Residents express concerns over marina expansion: Township Board writes letter of concern to DEQ
By Michael Buhler and Jacob Wheeler
Sun editors
The Glen Arbor Township Board held a special meeting today to respond to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) regarding an application for a marina expansion on Big Glen Lake. On the Narrows Marina owner Conor McCahill seeks to add an additional 39 boat slips on a new dock, bringing the total to 46, as well as increase the moorings to 16. On the Narrows Marina is located on the M-22 state highway, just north of the Carl Oleson Memorial Bridge, which divides Big and Little Glen Lake.
Over 100 residents and interested neighbors listened in the gymnasium as the Board met to discuss the issue. Since this was a meeting and not a hearing, public comment was limited to the end of the session. Township Zoning Administrator Bob Hawley reviewed the requirements of the Resort zone, and noted that the marina and its structures are a non-conforming use of the property, grandfathered into the original 1975 zoning plan. He questioned whether an expansion would then make this a “more non-conforming use,” and necessitate the entire project to come into zoning compliance, which it then could not do.
After deliberation and audience input, the Board voted 4-0 to write a letter to the DEQ noting its concerns over parking, pedestrians, road safety, navigation at the bridge, water safety, and the potential for pollution. The Board also asked the DEQ to conduct a public hearing on the matter.
Andy DuPont, President of the Glen Lake Association (GLA), reported that he was assured by Robin Schmidt of the DEQ that the department plans to hold a public hearing, and that online links where citizens can comment on the application, and a PDF of the application itself, are available on the GLA website, www.GlenLakeAssociation.org. You can also comment on the DEQ’s website here and view the PDF here NarrowsMarinaExpansionApplication. The GLA and Township Board encourage everyone to make their views known to the DEQ, and the GLA website will share any updates on the application — as well the Glen Arbor Sun via GlenArbor.com.
On the DEQ application last month, McCahill wrote, “Due to high demand, we would like to expand our boat slip and mooring offerings. If permitted we would simply install additional freestanding seasonal docks and move and expand our mooring field. This would take place in Spring 2012. … There is very high demand for slips and moorings on Glen Lake that we currently cannot accommodate. … Following our pre-application meeting we adjusted our layout and design to exclude a boat ramp and any dredging activity. This will require more dock sections to be used, but eliminate dredging in the shallow areas.”
In an open letter to the Glen Lake community posted at On the Narrows Marina’s website today, the McCahill family wrote: “Our objective in seeking expansion is to provide more opportunities for others to have access to the lake. We have a long waiting list from local residents seeking lake access for their boats. Most of our mooring customers are members of the local community and favor having boat slips as opposed to moorings. While we anticipated there would be opposing opinions, some quite legitimate and others self centered, the first step in the process is to comply with state law which we know will inevitably lead to a public hearing where we look forward to answering questions, addressing concerns and hopefully finding solutions that allow further access to a wonderful natural resource for Glen Lake residents, families and visitors.”
On the Narrows Marina’s expansion plans on Big Glen Lake have spread like wildfire through the local media. TV 7&4 news jumped on the story on Tuesday, quoting resident Kathy Schmid, who owns a home on the lake, as saying she’s worried that “peaceful summers on Glen Lake will turn into a crowded party atmosphere with the expansion.” Schmid also worries that the area wouldn’t be able to accommodate extra parking or restrooms that would be needed for the influx of visitors.
On Wednesday, the Traverse City Record-Eagle described On the Narrows as a “sleepy little marina” and quoted Kathy’s brother Greg Schmid as saying, “I think this is the first robber baron taking advantage of us being called the most beautiful place in America. I think by next year we’ll lose that designation.” The Schmids worry that the addition of nearly 40 boat slips will turn the Glen Lakes into “another party spot like Torch Lake.”
“They are valid concerns,” Conor McCahill told the Sun. “From our point of view, we don’t see why we can’t work with the community to address them and get something done. We take the lake very seriously, and we’re not looking to cause any harm. We’re just looking to expand and meet demand on the lake.”
