymoon on Little Glen, and read about the pioneers who started the Glen Arbor Art Association.
This GlenArbor.com story was sponsored by Wildflowers, a delightful cornerstone of shops in Glen Arbor, offering over an acre of beautiful gardens for customers to stroll through and enjoy in the spring, summer and fall.
When I spoke on the phone recently with Derek Bailey, current chair of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and now Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, he was crossing the Mackinac Bridge and returning home to Traverse City. The tires on his 2005 Saturn VUE hummed loudly as he passed over the rumble strips on the majestic arch that connects Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
That bridge is already a well-worn path for Bailey, who traverses the northern part of the state once or twice a week to build political support for his congressional bid next November. He hopes to unseat Tea Party-backed freshman Republican Dan Benishek and represent Michigan’s 1st District, which, following redistricting, now encompasses Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Manistee and half of Mason counties as well as the tip of the mitten and the entire Upper Peninsula. But first he’ll have to win the Democratic primary against Gary McDowell, who lost handily to Benishek last fall. The Congressional seat was previously held by Blue Dog Democrat Bart Stupak, who didn’t seek re-election following the beating he suffered during the health care debate. Whoever wins the primary will likely receive handsome financial support from the national Democratic Party, which has made it clear that it will prioritize reclaiming blue districts that it lost in 2010.
If Bailey succeeds, it will be because he is a bridge builder and not just a bridge crosser. Only eight Native Americans have served in Congress in this country’s 235-year history, and Bailey would be the first from the Midwest. While the dynamic 38-year-old (he turns 39 on Dec. 3) will surely win votes from Indian country, he’ll need crossover appeal to win white voters too. And he’ll need to bridge the heated partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans. The 1st District is considered conservative, but Stupak, a centrist Democrat, held it for 18 years. Can Derek Bailey, who wears his long dark hair in a traditional ponytail and rides a black Victory Kingpin 8-Ball motorcycle, tap into a long history of “Bill Milliken” Michigan moderates?
“I’ve been able to work as tribal chairman with local, state and federal officials from both parties,” said Bailey, who claims that during his exploratory campaign he received emails of support from both sides of the aisle. Half of the members on his exploratory committee were Republican. “I’ve had successful working relationship with Democrats and Republicans … I don’t want to be looked at as a tribal vote.”
The native vote will no doubt come out strong for Bailey. Of Michigan’s 12 Indian tribes, eight are located in the 1st District — five in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) and three in the upper third of the mitten. Through his wife Tonia, who is half Alaskan Native, a quarter Standing Rock Sioux and a quarter Ojibwe, and their three sons, Nimkees, 12, Ohsawkihew, 8, and Maengun, 3, and two daughters, Daanis, 13, and Panika, 11, Bailey has familial ties to the Bay Mills Indian community and the Keweenaw Bay Indian community, both in the U.P. Derek’s father is Odawa (typically spelled “Ottawa” in English) and his mother is of Norwegian descent. During the campaign, Tonia and the kids are living in the town of Brimley near Sault Ste Marie.
“I think we need more people in Congress who understand tribal sovereignty,” he told 2,800 American Indian and Alaska Native leaders. “I know it and I advocate for sovereignty issues. I will do the same in Congress.” Bailey told the crowd that current Congressman Benishek hasn’t connected with people in the 1st District. “He sent my tribe a letter and did not even spell the word ‘Chippewa’ right. I know he does not understand our issues.”
As tribal chairman since 2008 — the youngest in the Grand Traverse Band’s history — Bailey has championed job-creation and the environment, two pillars around which his campaign is building. The tribe fluctuates between the second- and third-biggest job provider in northwest-lower Michigan, following Munson Medical Center in Traverse City and tied with Traverse City Area Public Schools. The tribe’s job creation power surged when it acquired the Grand Traverse Resort in 2003, and again when the doors opened to the new Turtle Creek Casino in nearby Williamsburg in June 2008.
“I told Governor Rick Snyder, ‘I hope you are the first Michigan governor who recognizes the economic impact of the tribe, through gaming’. That’s never highlighted, but it’s substantial.” In an effort to straddle that political middle ground, Bailey includes photos of himself with both Michigan’s Republican governor and President Barack Obama on his campaign website, DerekBaileyforCongress.com.
Meanwhile, Bailey touts the austerity measures that the Grand Traverse Band took during the economic recession. Government cuts, he knows, could win him support among conservatives. “We worked with tribal leaders to reduce our budget by over $5 million. Some services were scaled back but we maintained most of our services. Those were tough choices, but we didn’t run a deficit or leave our future leaders in an economic hole.”
Bailey’s advocacy for the environment is where he can build support among liberals and, perhaps unique to northern Michigan, conservatives too — though he claims that Benishek has done nothing to support the environment, whereas Stupak was a vocal supporter of protecting the Great Lakes.
“When I’m advocating for the Grand Traverse Band on stopping Asian Carp or other invasive species, that’s something that’s relevant to all of us,” explained Bailey. “These issues affect our entire region.”
He writes on his website, “Protection of our greatest natural resource must be shown through a commitment driven by knowledge, understanding and spirit. I will bring that strong northern Michigan voice to the halls of Congress,”
That’s where the rising leader’s Native heritage comes into play. Though sensitive to American Indian stereotypes, he embraces the image of the Native as the caretaker of Mother Earth. “We need to protect what we have been given by our ancestors: we need to love our waters, our land, and save them for future generations. So when I advocate for the environment, it has a deeper meaning.”
Bailey was recently awarded the 2011 Glen T. Miller Tribal Leadership Award from the Great Lakes Region of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society in Wisconsin for his “outstanding leadership on natural resource issues, and the protection of Indian hunting and fishing rights on behalf of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.”
