Details surrounding the history, legend and exciting 2010 discovery of one of the Great Lakes’ most sought-after shipwrecks will be disclosed during the Empire Area Heritage Group’s Dec. 2, free public program at the Empire Township Hall.
On sweltering nights when you cannot fall to sleep no sound is larger than the buzz of a mosquito or a trapped moth striking the screen of your bedroom window. In the north woods, in the village of Empire, through open windows you hear the call of a coyote or an owl, an occasional rustle in the leaves and brush as an opossum or porcupine scutters through, the perfect stomping of deer hooves. There is no cooling breeze; the night feels warm and sticky. Well past midnight you rise to look out the window and watch a bat dart back and forth where moths cluster beneath a village street light.
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.
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.
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 Glen Arbor Art Association (GAAA) will proudly present its new dramatic venture, Readers’ Theater on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. “The Adventure of the Tolling Bell” and “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” two adapted Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, are directed by Josephine Zara. This event at the GAAA is free and open to the public; goodwill offerings will be accepted at the door.
I became a Boizard geek after reading The Boizard Letters: Letters From a Pioneer Homestead (1993) and I’ve explored several themes in those letters in this summer series of articles. In this final article in that series, I mention things I’ve found and areas still in need of further looking. One of the things I have found in my search for Mrs. Boizard is her tombstone in Maple Grove Cemetery.
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.
A special holiday tradition continues as the Glen Lake Community Library kicks off its annual call for children’s books. The Friends of the Library, in cooperation with Glen Lake School’s “Parenting Communities” program, are once again collecting donations of new children’s books for children whose families are in need of assistance this holiday season.
Glen Arbor’s Cottage Book Shop will host author Jerry Dennis and illustrator Glenn Wolff (who will have engraving prints on hand) who will sign their book The Windward Shore: Great Lakes in the Winter from 11-2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 19 at the Vintage Cottage Holiday Market at Black Star Farms in Suttons Bay.