McCahill conceded that parking is an issue in the congested area north of the Narrows Bridge. He suggested that the parking lot in front of “McCahill’s Crossing” — the former Narrows Dairy Bar, which will re-open this summer — is a possible solution.
“Parking is an issue. But it’s an issue throughout Glen Arbor too. There are different options in our plan. We own the property across the bridge. We could perhaps do a shuttle service.”
McCahill sought to address concerns that the expansion will overcrowd the lake with traffic.
“Our goal, as far as the expansion is concerned, is to allow more people to use the lake. It’s a misconception that the lake will all of a sudden become overcrowded with boat traffic. Our clientele are mostly people from the community who are already on the lake. They just want to put their boat somewhere where they don’t have to use the ramp every single day.”
The McCahills contracted the Traverse City-based surveying and engineering firm Gourdie-Fraser to investigate riparian rights and bottomlands where the docks and moorings would go. Conor McCahill believes that On the Narrows owns the riparian rights south of the marina.
“People are under the impression that that is not our land, but we went through the process, and it is,” he said. “All we’re looking for is an opportunity to work with the community to get this accomplished. If the plan goes through and we have a separate pier, that’s just another place where people can park their boats. Another avenue, so the lake is not as congested.”
Tom and Carol McCahill, and their three adult children, Conor, Megan and Neil, originally from Littleton, Colo., purchased the marina from Jack and Marcie Ferris in 2008 and re-opened it in 2009. Read our feature on the McCahills here. They recently acquired the former Dairy Bar on the south side of the Glen Lake narrows and plan to open that soon. Last summer, employees of On the Narrows won the adoration of the community when they saved a tiny fawn from drowning in Big Glen Lake.
It was the time of Winterfest, mid-February, in the village of Empire, when temperatures dipped well below the freezing mark. Snow had been shoveled to clear an area for ice-skating on South Bar Lake. Earlier in the day a fire truck had been there to spray a fine mist of water making a smooth surface.
An almost-full moon sailed high over frozen South Bar Lake where luminaries glowed around the border of the skating rink. A bonfire burned near one edge of the lake. Someone had provided a canister of hot chocolate inside the gazebo where another person had tacked sheeting around the sides of the structure providing a warming hut for the skaters and protection from the winds. Captured in the flickering candlelight from the luminaries, the bonfire, and the steady light of the moon were the outlines of grown-ups and children gliding over the ice. The metallic scrape of skate blade edges cut through the night air.
Inside the gazebo I laced my skates and then half crawling, half standing, made my way down the sandy embankment to the frozen surface of the lake. It’s an odd sensation when first out on the ice. You haven’t had skates on your feet in years and suddenly here you are, standing on thin blades, uncertain of your balance, but with a little push off from one foot you glide onto the other and feel like a youngster. That was how I felt venturing farther out onto the ice, cautious and wobbly. Suddenly a strong arm circled my waist. The figure of a young man was at my side and he whirled me around. I felt a sense of exhilaration. Imagine Katarina Witt and Brian Boitano!The Winter Olympics! Just for a moment, and then this stranger released me and skated away, and I was left to wobble back to the shore and climb the bank to the gazebo. Who was that stranger? An apparition?
One year I took my ice skates out of their storage box in the basement, tried on the first skate, and found I could not stuff my foot inside. Upon examination, I discovered the skate was full of popcorn. Apparently there had been a mouse in the house who had taken to my regular late night bowl of popcorn, the remains of which were set aside for tossing to the birds in the morning. Painstakingly, over the summer months, this little creature must have carried each plump kernel of popped corn to the basement and chose my skate for his cache.
Iceskating on South Bar was not the only activity of Winterfest. There was the plunge into the frigid water of the lake, the big event, the Polar Bear Dip.
“People jumping into the lake in the middle of February? Must be the height of boredom!”
That was my first year in Empire, and I expressed that thought to someone who immediately chastised me and said that there were many good people who put time and effort into the entire Winterfest event. Obviously I was a newbie to the village, a fudgie.