He crossed another bridge early this year when he signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Michael Parks. The agreement, signed on Jan. 28 at the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce, formalized cooperation between the Coast Guard and the Grand Traverse Band to solidify an enduring relationship.
“That exemplifies a government-to-government relationship — hands reached out to each other and saying ‘let’s work together’,” said Bailey. “We’re willing to pay for better commitment, for safety, and for opportunities for our children to explore a career in the Coast Guard, and for the Coast Guard to learn culturally from the Grand Traverse Band.”
Derek Bailey’s most unique attribute may be his experiences working with the needy and impacting people on a personal level. Before making this run for office, he wasn’t a lawyer or a businessman, but a social worker. At 25, Bailey received a Master’s of Social Work from Grand Valley State University then worked as a therapist at Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services and as a substance abuse counselor with Project Rehab, which helped inmates at Kent County Jail in Grand Rapids.
“To have a degree in social work has been a tremendous asset,” Bailey analyzed his resume. “As a political leader, passing legislation is at a macro level. But having the experience of working with families and communities and understanding the impact of social issues on individuals, that’s at a micro level. It’s rewarding to me if I can use my education to help others in need.”
When I asked Bailey what his proudest moments have been thus far, he quickly listed meeting President Obama three times, his appointment to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education last year, his accomplishments as chair of the Grand Traverse Band, and signing the memorandum of understanding with the Coast Guard. But then he focused on a congratulatory card he received — and still has — from the elders of the Grand Traverse Band upon getting his Associate’s degree from Glen Oaks Community College near Three Rivers, Mich.
“Being away at college and knowing they are wishing you well: that showed me at the time that I could go out in the world but that I’d always have the community there standing behind me.” Ever since then, Bailey has wanted to give back to his Native community, and honor his roots.
“When you see a luncheon event with both youth and elders, where the elders are playing bingo and the youth are playing along, or serving them food and cleaning up the tables. That’s an intergenerational exchange, and you know there’s learning going on there.”
The analogies between Bailey and Obama are tempting to make. Both are young, dynamic and philosophical leaders who have made meteoric rises through politics: when Obama was running for President, Bailey was running for tribal chair. Both worked on the community level with disenfranchised populations before they ran for office. Both come from minority communities that have been oppressed throughout the history of the United States. Both are bi-racial, half-minority and half-white, and represent a cultural bridge, and perhaps a wound healer. Obama broke the nation’s ultimate color barrier. Bailey hopes to carry a torch that very few Natives before him have done. And of course, they have met on several occasions.
Bailey seemed uncomfortable with the analogy when I floated it over the phone, probably because admitting it might seem arrogant, and because he wants to appeal to voters from both parties next fall.
But Bailey did concede that he has learned a lot from Obama’s employment of Internet-based social media and government transparency. He appears to be harnessing the same strategy to appeal to voters — using Facebook, Twitter and weekly email blasts. He has also recorded Grand Traverse Band presentations so that they could air later on public access television. Bailey said that, under his reign, the Tribe has also paid for advertisements in the Traverse City Record-Eagle to show how its money is spent.
“Government transparency is something I believe in, and my actions as chairman have been extremely transparent … I have treated media as a fourth arm of government.”
Perhaps the greatest complement that Bailey has received in this digital age came from Lee Sprague, the “Ogema” or “leader” of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians.
“You’re the first e-Ogema,” Sprague told Bailey.
This GlenArbor.com article is sponsored by the Martin Company, a company with unmatched experience in the local real estate market.
As autumn recedes under the lowering, snow-filled skies of winter, curl up in a warm place with the newest book of essays by celebrated nature writer Jerry Dennis, with wood engravings by the incomparable Glenn Wolff. Or better yet, follow the writer outside, as he takes you on a guided exploration along The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes. The book continues Dennis’ complex relationship with a region that he says is difficult to easily define or know, as it encompasses so many diverse elements, loved or used or thrown away by so many.
Yet, “It is land held together by water. That is one feature shared throughout,” whose shore becomes a place of acute observation, action, meditation and mediation both literal and symbolic, between the natural and the human, the beautiful and the damaged, the raw and the refined. And always, the coldness that accompanies our most extreme season, which holds a surprising abundance for Dennis — and, he hopes, the reader — who choose to know a place more deeply.
His most recent previous book, The Living Great Lakes, took him on a more linear journey, a kind of survey of the passing shores inhabited by diverse flora and fauna, structures, peoples, history and lore, while sailing on a two-masted schooner from Traverse City to the ocean at Bar Harbor, Maine. Here, the essays take a different tack: less easily arranged, but more densely woven into encounters with family, friends, neighbors and wild creatures; natural history lessons; statistics; memories and feelings; all filtered through Dennis’ accessible, engaging prose. He includes the fresh retelling of some familiar narratives, a seasoned storyteller bringing forth new insights and vivid imagery from powerfully felt experiences, as in “Beach Walking.” In “Winter Comes to the Keweenaw,” he describes his family’s search for agates along Lake Superior; he seems to urge the reader to become, like the colorfully stratified stones themselves, “bound to the place … and acquired layers of remembrance.” He ponders the surprising categories of things that come in waves, and celebrates the intimate relationship between books and nature. His final chapter, “Field Notes,” provides an unexpected bounty of distilled images and ideas that take on truly poetic force.
Like any long-term, committed relationship, to know is to love — despite (perhaps because of) faults, difficulties and the inevitable ups and downs of the process: “When we reach deeply into the world, the world reaches back,” he posits in his chapter, “Winter Walks.”
