Last week the Leelanau County Register of Deeds office received documents from a title company in Troy to record the deed transfer for Sugar Loaf resort. But Register of Deeds Dorothy Miller reportedly found errors in the paperwork, including discrepancies between Kate Wickstrom’s signatures in the documentation from March 2013 and now. The signatures may have been forged. Miller confirmed that, as of today, the deed to Sugar Loaf has not been transferred.
On Thursday, October 16, Glen Arbor resident and business owner Chris Sack posted photos on his Facebook page that showed the basement of his home on M-109, west of Glen Arbor, flooding with water. But Sack’s frustration fell on deaf ears. Later that evening, at the Township Hall in Glen Arbor, State Representative Ray Franz (Republican) concluded a townhall forum by calling Climate Change “a hoax”.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Dusty Shultz recently announced the issuance of a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Kettles Trail Plan and Environmental Assessment (EA). The National Park Service (NPS) has selected a modified version of the Preferred Alternative (Alternative 4) presented in the EA.
Megan Schous, whose family owns Tiffany’s cafe and the Empire Lakeshore Inn, reports that Tiffany’s will offer free ice cream today, Oct. 13, from noon until 2 p.m. and at random hours throughout the week.
It is apple season and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will host an Antique Apples Special Program on October 18 from noon to 3 p.m. in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. Park Rangers and volunteer experts will be on hand for this apple bonanza. Apples played a big role in Port Oneida during its peak and the apple pickers of today still realize their value. Some of the topics that will be presented at this program include: 1) identifying varieties of apples in the park, 2) understanding why early Port Oneida settlers planted them and how they were used, and 3) discussing and demonstrating grafting techniques being used in the park to ensure rare and antique apple varieties remain in the park for years to come.
The Glen Arbor Art Association’s Readers’ Theater announces its fall play selection is My Man Godfrey—a light-hearted, Depression-era comedy in which a zany heiress tries to help a homeless man by making him the family’s butler. Performances will be held Friday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. at the Glen Arbor Art Association building, 6031 S. Lake St. in Glen Arbor. Cast and crew include Peter Van Nort, Trish Vanderploeg, Karen Van Nort, Teddy House, Rob McWatt, Ron Smith, John Rentenbach, Karen Ford, Ken Shultz and Bob House. The play is being directed by Celeste Crouch, Assistant Director Josephine Zara with additional help from Mike Duwe and Harriet Mittelberger. Admission is free but to reserve seats visit www.glenarborart.org or call 231-334-6112.
Andy Evansen, renowned watercolorist from Minnesota, returns to Glen Arbor to teach a four-day workshop sponsored by the Glen Arbor Art Association at The Homestead resort, Oct. 13-16. Born in Wisconsin in 1965, Evansen was educated at the University of Minnesota and has studied with watercolorists Skip Lawrence, Eric Weigardt and Alvaro Castagnet.
Dan Matthies, proprietor of Chateau Fontaine in Lake Leelanau (along with wife Lucie), still remembers the day over 30 years ago that he saw a tiny advertisement in the Leelanau Enterprise: “Looking for farmers to grow wine grapes.” Matthies and his wife had been fascinated with wine and the idea of wine making since they’d first tasted the beverage in the 1970s — but they’d never seriously considered the possibility that their land, acres upon acres of steep hills with south-facing slopes, would be an ideal spot for following the lead of wine maker Bernie Rink. Rink, a neighboring farmer who’d planted a test plot of French-American hybrid grapes as well as a few vinifera varieties on 16 acres of rolling Leelanau County land back in the mid 1960s, had debuted his Boskydel winery, the first winery to open in Leelanau County, in 1975.
Fall is here, and Susan Braymer, who along with her husband Bill, owns and operates Laurentide, a Lake Leelanau winery that opened its tasting room in the summer of 2012, finds that this is a season at the end of which she breathes a sigh of relief. “It’s a rushed and stressful time,” she said, “but after the harvest, you get relief. The grapes are off, and they’re on their way to the next point of their journey.”
Fall For Art in Leelanau (FFA) is a self-guided tour of the peninsula’s galleries. Now in its ninth year, FFA takes place over the Columbus Day weekend (Native Peoples’ Day), Oct. 10-12, and for good historical reason.