Of course I walked down to South Bar Lake with so many others just to watch the polar bear dip. There at the edge of the crowd of onlookers was an ambulance. The event took on an aura of danger. Yikes! Jumping into icy water could cause one to go into shock. The ambulance was a necessity. And it was. Someone, an older woman somebody said, had slipped on the ice and later I heard that she had broken her leg or ankle. To the rescue, Empire’s expert first-responders did what they do best. There was definitely reason to have emergency support there.
A couple hundred people stood around the hole that seemed large enough for two back-porch Jacuzzis laid side by side or, say, a king-sized bed. Men, women, children, teenagers, the elderly, and so many dogs all came to watch the jumpers. About 30 people wearing only their bathing suits with towels or robes around their bare shoulders waited their turn to jump. Some of them wore flip-flops; some were barefoot. First in, though, was Empire’s mascot polar bear. It was Mike Vanderberg in those days who came out onto the ice with the stuffed toy polar bear tied by a rope to a long pole. He had the honor of dipping the bear after which the crowd cheered and the polar bear dip officially began. Some of the jumpers simply held their nose and with one hand over their head, stepped off the ice and plunged into the cold water of South Bar Lake. At one point there were so many people gathered around the opening in the ice that their weight caused the ice to sink somewhat making for shouts of concern, scurrying, laughter and wet pant legs. As the polar dip continued a few of the participants stepped daintily, big toe in the water first before their big splash. Someone went in doing a belly smasher and another, a cannon ball, and then came someone performing a neat, heels-over-head backflip. Acrobats all! There was applause for each jumper.
Last of all there came a man out onto the ice dressed in a business suit, oxford shirt, necktie, homburg or bowler derby on his head and a briefcase in his hand. He looked as if he had just walked off Wall Street or Madison Avenue. An executive type, he casually walked into the water as if walking into an uncovered manhole. He emerged as did everyone, wet and cold. The event was over and the crowd observing the event turned to walk home or to their cars.
One year little South Bar Lake thawed, just in time for Winterfest. That was the year the would-be jumpers ran en masse into the big lake across the road — Lake Michigan. I don’t know what happened to the polar bear, but I imagine he was carried into the water, too, dangling on his line from the pole.
One year, at the time of Winterfest, there was a deep freeze, so cold that your breath froze in front of your face. The Polar Bear Dip was called off, but around the village you could hear people grumbling about how they could have stood the cold. These temperatures, this wind meant nothing. They’d seen worse.
Empire’s Winterfest has been not only about a bonfire, moonlit iceskating, a plunge into icy waters. There have been cross-country ski races, children’s games, curling, chili cook-offs, live music, dances at the town hall where boot-clad folks danced to live music, their parkas hung over the backs of chairs. As the festivities wound down on Sunday morning there would be a pancake breakfast and an open mic at the local tavern in the afternoon.
These events occurred because of the spirit of this village. Here in the village of Empire, in the deep mid-winter, there’s no boredom. Here the spirit of camaraderie and joy has been alive and well. Now at this point of mid-January, 2012, we have had scant snow and thin ice. We’ll see what’s in store for this year. Viva Winterfest!
This GlenArbor.com story is sponsored by La Becasse, serving authentic French country fare in Burdickville.
Coach Tim Sutherland rounded the corner by the tennis courts in Glen Arbor with the top down on his new red convertible. Three of his friends, Charlie Crouch, Kim Guilbeau and Jennifer Moore waited on the courts, swinging their rackets and loosening up. Jason Homa jogged over from Cherry Republic to join them. Full sun shone down all over town. The trees were bare, the ground was brown, and it looked like any especially nice day in early spring or late fall. But it was Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, another weird day in a winter that, so far, wasn’t winter. The temperature was 55 degrees at 2 p.m. (meanwhile, it was 53 in San Francisco, 50 in St. Louis, and 68 in Tampa).
Sharon Scanlon drove past Art’s with all of her windows down and stopped to chat. She was headed for Florida the next day after spending $150 on a Homestead ski pass that had only translated into spending part of Dec. 26 with kids on the bunny hill.