While Dennis acknowledges the impossibility of comprehensively knowing the Great Lakes, whose immensity seems to defeat even their most ardent champion, he also knows that we must keep trying. We must face into the wind with sisu — like the stalwart Finns who populated the Upper Peninsula at the turn of the last century — in order to save our unique, wild and beloved place, as well as ourselves.
Jerry Dennis and Glenn Wolff will sign books at Black Star Farm, south of Suttons Bay, on Saturday, Nov. 19, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m,, to benefit the Fishtown Preservation Society. Dennis’ books are available at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor, Leelanau Books, Dog Ears Books, Horizon, and other local venues. For more information, visit www.jerrydennis.net.
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Glenn Wolff interview
We spoke with nationally known artist Glenn Wolff, whose wood engravings grace the cover and pages of The Windward Shore. Wolff grew up in Traverse City, and attended Northwestern Michigan College (he was honored as distinguished alumnus in 2011), where he studied printmaking. After receiving a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, he established a career as a freelance illustrator in New York City. Since 1987 he has been based at his Traverse City studio at www.glennwolff.com.
Glen Arbor Sun: How many book collaborations have you and Jerry done over the years?
Glenn Wolff: Six altogether. It’s Raining Frogs & Fishes and The Bird in the Waterfall were full-on collaborations: covers, end papers, and about 80 illustrations in each book. Then I did chapter illustrations for A Place on the Water, From a Wooden Canoe, and The River Home (I only did endpaper maps for The Living Great Lakes, so I’m not counting that). In 2007 we collaborated on the limited-edition letterpress book Winter Walks with Chad Pastotnik from Deep Wood Press — probably one of the most fun projects ever. Jerry, Chad, and I also collaborated on a broadside titled The Trout in Winter. Jerry and I currently have a seventh book proposal out there now: our collection from the “Natural Enquirer” columns that we did for Wildlife Conservation Magazine back in the ‘90s.
Sun: How did your first book, 1992’s It’s Raining Frogs & Fishes, come about?
Wolff: I was visiting a mutual friend to discuss an illustration workshop we were going to teach when Jerry called. She said, “You guys need to get together!” and handed me the phone. We had lunch, hit it off, and hatched the idea for Frogs and Fishes at that meeting.
Sun: What’s your creative process when you’re working on something? For instance, do you go on a hike and simply absorb what’s out there? Do you make preliminary sketches, then continue to work in the studio, or take photos, or some combination of these?
Wolff: All of the above. Sometimes I’m sketching in the field (my favorite), often finishing off an illustration in the studio, frequently buried in a reference book that describes the angle of the sun during a rainbow, the life cycle of a mayfly, or the benthic layer at the bottom of a lake. The thing I try to avoid the most is taking photos to work from. It always seems false to me, and if I have to do it, it is just for a technical note.
Sun: Remind me what technique these “wood” cuts are. Did you learn or hone this method from your work with Chad Pastotnik? How do you add color?
Wolff: We all did linoleum block prints in school. This is basically that same process of relief printing, only one carves into the end grain of wood for wood engravings. There is also a composite called “resingrave” that I use on most of my prints now. It’s harder than linoleum, a bit more consistent than end grain wood, and allows one to get a lot of nice detail. Chad has helped and mentored me a great deal with this process. The color, usually watercolor, is added by hand after the print has dried.
Sun: What is your favorite medium at the moment? What exciting projects are you working on now?
Wolff: I’m really enjoying the diversity of several styles at the moment. Straight pen and ink illustration, wood engraving, and mixed media painting on wood. I’ve just finished several new engravings for another limited edition book with Chad. This one is a short story by Judith Minty called “Killing the Bear” and should be out around Christmas. It’s very sparsely written, and I found it quite haunting. I’ve also finished doing 50 botanical label illustrations for a store in Florida that just opened. They are for a line of flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegars. That was a collaboration with Emily Mitchell and Tim Nielsen from Nielsen Design Group — good friends and my favorite graphic designers. Yesterday I got the go-ahead from Red House Records to do the cover artwork for Claudia Schmidt’s next CD, Bend in the River, and will be working on that over the next month.
Sun: Are you showing in galleries?
Wolff: YES! I’m currently represented by Gallery 50 in Traverse City. I am also in a group show at Gallery in the Woods in Brattleboro, Vermont, and have a solo show at Uncommon Ground in Chicago, which will be moving to the Images Cooperative Gallery on Dec. 5, with a reception on Dec. 10. I am also represented by the Elaine Fleck Gallery in Toronto, and Kuhlhaus Gallery in Harbor Springs. AND I’ve just had the honor of being invited to be the artist-in-residence at the Old Art Building in Leland next summer.
Sun: I see some of your prints at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor. And I know you and Jerry Dennis will be at Black Star Farm on Nov. 19. Anything else?
Wolff: I will have prints and originals at the Zonta Festival Art Nook on Sunday, Nov. 20 at the Hagerty Center in Traverse City. And I have an online-only special of the wood engraving featured on the jacket of The Windward Shore. The hand-colored limited edition of 100 is matted with acid-free backing, in an acetate sleeve. Orders in November include a copy of the book signed by Jerry and me, with a pencil remarque by me also, at www.glennwolff.com
Sun: I wish you could have done an illustration of the sentence on p.77 of The Windward Shore that goes, in part: “Open the cover, and out would rush starlings…”
Wolff: I love that sentence, too. Some words need nothing, are cinematic, and basically are just too damned good to profane with illustrations!
This GlenArbor.com article is sponsored by LVR Realty and Leelanau Vacation Rentals. With more than 130 Great Places to Stay, Leelanau Vacation Rentals offers top quality vacation properties.
