From Black Eden to Migrant Prison: ICE’s second largest detention center nationwide opens 80 minutes from Leelanau County

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Citizens from across Michigan’s lower peninsula have traveled to Baldwin this spring, packed village council meetings, held demonstrations and called for officials to stand against the reopening of a nearby immigrant detention center. The 1,800-bed, maximum-security North Lake Correctional Facility, owned by the for-profit prison corporation Geo Group, is the largest such facility in the Midwest and second-largest in the nation. It reopened on June 16. The fact that the prison will most likely hold non-white immigrants stands out in this part of Michigan. Baldwin, a rural town of 900 with a large historically Black minority, is five minutes from the unincorporated community of Idlewild, which once thrived as a vacation refuge known as ​“Black Eden.”

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Keeping tradition: Ricker’s black Cadillac leads Glen Arbor Fourth of July Parade

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Ed Ricker has driven the grand marshal in Glen Arbor’s Fourth of July parade in his iconic 1976 black Cadillac for decades. This year, Glen Arbor Township has bestowed the honor of grand marshal on Ricker, himself. The owner of Glen Lodge, pride of Miami University (Ohio) and longtime fixture at Art’s Tavern, passed away under tragic circumstances last November. Ricker was 95. Former Art’s owner Tim Barr will drive the Cadillac; Ricker’s daughter, Glen Lake Chamber president Darci will ride next to him.

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Jolli-Lodge: “The Inspirational Retreat”

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Not all resorts can claim a connection to a world-renowned, award-winning poet and novelist, but the Leelanau Peninsula resort Jolli-Lodge can. Rebecca G. Carlson features the Jolli-Lodge in her third story in our series on the history of Leelanau County resorts and getaways. Jolli-Lodge is that unexpected surprise at the end of the path. As guests and visitors drive through the gently, rolling hills of the 16-acre property, the most amazing view appears when driving to the main lodge.  Built in 1924, the classic white and green shuttered lodge sits against the sweeping jewel-tones of Lake Michigan. Standing along the 700-frontage feet of shore, the visitor is offered miles of sandy beach along with deceptively close views of both North and South Manitou Islands. It’s breathtaking.

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Oak tree

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As I take in news reports about ICE raids and fearful immigrants in my community and around the country, I wonder how many of us know our own family immigration histories, writes Linda Engelhard. My father was firmly committed to family and shared with us what he knew of their journeys. He was the son of new immigrants, born in the now famous Springfield, Ohio, 98 years ago. At that time, his mother was miserable. She spoke only Dutch and had no one to talk with except my grandfather, the man who had convinced her to cross the Atlantic in the belly of a ship. She gave him a choice: buy her passage back to the Netherlands or move to Michigan near other Dutch immigrants.

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Remembering Suzanne Wilson’s creative mission: Friday night summer art openings resume at Lake Street Studios

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To know the history of the arts in Glen Arbor is to know Suzanne Wilson. A venerated artist and pillar of the community, Suzanne had the singular ability to translate Leelanau’s land, light, and water into work that felt both intimate and expansive. But perhaps more significantly, Suzanne did not simply depict Leelanau’s landscape—she transformed its cultural fabric. In the early 1990s, Suzanne began organizing Friday night art openings at Lake Street Studio’s Center Gallery, the public-facing component of her studio. The summer 2025 season of Center Gallery opens on June 27 with Joan Richmond, a Traverse City-based artist best known for her luminous landscapes.

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Fountain Point Resort’s history

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“To come once is to linger, and the next year to come again,” said Albert Meafoy, Fountain Point’s second owner. As someone who used to beg my parents to go to the Alpine Slide on a daily basis to feed my inner-speed demon, writes Rebecca Carlson, part-owner and co-general manager of Fountain Point Resort, Theo Early, mentioned having a water slide at the resort on the same idea as the toboggan run at The Alpine Slide. The Fountain Point Resort water slide operated from the 1930s until the 1990s. Built on the shores of Lake Leelanau, it was a combination toboggan run that slides into the water—genius! I would have asked my parents to move in permanently to Fountain Point Resort. As Theo and I walked the property, he pointed to where the water slide was located. Sadly, insurance liability issues ended those days of reckless fun. Insurance companies are party poopers. I vote to re-instate the “Water-Chute” of Fountain Point.

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“The Bohemian Cooks of St Wenceslaus”

One of the events Leelanau County locals make sure to mark on their calendars each summer are for the Catholic Church Chicken Dinners. Not only were the dinners a source of entertainment with plays, music, dancing, singing, and games, the dinners served as a communal festival to celebrate the summer season, engaging the congregations of the peninsula and the broader community. At one time, there were five different locations throughout the Leelanau Peninsula for the Chicken Dinners hosted by the local Catholic parishes. Sadly, in 2025, there are only two remaining Chicken Dinner events: St. Wenceslaus in Gills Pier on June 22 and Holy Rosary in Cedar on July 27.

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“Brutal work” shoveling sand. Goodbye, Pierce Stocking overlook

Millions of visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore remember the iconic wooden viewing platform a short walk from the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive stop #9, which was removed by Park staff last month after shifting sands eroded the platform’s support. Thousands have taken photos since the full platform was installed in 1986. Some ran down the steep cliff toward Lake Michigan. A few couldn’t get back up and paid hefty fines to be rescued by rangers and first responders. Tom Mountz, a former maintenance worker who retired from Sleeping Bear Dunes in 2018 after 43 years on the job, remembers shoveling sand when the platform was installed nearly 40 years ago. Lots of sand. “Several times a week, first thing in the morning, a crew of four-six of us needed to shovel the boardwalk to #9. From a few inches of sand to a foot or more. Brutal work. But we were all 25-30 years old. Eventually a new, improved boardwalk was built and properly sized so a tractor could remove 90 percent of the sand.”

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Childhood diseases are not harmless

When I was growing up, “rubella baby” was a term that everyone in our community knew. The worldwide 1963–1965 epidemic of German measles hit Michigan so hard that the Michigan School for the Deaf had to start up a special unit for preschoolers who’d been born both deaf and blind. Their mothers had been exposed to the virus during their first trimester of pregnancy, writes Lois Beardslee, an author and tribal member who lives in Leelanau County. Epidemics often hit Michigan’s Native American communities harder than other communities, because the culture of northern Michigan in the first half of the 20th century dictated closing off roads to infected Indian communities, not even letting in doctors. Vaccinating one’s children should be an important social obligation that transcends economic cultural affiliations.

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Origin Stories: remembering our resorting history

Everyone has an “origin story” for how their family arrived, found, or landed in this area, writes Rebecca G Carlson in this first installment in our series on the history of Leelanau County resorts and getaways. Which category does your family fall into: Campers? Resorters? Hotel guests? Fishing trips? Connections to the area? In the following editions of the Sun, Carlson will highlight local resorts such as Fountain Point, The Jolli Lodge, The Leelanau Country Inn (now the Little Traverse Inn), Perrins Landing, Sunset Lodge, and other vacation destinations that attracted many voyagers to the area.

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