“There’d better be some snow when I get back in February!” she warned.
We barely had a white Christmas, and now the white was gone. What was happening? The jet stream was still parked up over Canada, blocking the cold air and extending our mild autumn into what is usually deep winter. How was it affecting the town’s businesses?
Three students from the Leelanau School (Peter Myers, Alex Johnson, Tyler Johnson) canvassed the village of Glen Arbor to find out. Dana at LVR said that Leelanau Vacation Rentals has especially felt the pinch.
“When people can’t ski, they don’t rent condos at The Homestead, so it hurts businesses all over town,” she said.
Doug at Glen Arbor Outdoor (the guys who plow and shovel snow) reported that New Year’s Day was the only time they made any money all winter. The big New Year’s blizzard promising 10-20 inches of snow only delivered about 4-6 inches. Tim Nichols at Riverfront theorized that the dire blizzard forecast had actually chased people out of town on a weekend that is usually busier. Georgia at Northwood Home Center allowed that more skiers would mean more business, but one customer had been in to buy stuff to wash his windows since it wasn’t cold. At the Post Office, Drew admitted that it was making delivery of mail easier, and the weather wasn’t stopping the locals who always come in. Always a slow time of year at the Cottage Bookshop and Cherry Republic, it has even been slow at The Sportsman Shop because no one has been ice fishing — there was only thin skim ice on Little Glen, and not one shanty. That’s unheard of.
The non-winter had a couple of other odd twists. Anderson’s Market has taken a loss on its fresh produce because the nice weather allows people “to drive to the bigger stores in Traverse City.” And Deb at Bear Paw said, “I don’t think that it has really affected business what with all of the construction workers coming in for lunch.” With no snow to layoff the builders, the parade of pick-up trucks to and from job sites around Glen Lake has continued apace. One person’s loss is thus another one’s gain.
Meanwhile, Crystal River Outfitters owner Matt Wiesen and Peter Fisher kayaked the river and planned to do so every month if the weather held. Carol Hilton kept finding Petoskey stones while walking the beaches along Lake Michigan. Chris Sack propped the doors wide open at Great Lakes Tea & Spice as he pretended to dodge “snow-squitos”. Over in Empire, Friendly Tavern and Village Inn owner Frank Lerchen took his excited kids to the park for tennis, baseball and basketball, where they also rode their scooters and skateboards, and returned home for a bonfire with s’mores. Daredevil Keenan May surfed Lake Michigan, and didn’t have to dodge icebergs in the process, while his dad Paul kept running on the dunes trails.
Further downstream, Pat Stinson in Cedar raked her yard, washed her windows and actually swatted flies (bees and crickets were seen in Benzie County). In Traverse City, Laura Herd played outside with her remote-controlled car, and this year she actually cleaned up the backyard before it was inundated by snow. In Frankfort, Randi Lyn used the balmy weather to continue training for her Run Across Palestine next month, and in Benzonia, Timothy McKay didn’t have to put the chains on his unicycle, though the owner of Fernand Footwear did have to worry about his maple trees, which were running sap three months too soon.
Everyone shook their heads about the cause of the mild weather: “Just a pattern — it’s happened before — it’ll change — just repeats itself — haven’t got a clue — strange patterns have been occurring all over — it’s just a cycle.”
So after one of the best summers ever for businesses in the Land of the Sleeping Bear, many were lamenting the lack of the other big season. Two days later, on Friday the 13th, the temperature had dipped into the teens, and we awoke to see that several inches of snow had fallen during the night.
All of the schools were closed, creating a four-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend. A posse of college students arrived to play pool at Art’s. Three tour buses rolled up Western Ave. to deliver over 70 fraternity brothers and alums from Ann Arbor to The Homestead. Knit caps, scarves and heavy coats were everywhere. It was bitterly cold and snowy, and everybody was happy again.
This GlenArbor.com story is sponsored by the Glen Lake Artists Gallery, showcasing the fine art and craft of some of the finest artists in northwest Michigan.