Anatomy of a northern Michigan social media campaign
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Ever since Wednesday, August 17, Northern Michiganders have both embraced and grappled with the news that the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and surrounding region are considered the “most beautiful place in America” — at least according to 22 percent of 100,000 voters who participated in the ABC show Good Morning America’s online competition the second week of August.
Sleeping Bear narrowly beat out Asheville, N.C., for the top spot and also bested vista heavyweights, Newport, R.I., Cape Cod, Mass., Point Reyes, Calif., Aspen, Col., Sedona, Ariz., Destin, Fla., Lanikai Beach, Hawaii, and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Those vanquished opponents are known worldwide for their beaches, their lobster, their sunsets, their skiing and their peaks. Suffice to say, we’re now on the map too.
Here’s how it happened.
In June, Good Morning America (GMA) solicited online nominations, photos and testimonials from its viewers to help pick the top 10 most beautiful places nationwide. Jim Madole of Grand Rapids, Mich., nominated Sleeping Bear with these words:
“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.”
“Here at Sleeping Bear,” he continued, “I sit in awe and wonder at the perfection of Mother Nature.”
In late July, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Deputy Superintendent Tom Ulrich received a call from GMA videographer and journalist Sabrina Parise in New York to inquire about stock video footage of the area. Ulrich referred her to MyNorth.com, the website of Traverse Magazine, which recently produced a DVD video titled “Journey into Sleeping Bear Dunes”.
On Thursday, July 28, Parise flew to Traverse City, rented a car and drove to Glen Arbor, where she met Traverse Magazine editor Lissa Edwards and MyNorth.com’s Rachel North for lunch at Blu, Randy Chamberlain’s gourmet restaurant at Le Bear Resort on Sleeping Bear Bay.
North recalls that Chamberlain opened the deck for them so that Parise could eat lunch while gazing out at the Manitou Passage — the stretch of water between the mainland and the Manitou Islands, where passing ships often find safe haven from Lake Michigan storms. The sky was so overcast that the islands were not visible¬ — an uncharacteristically hazy late July day. Nevertheless, Parise was smitten. This was her first trip to Glen Arbor, and all the New York journalist knew of the area was what she had seen on MyNorth.com and on the National Lakeshore’s website.
For lunch, North blogged that Chamberlain served them creamy amuse bouche with a cherry garnish, morels, local greens, walleye, crawdads, cherries, Leelanau raclette and smoked whitefish in an incredible cucumber soup, rounded out by cherry cobbler covered in Moomer’s Ice Cream.
Edwards was Parise’s first tour guide. That afternoon they visited the Dune Climb and Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. With video camera in tow, a smitten Parise told Edwards, “Wow, it looks like we’re on top of the globe.”
North firmly believed that Edwards was the perfect ambassador for Sleeping Bear. “Lissa has a nice, three-legged approach to the dunes. She’s been reporting on them for 15 years, and she’s been a conservation supporter of the dunes for a couple decades. She understands that this place needs as much protection as it does exposure.”
Articulating to Good Morning America the fine line between recreation and preservation — that complex dance that we choreograph every tourism season — was Edwards’ job. She chronicled the history of the National Lakeshore for Parise, its cultural significance, and how the dunes came to be protected.
“When you talk about Northern Michigan, you talk about people who are absolutely committed to promoting it in a mature way,” reflected Rachel North. “We understand that we don’t want dune buggies tearing up our dunes. We don’t want condominiums everywhere. We understand conservation, and conservancies. And yet we invite thousands every year to come and visit … without giving it away.”
Early that evening, Parise checked into the historic Inn at The Homestead. The resort north of Glen Arbor had been nearly full — this being late July, and the visit being a spontaneous one — but Vice President of Sales & Marketing Jamie Jewell shuffled a few reservations to accommodate Parise and give her a view of Sleeping Bear Bay, a stone’s throw from where the Crystal River joins Lake Michigan. Jewell had arranged to meet Parise the following night for dinner, but as she was about to leave the office for the day, Jewell remembered that the Manitou Music Festival was holding a concert on top of The Homestead’s ski hill that evening. Instead, she invited her New York guest to ride the chairlift to the top of the mountain for a performance by the Celtic quartet Blackthorn and then to Nonna’s afterwards for appetizers and local wine.
“She was lovely,” recalls Jamie Jewell. “She was excited to be here … we sometimes get a bad rap (outside of the Midwest) because everyone thinks Michigan is Detroit. She had no idea there was any place like this in Michigan.”
On Friday, Park Deputy Superintendent Tom Ulrich — the first person to be contacted by Good Morning America — toured Parise through parts of the National Lakeshore that Lissa Edwards hadn’t already shown her. Rather than hike up the Empire Bluffs or Pyramid Point with all her camera equipment, Ulrich took her to the Scenic Drive’s Lake Michigan overlook so she could film its spectacular view. The following day, he sent her to South Manitou, and one of his rangers gave her a tour of the recently restored lighthouse. That day offered the best weather during Sabrina Parise’s three-day visit.
“When I was out with her, she said she had no idea about the beauty of this area,” said Ulrich. “This is a not uncommon reaction for people from around the country. They hear of a beautiful place in Michigan. But when people think of national parks, they think of mountains and ocean coasts.”
Ulrich has worked in other picturesque national parks, including Rocky Mountain and Crater Lake National Park. He chuckles at how friends and former colleagues from those parks react when they first encounter Sleeping Bear: “They come here to visit. Their jaws drop and they say, ‘Tom I had no idea there was anything like this here.’ Even though they’ve worked in amazing places too.”
