Entries by editor

Reflecting on a Mighty Mac Swim

I’d been in the water for five hours before I began to hallucinate. It was subtle at first. Kind of like at Thanksgiving dinner when you eat too much, sit on the couch and start to go into that dream state where you can kind-of still hear everyone’s voices around you, but you’re also probably drooling. It was Labor Day, and while 40,000 people walked across the Mackinaw Bridge, 80 of us were swimming underneath it, writes Matt Soderquist, who shared this story at the Leelanau Clean Water and Here:Say storytelling event “Bubbling Up” on Aug. 4 at the Lively NeighborFood Market.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center launches creative wellness month in September

The Glen Arbor Arts Center is proud to introduce Creative Wellness Month, a new, expanded initiative launching this September. A month-long series of art, movement, mindfulness, and community programs designed to support well-being and inspire reflection, renewal, and creative exploration. Building on their former Creative Wellness Retreat, this reimagined, month-long series invites participants to slow down, reflect, and reconnect through visual arts, writing, movement, meditation, and nature-based practices. Program offerings will take place at both the Glen Arbor Arts Center and the GAAC Ceramics Studio at historic Thoreson Farm, part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

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Coming of age: Glen Lake Narrows Bridge Walk turns 30

The 0.3-mile parade over the Glen Lake Narrows Bridge on Labor Day Monday is the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. The sentence is the high summer tourism season in Leelanau County, which wraps up this weekend. This year marks 30 years of bridge walks. This year’s bridge walk leaves from the north side of the Glen Lake narrows (M-22) on Monday, Sept. 1, at noon. As in past years, t-shirts and hot dogs will be available, and certificates will be presented on site. Inspired by the enthusiasm of longtime organizers Bill and Dotti Thompson, JoAnne Beare of the Empire Area Community Center has committed to carry on the tradition, which the Thompsons started in 1995.

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Young artists take creativity outdoors during GAAC’s Youth Plein Air Month

In July, the Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC) launched its first annual Youth Plein Air Month, a month-long celebration of creativity designed to introduce children ages 6–12 to the art of painting outdoors. Nearly 150 free plein air art kits were checked out by young artists, encouraging them to explore the joy of creating in nature. The month concluded with a gallery exhibition and community awards ceremony on July 31, showcasing 58 original works of art.

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All work done well deserves our utmost respect

In 1974, an important book about an obvious yet quite overlooked subject was published: Studs Terkel’s “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.” An NPR piece on September 6, 2004, called it “the quintessential book about Labor Day.” Terkel, the renowned Chicago radio broadcaster, interviewed more than 130 “ordinary men and women about their jobs,” NPR reporter Susan Stamberg said. Thanks to Terkel’s deft interviewing and storytelling, the ordinary turned out to be extraordinary. Indeed, people often don’t realize how interesting their work is to others, no matter how mundane it might appear to be at first glance. At the time Tim Mulherin read Working, back in the mid-eighties while working full time on an English degree in nonfiction writing, he was a bar manager in Indianapolis. He had also remarried and had two small children. Indeed, he had a visceral understanding of what working was all about.

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The Finchers’ Labor Day reflections

When Labor Day pops up on the calendar, people respond in a variety of ways, maybe sad that summer is ending or just happy for a day off. When Glen Arbor resident Russ Fincher reflects on Labor Day, he begins with the story of his parents. Harold and Edith grew up in Corbin, Kentucky, where coal companies were the major employers, and work was hard to find. Both of them had friends or family members who had been injured in the mines. When the people in southern Kentucky spoke up to demand safe working conditions, they were often beaten or fired. Those are the people that come to mind when Russ thinks about Labor Day.

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Witnessing a rebirth. Park releases Piping Plover chicks into the wild

Sleeping Bear Dunes wildlife biologist Vince Cavalieri has taken part in dozens of piping plover chick releases. “They are always special as they represent the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by a lot of different people and, of course, offer a second chance at life for the birds,” he said following the release of five captive reared plovers at Glen Haven on Wednesday, Aug. 20. “This one was a little extra special as I had actually been present at the hatching of two of the five chicks in the vehicle I was driving.”

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The dogs of New Orleans: 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

In Tremé, life always seemed to teeter on the edge. Heat and humidity pressed down until it broke loose in sudden bursts: a fight, a chase, gunshots, sirens. Violence could turn savage without warning. And yet, on Sunday afternoons, a brass band would come down Villere Street, horns lifting the air, and for a while the same pressure fed joy instead of rage. That tension seeped into me, writes Andrea Claire Morningstar. When Hurricane Katrina arrived on Aug. 29, 2005, the levees broke, and the city slipped into nightmare on my television screen in Michigan, all I could think of were the dogs—the pack roaming my block, the puppy abandoned in the park, the neighbor’s chained rottweiler. I cried for the dogs. Where was my downstairs neighbor with her bandaged fist? Had the water reached the second floor with its shattered glass windows? The old man singing along to The Wizard of Oz? The second line band that graced Villere Street on Sunday afternoons?

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Mighty Tundra Tones take on Leelanau

Residents and visitors to the county have not one, not two, but three chances to catch one of the region’s favorite bands this coming week. The little big band Tundra Tones, f.k.a. Jazz North, will be performing Aug. 28 at Leland, Aug. 29 at Music in the Park in Northport, and Aug. 31 at Little Traverse Inn.

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Hit me with your best shot: the underrated value of one good pic

When I pulled into the Alligator Hill Trail parking lot, it was just me, writes Tim Mulherin. Then the heart-rousing ascent did the trick. When I arrived at the Islands Lookout’s panoramic northern view of the Manitou Passage about 30 minutes later, I ignored the impulse to immediately pull out my iPhone and begin snapping photos. Instead, I just looked. And looked. Then I sat down on the bench and looked some more, imprinting the breathtaking scene for future reference. There would most always be an iPhone in my pocket whenever I felt the need to point and shoot. This moment of my being there, however, would not repeat itself. So, for a change, I wanted to be fully present, not somewhat removed by staring through my smartphone screen’s viewfinder. More participant, less observer.

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