U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin say that Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has received a $1.3 million federal transportation grant to continue work on a 27-mile hike-and-bike trail.
The Michigan Democrats said Thursday that the money comes from a U.S. Department of Transportation program aimed at reducing vehicle congestion at national parks. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is along Lake Michigan in the northwestern Lower Peninsula.
The grant will help complete the first phase of the Sleeping Bear Heritage trail connecting the villages of Empire and Glenn Arbor.
The hard-surfaced 27-mile trail is parallel to state highways 22 and 109 and seeks to provide a safe, non-motorized, multi-use transportation alternative to the roads. Planning started about 10 years ago.
This GlenArbor.com story was sponsored by Crystal River Outfitters, where you can experience the beauty of the Crystal River, splash through its gentle currents and explore its winding trail.
2011 was the year of the revolution, the occupier and the people’s movement. Here in Michigan, it was the year that our Detroit Tigers made a magical and gallant run into the postseason, and it was the year that our Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore finally got the national credit it deserved.
Here then are the top 10 stories of 2011 that appeared in the Glen Arbor Sun during our 16th year of publication:
175 years after Wisconsin loses the U.P., the rivalry resumes
“You forgot how righteously screwed Wisconsin was out of the Toledo War. As part of the deal we in Michigan got the Upper Peninsula … which at the time wasn’t a big deal, until we realized it was just one big hunk of Iron and other valuable things.”
— Wexshane, comment on Cracked.com
My buddy Paul Stoy, who grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin, (where Minnesotans go to buy liquor on Sundays) and with whom I once shared a ratty apartment in Freiburg, Germany, swore that militias in Michigan and Wisconsin nearly came to blows over the rights to the Upper Peninsula back in the 1830s.
He said that in 2000, during a weekend of camping in Seney, Michigan, on Highway 28. Stoy and I (and Bryan Hoefs, from Appleton, Wis.) fished, ate beans from a can and drank whiskey along the Fox River, to emulate a young Ernest Hemingway who had hopped trains in the U.P. after World War I. Hemingway’s autobiographical protagonist, Nick Adams, was wounded inside from what he had seen on the front lines in Italy. In the short story “Big Two-Hearted River” Adams saw grasshoppers that had survived a forest fire: their backs were charred black, but they were still alive.
When I got back to civilization I tried to verify Stoy’s claim of an historic rivalry between Michigan and Wisconsin. Al Gore had invented the Internet a few weeks earlier, so it made the research pretty easy.
In fact, the Badger state did have reason to be peeved at the Wolverine state. In 1835-36, Michigan and Ohio “fought” the Toledo War, a completely bloodless boundary dispute that resulted in Ohio getting the narrow stretch of land where the Mud Hens now play baseball, and Michigan getting three-quarters of what’s now the Upper Peninsula from Congress (it was previously considered “Indian territory”). Michigan’s gain was Wisconsin’s loss, as the western part of the U.P. would yield untold mineral wealth — and the historic Calumet Theater — over the next century and a half.
Wisconsin became a U.S. state in 1848, and contented itself with the cheese curd as its gourmet food favorite, and not the meat and potato-filled pasty, which the Finnish immigrants to the U.P. carried with them into the mines. Wisconsin’s bitterness simmered, for 175 years, like Golum clutching the ring deep in the caves of Middle Earth.
That angst finally boiled over this week when the Travel Wisconsin website posted a knit mitten shaped like the state of Wisconsin on its website as part of a winter tourism promotion campaign. Michiganders who identify themselves in the world beyond with an open-faced right hand, took the news as a humorous, yet serious, challenge.
“People in Michigan, we do identify ourselves so closely with the Mitten State,” Alex Beaton of the Awesome Mitten website told the Washington Post (seriously, the Washington Post?). We’re America’s high five!”
Tom Lyons, who works in public relations in Neenah, Wisconsin, countered, “Wisconsin is the left mitten. Michigan is the right mitten. Even children know that one mitten doesn’t cut it when it comes to Midwestern winters.”