Social media blitz
Parise returned to New York on Sunday, and a week later Good Morning America began featuring two of its 10 “most beautiful places in America” every weekday morning. Our turn came on Tuesday, Aug. 9. (along with Point Reyes, Calif.). Many of the approximately 4.5 million viewers who regularly watch GMA saw Parise’s video (and anchor Josh Elliott’s narration) of Sleeping Bear’s aerial views and pristine waters for the very first time. Some undoubtedly wrote the word “Michigan” into their future travel calendars. That day The Homestead’s Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitors Bureau website received 10,000 unique visits — far above the typical peak of 1,000 per day.
Voters had until Friday at midnight to cast their ballot on GMA’s website, and if you were online at all that week, you probably received emails, Facebook updates or (Twitter) “Tweets” from MyNorth.com, The Homestead, Leelanau.com, the Glen Lake or Empire Chambers of Commerce, Cherry Republic, the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company, Crystal River Outfitters, the Glen Arbor Sun, or a host of other web-savvy outfits, encouraging you to “pull the lever” for Sleeping Bear.
On Friday afternoon, Aug. 12, GMA discreetly contacted Lissa Edwards, Rachel North and Tom Ulrich to let them know that Sleeping Bear was a top voter-getter, and that the race was tight. Good Morning America was considering sending out a larger film crew to capture more footage early the following week — before the ultimate announcement on Wednesday. To do so, they would need National Park permits through Ulrich (they ultimately decided not to send a crew). Just after 3 p.m. Edwards emailed Jamie Jewell at The Homestead to let her know that the race was close, and Sleeping Bear had a shot at victory.
Fourteen months prior, The Homestead had hired Ileana Habsburg-Snyder to be its social media-Internet marketing guru. Snyder worked from home on Fridays, and at 4 p.m. she was just about to shut down her computer when Jewell called and informed her that it was time to send the campaign into overdrive. Though Snyder had a house full of family and guests at her home near Leland, she cranked out three e-newsletters that evening: one for The Homestead resort, one for the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitors Bureau and one for the Manitou Passage Golf Club, which The Homestead opened last year. Then she perused the web and posted on any Facebook wall she could think of that was related to northern Michigan. Twitter was next. Snyder “tweeted” on each of The Homestead’s accounts in order to draw the attention of as many online-savvy, and Sleeping Bear-aware users as she could. Her e-campaign reached its crescendo when food celebrity Mario Batali re-tweeted her Sleeping Bear Visitor’s Bureau message at 7:45 p.m. from his iPhone. 142,000 Mario Batali Twitter fans instantly saw him endorsing Sleeping Bear as the most beautiful place in America (his following has since surpassed 150,000).
Meanwhile, Homestead CEO Bob Kuras encouraged Jewell to reach out to the State of Michigan, the Governor and Travel Michigan. Jewell was busy communicating with everyone in her online Rolodex. “Tell them to vote on GMA’s website for Sleeping Bear.” Each individual, she hoped, would touch many others. What a great opportunity, she thought to herself, as the emails flooded her Inbox from contacts across country: vendors, work partners, Orbitz travel agents, friends and family. Her message was going viral.
At 9:30 p.m., Snyder sent Jewell a text message saying that she was signing off for the night. Meanwhile, MyNorth had emailed 27,000 people on its e-list. And Cherry Republic had blasted 50,000 customers with its “Orchard Report”, encouraging them to vote for Sleeping Bear. Northern Michigan’s social media campaign — young but potent — was firing on all cylinders.
Edwards, who had been in direct contact with Parise, stopped responding to Jewell’s emails Friday evening. “Whatever, people are busy,” she thought. Then, just before 11 p.m., Jewell received a text from Parise in New York, asking The Homestead vice president to call her. Jewell did so, and learned that Parise needed accommodations for Monday. She was returning for more footage. The race was down to Sleeping Bear and Asheville, N.C. But that was top secret.
Tom Ulrich was the one person in this inner circle who, due to the nature of his employer — the publicly funded National Park Service, wasn’t using online social media to promote or market a product. Perhaps that was why he was informed by GMA over the weekend that Sleeping Bear had won. They knew they could trust him not to post the news on Facebook or Twitter. True to form, he didn’t tell a soul, except his wife, and his boss, National Lakeshore Superintendent Dusty Shultz.
When Sabrine Parise returned on Monday, Aug. 15, to film more Sleeping Bear footage, she focused less on the National Lakeshore and more on Glen Arbor, and the town’s commerce and tourism infrastructure. She spent time on the Crystal River with Matt and Katy Wiesen of Crystal River Outfitters; she visited Cherry Republic, where owner Bob Sutherland (the “Willy Wonka” of cherries) could tell she was exhausted after two hours of filming, and gave her a cherry float; she shot video of Glen Arbor mainstays, the Good Harbor Grill, the Pine Cone, the Totem Shop, Art’s Tavern, Boone Docks, the Cottage Book Shop, Thyme Out and the Glen Arbor Bed & Breakfast.
Parise’s focus on commerce connected the dots for Ulrich. To the National Lakeshore Deputy Superintendent, this wasn’t just a competition to name beautiful places — but beautiful places that also could support tourists.
“The 10 they chose to feature had some kind of support community right there, and not 50 miles away,” said Ulrich. “These destinations are surrounded by places you can stay, tourism infrastructure. Even with Grand Teton, you’ve got Jackson Hole right there. This was deliberate.”
