Entries by editor

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Copying and Reexploring the Constitution, Word for Word

On Saturday, Nov. 22, at 10 am, the Glen Lake Community Library in Empire invites the public to explore the U.S. Constitution, the foundational document of our democracy. In partnership with Michigan Writers, author and Empire Township resident Anne-Marie Oomen will lead this hands-on workshop, with participants copying the entire Constitution, section by section, then reading aloud and discussing their compiled work. This exercise will help refresh and refine our understanding of this core framework of democracy. Contact the library to register in advance. The Sun interviewed Oomen about her inspiration for initiating this event.

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Chronicling a history of Glen Arbor Township

When reading anything historical, while fascinating, it can be hard to connect to the information as it is not personally relevant or the idea that the historical event happened a long time ago creates a divide. The hurdle for the historian is how to bridge the reader to the past and make the information relevant? The newest release from the Leelanau Press, “Glen Arbor Township: A History to 1920” beautifully bridges the past for the contemporary reader.

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Harvest with Heart Deer Donation Program feeds Empire Food Pantry

A collaboration between Buntings Cedar Market, local deer hunters, the Empire Area Community Center (EACC), and the Empire Area Community Food Pantry is supplying high-quality protein to families experiencing food insecurity during this hunting season, which runs the second half of November. A total of 14 deer (and counting) have been donated by local hunters to the Harvest with Heart Deer Donation Program, just a couple day into this year’s rifle hunting season. The initiative is financially supported locally by donations through EACC and its new Basic Needs Initiative Fund, which launched during the federal government shutdown and pause in SNAP benefits. Venison processed at Buntings will be donated to the Empire Food Pantry, which is run out of the Glen Lake Church in Burdickville.

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Devouring Jim Harrison: National Writers Series features biographer

Jim Harrison returns to northern Michigan on Dec. 8. The longtime Leelanau County resident, widely considered one of the finest literary voices of his generation, died in 2016 after penning 21 books of fiction and 14 books of poetry, which influenced a generation of writers. Todd Goddard’s biography of Harrison, titled “Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life,” published on Nov. 4. He will appear at the National Writers Series at the Traverse City Opera House on Dec. 8. The Glen Arbor Sun interviewed Goddard in late October about researching and writing the book. Read and watch the interview here.

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Government reopens: hot coffee brewing at Sleeping Bear Dunes visitor center

The federal government has reopened after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history—nearly one and a half months. At the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore headquarters in Empire, Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes executive director Laura Ann Johnson discovered a full parking lot this morning and hot coffee brewing inside the visitor center. “It felt so good to walk into a bustling office full of park employees again,” Johnson wrote in an email. “We are deeply grateful that the government has reopened, and we know there is much work ahead.”

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Glen Lake Library holds Kids’ Holiday Book Drive

A special holiday tradition continues on Nov. 14 as the Friends of the Glen Lake Community Library kick off their annual call for children’s books. The Friends are once again collecting donations of new children’s books for children whose families are in need of assistance this holiday season. Donors are asked to purchase a book for a child on this list and deliver it gift-wrapped to the library by Dec. 13. The Cottage Book Shop will provide a 20% discount on any books purchased for the drive. They will even gift wrap and deliver the books for you.

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Bearing witness: ICE’s siege of Chicago

Katie Dunn, a resident of Glen Arbor and Chicago, witnessed and wrote about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s siege of Chicago neighborhoods last month. Dunn volunteered outside a school in a Latino neighborhood to safely escort students home, joined a protest outside the Broadview detention center, and found hope and resolve at the No Kings rally in Grant Park, which drew more than 100,000 demonstrators on Oct. 18. “Recent reports of ICE sightings near the school had sent a chilling wave through these already marginalized Brown and Black communities,” she wrote. “Countless parents, gripped by the tangible fear of being detained or disappeared by ICE in the mere minutes it takes to get their kids home from school, had entrusted their children’s safe passage to older siblings or neighbors. The whole landscape felt entirely dystopian: ICE’s menacing presence in the neighborhood had transformed a routine school dismissal into a fraught daily ritual.”

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Crystal River Outfitters Recreational District hosts fifth annual Strolling Lights Festival

The Strolling Lights Festival within The Crystal River Outfitters Recreational District has become an annual tradition for both families, groups or individuals to join together to decorate a holiday tree in honor of a worthy cause, or to get visitors in the holiday spirit when they light up The District in Glen Arbor. Proceeds from the 2025 Strolling Lights Festival will support the Empire Area Food Pantry which serves all of Leelanau County. This once-a-week Food Pantry, which is hosted at Glen Lake Community Reformed Church on Tuesdays year-round, serves an enormous need in our community to help support those who are struggling to put food on their tables.

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The last of the Leelanau schooners: “The boat doesn’t sink and nobody dies”

On the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald—the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes—our story series celebrating songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes continues with Paul Koss’s “The Last of the Leelanau Schooners”. Koss wrote his classic homage to the era of the tall ships back in the early 1990s when he was working with the Maritime Heritage Alliance preparing to launch the schooner Madeline. “I always had a love of sailing and maritime history because my Grandpa on my Mom’s side was a sea captain in the Merchant Marines,” Paul said. “The Madeline was modeled on a school ship moored in Bowers Harbor, and working on it planted the seed of an idea for a song. Not a song about “The Boat”—Gordon Lightfoot and Stan Rogers had already written those songs—but I wanted to write a song about the end of the tall ship era in our corner of the Great Lakes.” As Paul says when he performs this song: “The boat doesn’t sink and nobody dies!”

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The Witch of November: Recounting Fall Storms on the Great Lakes

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the infamous wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975, we’re reprinting Jed Jaworski’s riveting account—originally published in The Betsie Current, our sister publication in Benzie County—of a dramatic journey on board the car ferry Viking across Lake Michigan during a November gale. “All hands on deck, we are leaving the dock!” shouted the watchstander. Moments later, the ship’s mighty horn sounded one long blast, followed by a short blast and another long one, to summon any of the crewmembers who had not heeded the captain’s request to stay aboard. The scene below, on deck at the loading apron, was tense. One of the steel cables holding the ship to the dock had snapped, and the others were straining as the 350-foot ship lurched at its moorings. The wind had veered enough westward to send storm-wave energy into Lake Betsie, long known to be the harbor’s failing. There was no way to keep the ship at the dock. We would be forced to cross Lake Michigan in a full-on November storm.

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