The Post reported that Michiganders have turned their mitten identity into profits. Terri O’Brien and Lisa Burnia sell “Don’t Mess with the Mitten” shirts in southeast Michigan, and “M is for Mitten” is a popular children’s book in the state. The “Wet Mitten Surf Shop” has stores in Traverse City and Grand Haven, and Ludington boasts the “Mitten Bar”.
Was Wisconsin’s mitten theft an intentional case of pouring salt in the wound following the University of Wisconsin’s last-minute victory over Michigan State — due to a bizarre football technicality — in the Big Ten’s inaugural championship game last Saturday?
Dave Lorenz, public relations manager at Travel Michigan joked to the Post: “We’re not going to take this lying down. Wisconsin already took the Rose Bowl from us this year. They’re not going to take the Mitten State status from us.”
On Wednesday the Michigan tourism website Pure Michigan launched a poll asking viewers to decide: “Who is the real mitten state?” As of Friday at noon, 83 percent had voted for Michigan, versus 17 percent for Wisconsin — in numbers that closely resembled Hamid Karzai’s margin of victory in the most recent Afghan elections.
With Lorenz’s fighting words as inspiration, a few friends and I compiled a purely scientific list of how Michigan and Wisconsin match up in the categories that matter the most. Please feel free to add to this list:
Michigan vs. Wisconsin
• Wisconsin cheese curds vs. Michigan’s fruit orchards. Michigan is the second-most agriculturally diverse state in the nation, following the Eden of California. Wisconsin’s cheese curds will make you obese, eventually.
Point, Michigan
• Scott Walker the anti-labor tyrant who single-handedly awoke a nationwide workers movement early this year vs. Rick Snyder the conservative pragmatist (Both are new governors elected in 2010)?
Point, Snyder
• Shuttered Pabst brewery in Milwaukee vs. cobweb-laden auto plant in Detroit?
Tie
• Smooth Hefeweizen at the student union in Madison vs. strong sangria at Dominicks at the law quad in Ann Arbor?
Point, Madison
• The spicy goulash (and cocktails) at the Weary Traveler on Willie Street in Madison vs. the hippy hash at 4 a.m. at the Fleetwood in Ann Arbor?
Point, Wisconsin (Well, depends on the characters at the Fleetwood)
• Bernie the Brewer sliding into the keg after a home run in Miller Park vs. another octopus on the ice at Joe Louis Arena?
Point Wisconsin
• According to the Ojibwe legend, the mother and bear cubs left a forest fire in Wisconsin and swam across the lake toward Michigan, before they became the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Manitou Islands?
Point, destination
• Joe Stalin’s daughter dying alone in a cabin in northern Wisconsin last month vs. the Unabomber, Ted Kaczinski, who locked himself alone in his room at East Quad in Ann Arbor last century?
Tie
• Violent Femmes vs. Ted Nugent?
Point, Nugent
• Winning on a Hail Mary pass in October (Michigan State) vs. winning on a bizarre technicality in a championship game in December (Wisconsin)?
Point, Badgers, lamentably
• Door County and its rocky shoreline vs. Leelanau County and its Caribbean-like beaches? Oh, and Leelanau has wine and great restaurants. Door County has meat packaging plants.
Point, Leelanau
• Madison’s Saturday farmer’s market vs. the dairy store at Michigan State?
Point, Madison
• Green Bay Packers, America’s publicly-owned team vs. the Detroit football team known until recently as the “Lie-downs”?
Point, Packers
• Little Caesar’s Pizza vs. Culvers (frozen custard + butter burgers)?
Point, Wisconsin
• Leinenkugels vs Bells?
Point, microbrew
• Michigan boasts 22 Fortune 500 companies, including GM and Ford. Wisconsin has only nine, including Johnson Controls.
Point, Michigan
• Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross & Madonna (Michigan) vs. Les Paul & Liberace (Wisconsin)?