Tuesday afternoon Jamie Jewell received a text message from her sales representative at Traverse Magazine informing her that community leaders would gather at Art’s on Wednesday morning, Aug. 17, to watch GMA’s announcement of the winner. She arrived at 8 a.m. to find the tavern packed with approximately 50 excited locals — Lissa Edwards, the Wiesens, owner Tim Barr, David Marshall, the Fishers, the van Norts … but not an ABC film crew, which she had feared. Bob Sutherland, too, had been granted last-minute permission by his wife Stephanie to leave the kids and join the gang at Art’s.
Good Morning America announced Sleeping Bear as its most beautiful place in America for 2011 in what looked to be Times Square. As they had on Aug. 9, GMA’s anchors chronicled how receding glaciers shaped the Dunes; they compared the beaches and waters to the Caribbean. And they aired an interview with loyal northern Michigan promoter Mario Batali, whose Tweet may have made the difference in the social media campaign.
Back in Glen Arbor, the crowd screamed when Sleeping Bear was crowned the winner. Sutherland said that people were tearing up. The Cherry Republic president called this the most special event of many he’s experienced at Art’s over the years. “I love my company,” he reflected. “But I love my region 10 times more.”
In retrospect, the victory made sense to Sutherland. “Our national park is for most of the people who live in the Midwest,” he said. “We don’t have as much competition as, say, Aspen. No one in the next Rocky Mountain valley is gonna vote for them. And just up the coast from Cape Cod is another national park, so the vote gets split. Whereas we have one iconic spot.”
But there was no champagne or victory dance at Art’s. This was a workday — in the height of the tourism season, and many of the business-owners gathered there had to return to their desks. Within 20 minutes of the announcement, said Jewell, The Homestead received 600 magazine requests from potential visitors. And the National Lakeshore website, which typically receives 1,000 hits per day, jumped to 15,000, followed by 10,000 hits on Thursday, and 7,000 Friday.
More fudgies?
The boost from the victory would be a sustained one, it seemed. Two weeks later, on Labor Day weekend, the traditional end of the major tourism season in Glen Arbor, the Dune Climb parking lot and Scenic Drive were so packed with cars that National Lakeshore employees weren’t admitting new vehicles. Ben Bricker, who lives near the Dune Climb on M-109, counted 300 more cars than he’s ever remembered in the Dune Climb parking and along the road, for half a mile in each direction.
“We had a real strong latter half of August, and one of biggest Labor Days we’ve ever had,” Tom Ulrich confirmed. “In terms of the lines at the Dune Climb and the Scenic Drive, these crowds rivaled the Fourth of July.
What was noteworthy wasn’t that the Dune Climb and the Scenic Drive were packed, he emphasized. It was that — this year at least — Labor Day had become the Fourth of July.
“What this whole GMA coverage has done is to raise Sleeping Bear Dunes in the national consciousness. The next time people plan a vacation — especially in the upper Midwest — they’ll think about the Dunes as option, whether it’s for the fall color tour or next summer as family. We’re gonna see pulse from this that spreads out over time.”
Some locals, and lovers of northern Michigan as a serene and sparsely populated wonderland, have received Good Morning America’s honor with less than open arms. They dread the crowds, hibernate until the tourists leave in the fall, and worry that hundreds of thousands of feet treading on their pristine beaches will destroy them. Understandable.
The claim is also made that tourism in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has increased, annually, since the early-1990s, and that the human footprint will continue to grow. But that claim is false, says Ulrich. In fact, the Park boasted its highest annual total of 1.35 million visitors … in 1999. Since then Americans have suffered an economic recession, gone to war, developed Facebook and built an entire creative class around social media, and Glen Arbor’s tourism infrastructure has ballooned. Still, we haven’t reached 1.35 million visitors.
“We’re behind that pace again, even with the amazing summer we’ve had,” said Ulrich. We’re on pace for the third or fourth biggest year ever in 2011 … some of that is because we had a slow April and May.” Ulrich added that the long-term effect of the GMA recognition could help 2012 make a run at 1999.
“I have to think that even with this attention, it’s not as if visitors are going to double or something crazy,” opined Ulrich. “While those of us who live here say, ‘Don’t bother going to a restaurant in July,’ our perception has little to do with the actual number of visitors. This area is geared for tourism. We have the infrastructure intended for visitors. It may strain on some summer days, but there won’t be a horrible impact — especially if spreads out a bit.”
“The trick,” said Rachel North of MyNorth.com, “will be to encourage people to come here in June and September. That’s the next step for us all.”
The day after GMA’s announcement, The Detroit News, the motor city’s second newspaper, ran a provocative article titled “Sleeping Bear Dunes ‘GMA’ honor perplexing to some”, which questioned whether Sleeping Bear was even the prettiest place in the state. “It’s nice but I can think of a bunch better,” said a woman from Mount Pleasant. The story concluded that the victory “may have had more to do with an intensive lobbying campaign in northwest Michigan.” Then on August 24, Crain’s Detroit Business ran a story titled “The sleeping giant behind Sleeping Bear: How scenery and social media created ‘The Most Beautiful Place in America’.”
The point was clear. While Glen Arbor may owe its beauty to pristine dunes and beaches, the National Lakeshore and tourism infrastructure, glaciers and Manitou islands, a mature local social media machine helped secure the victory. Each deserves credit for the GMA honor.
That sentiment worries Tom Ulrich a bit. “If people think we won because of social media presence, wouldn’t that kind of backfire? People who saw the piece might feel cheated.” Perhaps until they wade in Sleeping Bear Bay or run down the Dune Climb, that is. It’s hard to feel cheated at those majestic spots.
I asked Ulrich whether he considered this the most beautiful place in America, given that he’s worked in other picturesque national parks. The National Lakeshore official, always careful with his words, wouldn’t commit to a simple answer.