Point, Motown
• Lucille Ball, James Caan, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones & Gilda Radner (Michigan) vs. Gene Wilder, Spencer Tracey, Chris Farley & Oprah (Wisconsin)
Point, Wisconsin
• Russ Feingold the dethroned Wisconsin Senator who’s now working to overturn “Citizens United” which allows no limit on corporate money in politics vs. Carl Levin, Michigan’s current Senator, whose bill will permanently protect the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore?
Tie
• The Wisconsin trash that washes up on Michigan’s west coast beaches, and which we have to deal with?
Point, Michigan
• The Wisconsin beer that washes up on Michigan’s west coast beaches
whenever there’s a shipwreck (like the WB Phelps in 1882)?
Point, beer
• Harley Davidson (Wisconsin) vs. any other two-wheeler?
Point, Harley
• Wisconsin labor leader Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette (whose bust adorns the second floor of the capitol in Madison) vs. Michael Moore?
Fighting Bob
• Tom Izzo, Michigan State hoops coach, vs. Bo Ryan at U-W?
Izzo
• Sailors race from Chicago to Mackinac (Michigan) not Manitowoc (Wisconsin)
Point, Michigan
• Prince Fielder, current Brewers’ first baseman, vs. his dad Cecil Fielder, former Tigers’ first baseman (and with whom Prince won’t speak)?
Point, Brewers
• Sunset over Lake Michigan (Michigan) vs. Sunrise over Lake Michigan (Wisconsin)?
Who kisses during the sunrise? Point, sunset
• Apostle Islands on Lake Superior vs. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan.
Com’on, we’re the most beautiful place in America! Point, Sleeping Bear.
This GlenArbor.com story was sponsored by Sunset Watersports, your number one source for ski boats, jet skis and pontoon boat rentals in Leelanau County.
WASHINGTON – Legislation by Sen. Carl Levin to permanently protect more than 32,000 acres of Michigan lakeshore won approval Thursday from a key Senate committee.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources approved the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Conservation and Recreation Act (S.140,) a bill authored by Levin, D-Mich., and cosponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. The legislation would permanently protect 32,557 acres of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore by designating it as wilderness, while providing important access to the lakeshore’s recreational opportunities and cultural resources.
“The ancient sand dunes at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, products of wind, wave, and ice action over thousands of years, are truly one of nature’s great masterworks,” Levin said. “The lakeshore celebrates these natural wonders and interprets the fascinating history of Native Americans, early pioneers, farmsteads, and maritime activities that created the Michigan of today. This bill would preserve these natural treasures for current and future generations, and enable thousands more to enjoy the scenic beauty and appreciate the generations of Michiganders who came before.”
The bill has bipartisan, bicameral, and local support. A companion bill in the House (H.R. 977) has nine bipartisan cosponsors.
This GlenArbor.com article is sponsored by Pegtown Station, Maple City’s original namesake.
Here’s an open letter from Rick Desrochers of the newly formed Sugar Loaf Mountain Club, thanking the local community for helping clean up the ski hill in advance of the long-shuttered mountain potentially opening up to cross-country skiing and ice climbing this winter.
To Everyone,
All I can say at this moment is WOW… I cannot thank all the volunteers 22 of them at that, for what they are doing and the difference they are making.. Not only to volunteer for the Sugar Loaf Mountain Club, but also the difference that you are making in the surrounding area.. Yes I do have a hard time sometimes when I thank the volunteers for coming out and to say a big thank and they turn around and say “No We Thank You”.. This is what a true community is about; to come together for something they believe in.
We are about starting over, kind of hitting the reset button on Sugar Loaf, when the forefathers of Sugar Loaf hiked up to the top, they had a dream in 1948 and that was to have activities on a mountain for Leelanau County. That dream is what we are about and bringing back a beautiful place to the surrounding communities. People talk about the past, but if people talk just about the past, they will not look towards the future and what the future has to offer.