“This is definitely one of the most beautiful places in America. But it’s a very personal thing. I’m the kind of person who can’t name you just one: there are so many different places. It’s the same with my favorite band. It all depends on my mood at the time.”
Mayberry no more
There’s no denying northern Michigan’s social media prowess and ability to promote this region we love. Ileana Habsburg-Snyder’s role at The Homestead is a testament to that. So is Mario Batali’s Twitter account, MyNorth.com’s website, and Cherry Republic’s weekly e-newsletter.
“We have a distance relationship with most of our customers,” said Bob Sutherland. “We don’t see them every day like businesses in some regions do. They come and see us, and then go away for nine months. So we’ve developed an Internet-based relationship.”
Sutherland sends his weekly “Orchard Report” to some 50,000 recipients. It typically includes details on certain Cherry Republic products, “news from the north,” a trivia question of the week, and a personalized paragraph at the bottom written by Bob, in which he talks about his wife, children, and their adventures of the previous week.
“After I send out the Orchard Report, I can’t go through town without people asking about my kids,” said Sutherland. “Former U.S. Senator Don Riegle stopped me on the side of the road recently and talked for 15 minutes about the Orchard Report and how that’s his tie back to northern Michigan.”
While the Orchard Report, Facebook and Twitter are all relatively new on the scene, the presence in northern Michigan of a population on the cutting edge is not new. Rachel North recalls seeing a map four or five years ago in USA Today that showed the infiltration of technology and where the Internet was taking hold the most. Colored in red she saw a little pinky finger on the map that represented the Leelanau-Grand Traverse region and ran up toward Petoskey.
“I think frankly that the people who live and work here are highly technically oriented — they are a very creative class. Many here run a bed & breakfast and used to work in the automotive industry downstate and understand sophisticated programs and policies. They leave that work behind but they don’t leave knowledge behind.”
Sutherland concurs. “So many of the retirees up here have been very successful, and now they are running chambers of commerce and things. We’re talking about a bunch of ex-CEOs.”
North vividly recalls the day that Traverse Magazine made the jump into the digital age. Three years ago publisher Deborah Wyatt Fellows called a management meeting and told her staff, “We’re no longer a magazine company. We’re now a media company. That means video, and online …” She saw the direction things were heading.
Perhaps it was our social media infrastructure that surprised folks in Detroit and New York even more than our stunning vistas did. For while this may be the rural Midwest, where a friendly, folksy attitude prevails, this is not Mayberry (the fictional town in North Carolina, which was the setting for the Andy Griffith Show).
“I think (New Yorkers) would be surprised,” said North. “They talk about how friendly we are, and use the expression ‘Mayberry’. But if you were in Mayberry, you couldn’t go to the Interlochen Arts Academy and hear world-class music. You couldn’t dine at Blu or La Becasse, Red Ginger or Stellas in Traverse City. New Yorkers have trouble coming up with a moniker that describes this friendly, yet culturally sophisticated northern Michigan.”
And now that Sleeping Bear is considered the most beautiful place in America by a major Manhattan-based media network, more and more people are sure to discover both our setting and our sophistication.
On Labor Day weekend, Cherry Republic’s front patio on Lake Street was so busy that Bob Sutherland began walking through the crowd asking visitors how they had heard of his company. About every fifteenth person, he estimated, learned about Cherry Republic through Good Morning America. He met a tourist who had left the East Coast and was en route to Portland, Oregon, when they saw GMA on television and decided to take a detour to Sleeping Bear. Cherry Republic also received a call from a woman in San Diego who had seen the show and wanted to visit this fall. Where could she stay, she asked?
At The Homestead, Bob Kuras ran into a couple at Nonna’s who were from Toronto and had time for one more trip before summer ended. Upon seeing GMA, they chose Glen Arbor. This is shaping up to be the resort’s biggest September ever, confirmed Jamie Jewell.
But nothing quite topped the story of Shelly and Jeff Plumb, a couple from Butler, Missouri, whose wedding plans on Cape Cod were dashed by Hurricane Irene and its torrential downpour all over New England in late August. Friends back in Missouri who had watched GMA told them about Sleeping Bear, and they decided to “honeymoon” here. While shopping in Glen Arbor, Shelly and Jeff’s story reached Black Swan owner Christy Marshall — a legal wedding officiant. Homestead resident Helen Muzzin offered the beach outside her South Beach condominium for the setting, and Christy’s husband and County Commissioner David Marshall served as the official witness. An impromptu Glen Arbor wedding, made possible by Sleeping Bear’s social media machine.
Northern Michigan wasn’t the only Good Morning America finalist to use a social media campaign to get out its vote, of course. In early September I called the Convention and Visitors Bureau in GMA runner-up Asheville, North Carolina, to inquire about that area’s social media infrastructure, and learned about ExploreAsheville.com and the Asheville Citizen-Times and the Mountain Xpress’ Facebook pages. But when I mentioned that I publish a magazine in Glen Arbor, Michigan, (and without rubbing in the victory) communications director Dodie Stevens became excited at the other end of the line, and said that colleagues of hers in the office had been to the Sleeping Bear Dunes and told her about the cherries.
“I love cherries,” Stevens said. “I want to come visit.”
(Speaking of social media, local videographer extraordinaire Justin Warnes recorded the crowd that walked the Narrows Bridge on Labor Day as saying, “Good morning America from the Sleeping Bear Dunes!” This video has been viewed nearly 2,500 times online. Watch it below.)
This GlenArbor.com online story was brought to you by Pegtown Station. In the heart of Maple City, Pegtown Station boasts among the best homemade pizza, subs and salads in northern Michigan, according to the Northern Express’ “Readers Choice Awards”.