Now I also would like to say a special “Thank You to Deering’s Market in Empire Michigan for donating items for the volunteers. I wanted to read something to the volunteers that came out from Phil and Sue of Deerings Market…” Thank you to all the volunteers for your hard work and dedication in believing in something that has meant so much too all the communities” So if you are down in Empire, stop in and say Hi… This is about the surrounding communities and trying to make a difference. It really makes me so proud and honored to know that people are trying to make a difference; with that some updates.
What our volunteers accomplished on Nov. 12
1. Tube run is coming along really great- just have one more day of weed whacking and will be finished and waiting on snow.
2. The volunteers also got the top of Awful Awful, Wufle and the Wall completed, did a little bit on Devils Elbow too.
3. Our website is coming along, should be just a little bit longer.
What we are working on next Saturday, Nov. 19
1. Awful Awful at mid point.
2. Cleaning at the bottom of the hill
3. Finishing up the tube run
4. Marking out the Cross Country Ski Trail
And here’s a glowing response that Sugar Loaf owner Kate Wickstrom posted on the Friends of Sugar Loaf Facebook page:
Dear Friends and Residents
Over the past year, I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting and working with Eric Luthhardt and Rick Desrochers and discussing plans for re-opening the resort. Two months ago, we were introduced to Erik Zehender, who has assisted in taking our dream of seeing something happen at the Loaf, over the top!!
Together, we are taking the steps necessary to bring an array of activity, back to the mountain. The support and efforts from our community, has been overwhelming. The volunteers that come to help clean up and prep the mountain, is astonishing. We could not be doing this without each and every one of you.
There have been many hurdles over the past 6 years, that have prevented the resort from opening, but we have chosen to put the dark and painful past history of the resort behind us. This is a new time. A new day.
We are taking small steps and building from the bottom up and we look forward to opening day, in the near future.
Warmest Regards,
Kate Wickstrom
This GlenArbor.com story was sponsored by On the Narrows Marina, now run by the McCahill family of Colorado.
TV 7&4 News featured this video of the Glen Lake Fire Department’s new fire boat yesterday. Read their report here, and watch the video below:
The entire $265,000 cost of the 28-foot fire boat was raised by community members in three months. The boat was built by Response Marine of Newburyport, MA.
The Fire Chief for the Department says the boat adds new capability for fighting fires on boats, wildfires near the water, as well as homes along the waterfront. Nearly 75% of the homes in the Glen Lake area are within 1000 feet of a body of water.
This GlenArbor.com article was sponsored by the Glen Lake Artists Gallery in Glen Arbor, which showcases the fine art and craft of some of the finest artists in northwest Michigan.
Empire Chamber of Commerce chair Paul Skinner reported that approximately 30 Empire Village and Township residents planted almost 12,000 daffodil bulbs on Front Street last weekend. Those helping were as young as 3-year-old Solomon Boothby along with his two brothers and parents Rob & Sarah. The bulbs were purchased by the Empire Chamber of Commerce and special thanks should go to Deerings Market, Anchor Hardware, Lighthouse Insurance, State Savings Bank, Grocers Daughter Chocolate and especially Heidi Skinner.
The team also included Chris and Randy Nelson, Lyn Hudson, Sharon Radke, Kim Para, Erin Trame, Carrie Turner, John and Lucia Poole, Ovide and Cindy Pomerleau, Frank and Ellen Clements, the Eland & Trap Families, Jack & Kim Gyr, Beryl Skrocki & Family, Karen Baja, Joseph Heringlake & Barbara Young, David Diller, Mel Laracey, Jack Gardiner, the Vanderberg Clan, Margaret Hodge, Traci Apsey, Cheryl Manning, the staff at State Savings Bank and Grocers Daughter Chocolate. This community effort was described succinctly by Frank Clements when he wrote “This is a time when a community can get behind a good idea, one that benefits the whole community, and then individually and collectively help with its implementation. This feat will become even more apparent in the spring when the bulbs are in full bloom.”
This GlenArbor.com story was sponsored by Duneswood Motel, which offers peaceful, relaxing, affordable vacations for womyn.
Residents express concerns over marina expansion: Township Board writes letter of concern to DEQ