Cindy Hollenbeck isn’t a political animal. True, she has visited the State Capitol in Lansing many times during her 23 years as a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Glen Lake School, but those have been annual school fieldtrips for her pupils to learn about government. Hollenbeck’s favorite memories from those trips are of her students delivering books to poor schools in Lansing and becoming pen pals with their disadvantaged, urban counterparts.
So Hollenbeck surprised even herself this past winter when she took a personal day and drove to Lansing to join a demonstration against Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s Emergency Manager bill — which was signed into law on March 16 and gave the governor the right to dissolve economically troubled schools and public municipalities and appoint his own fiscal managers to run them.
“Some people asked what had gotten into me,” recalled Hollenbeck. “But this brought something out of me that had been dormant … my mom always thought I should have been a lawyer.” As Labor Day approaches (a holiday that was originally intended to celebrate workers), her passion for workers rights hasn’t subsided.
Nearly 10,000 Michiganders demonstrated at the state capitol on March 16 on behalf of public-sector workers. The protest was inspired in part by massive and sustained labor rights demonstrations across Lake Michigan at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison. The Madison revolt began on Feb. 11, when that state’s emboldened new Republican Governor Scott Walker introduced legislation to all but kill collective bargaining rights for public sector unions, ostensibly to solve Wisconsin’s budget deficit. Walker introduced his controversial bill on the same day that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak fled Cairo, and the revolutionary fervor that blew across the sands of the Middle East during the “Arab Spring” suddenly arrived in the Midwest too.
For over a month, tens of thousands of teachers, students, seasoned progressive activists, and hardhats, cops and firemen, too, marched in Madison (for weeks, hundreds occupied the capitol, day and night). A tractor-led rally on March 12 around the perimeter of the capitol dome drew 200,000 as America’s biggest unions rented a nearby hotel to use as their “war room.” I documented the protests for a Minnesota-based video journalism nonprofit called TheUpTake.org, and got the sense that this was nothing less than organized labor’s existential fight for survival in the United States. Having successfully decimated private-sector unions in recent decades, public-sector unions are now targeted.
A picture began to emerge in February that the near simultaneous attacks on organized labor by new governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana were not coincidental but may have been coordinated efforts financed by corporate tycoons intent on privatizing public services for their own profit. In particular, the Koch brothers, owners of the second largest company in America, have given over $100 million to conservative and libertarian organizations since the 1980s. David and Charles Koch, whose father Fred made billions in the oil industry, contributed $43,000 to Wisconsin Governor Walker’s campaign. More light was shed on the bond between Walker and the Kochs on Feb. 22 when a gonzo journalist-prank caller posing as David Koch dialed the governor’s office in Madison and, amazingly, got through to Walker. Ian Murphy of the Buffalo Beast recorded the ensuing phone conversation, which yielded that the governor felt indebted to “David Koch” and had considered planting agent provocateurs amidst the protestors in Madison.
Michigan’s pro-labor demonstrations never reached the fever pitch that they did in Madison (recall elections early in August in Wisconsin flipped two senatorial seats from Republican to Democrat), but they did embolden some, like Cindy Hollenbeck, to speak out for unionized worker rights.
Many of the demonstrators in Lansing arrived in busses and in groups, whereas Hollenbeck drove alone. Other than teachers, unionized employees are few here in northern Michigan, and she couldn’t find anyone else to join her at the rally.
“Teachers are generally nice people who have demanding jobs; many don’t have time to be political,” she said. “Plus, you often feel like you’re beating your head against the wall.”
In Lansing, Hollenbeck sought out her representatives. She visited the office of State Sen. Darwin Booher (Republican, 35th District) but was stymied in her attempt to speak to Rep. Ray Franz (Republican, 101st District).
Meanwhile, inside the State Capitol, folk musician and founder of the Earthwork Music Collective, Seth Bernard recorded a video of the raucous, party-like scene below him in the rotunda. He saw a diverse mix of students and senior citizens, teachers, firefighters and activists of all ethnic backgrounds. Bernard saw men dressed as the Koch Brothers, trailed by puppets that represented the governors whom they helped put into office.
There’s a fitting political joke that Bernard shared with me that he also used at shows last winter: “Ten cookies sitting in the middle of a table. Around the table sit a wealthy CEO, a Tea Party activist, and a unionized worker. The CEO leans in, grabs nine of the cookies for himself, then turns to the Tea Party activist and says, ‘Watch out, that union boy is gonna take the last cookie from you’!”
Cindy Hollenbeck echoed a similar sentiment. She said she worries that non-union workers are taught to resent the benefits that union workers have, “but don’t realize that many of the benefits they do have were first earned by the sacrifices of union labor.” The Glen Lake School teacher rattled off a list that includes weekends off, workplace safety, child labor laws, workers compensation and health benefits. Even today, workplace accidents and deaths are high, particularly among low-skilled, immigrant workers in the United States — the people who pick the oranges and slaughter the meat that most of us consume.
“Everyone needs to study the Industrial Revolution and see how workers had it before there were unions around,” she emphasized.
Hollenbeck is close to retirement age, but she worries what will happen to the teaching profession if politicians gut teachers’ benefits and job security. “What will kids in junior high think five years down the road?” Hollenbeck wonders. “Will they think being a teacher is a good choice?
“Whether you’re a snowplow driver or a teacher, you’re not about making a profit … you’re about doing things for the good of us all. We don’t have the same opportunities to make a million dollars. But you ought to at least pay us a living wage, and give us job security.”
This GlenArbor.com exclusive is sponsored by The Homestead resort, where you’ll find neighborhoods — lakefront, riverfront, river and lakefront, lake view and forest view — separated by nature.
