Historical Feature

Vintage Views series offers connection to local history

From the first “Gazetteer of the State of Michigan,” 1838, author John T. Blois explains his goal of “disabusing the public mind…of the gross misconceptions” about the state of Michigan, “[A] State, as fair and rich by nature, as her population are high-minded, enterprising, and intelligent”. Christine Byron and Thomas R. Wilson, creators and authors of the “Vintage Views” series of books, picked up Blois’ baton continuing his endeavors in sharing the stories, histories, and culture that make Michigan the “Peninsulam Amoenam.” Each Byron and Wilson work offers a fascinating journey through Michigan’s tourism history.

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Odawa artist extends deceased animals’ purpose “in a good way”

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On a wall in Hank Bailey’s bedroom is a can’t-miss photographic print on a large canvas. Bailey, an Odawa (Ottawa) elder of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, is the unmistakable subject. He’s in his powwow dancing regalia in a “bending of the knees” pose, as the Anishinaabe word for powwow—Jingtamok—translates. Bailey wrote in the Sun in 2017, “I can say without being ashamed that I have been brought to tears during dances. I have felt so good while dancing it seemed like my feet were not even touching the ground.”

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Father-son baseball pilgrimage resumes as Tigers stalk October

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Some traditions and rituals return season after season, some wither away, and some are reborn after years of hibernation. Last month, Glen Arbor Sun editors Norm and Jacob Wheeler resumed their annual father-son baseball pilgrimage—this time to watch two games at Comerica Park in Detroit, where the Tigers were trying to stave off the rival Cleveland Guardians and gain a spot in the playoffs. Their roaring, red-hot start to the season had earned them the best record in baseball until July before they collapsed like a dozing cat and squandered a seemingly insurmountable 15.5-game lead over the team from Lake Erie. In this essay, Jacob reflects on their baseball trips and how America’s original national pastime has changed over the decades.

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Leelanau Conservancy reaches $8 million goal to protect Sugar Loaf

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“French toast.” That was the codename that Leelanau Conservancy executive director Tom Nelson created for the top-secret project, 3.5 years in the making, to acquire Sugar Loaf, and turn the County’s once popular ski resort into a community gathering place. The Conservancy announced on July 17 that it will permanently protect the hill and 285-acre property in the heart of Leelanau County and bring this cherished location back to life for the first time in a quarter century. On Sept. 26 the Conservancy announced that it had reached its $8 million fundraising goal. Nelson said that more than 1,100 individuals have donated to the campaign. “This achievement is nothing short of historic,” said Nelson. “And it belongs to all of us. Overwhelming community support has made it possible to reach our $8M goal. We’re thrilled with the support and excitement.”

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The Open-Air Resort of D.H. Day Campground

“We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home, in towns and cities” wrote Civil War veteran and expert outdoorsman George Washington Sears. Before my family purchased cherry orchard property, we were campers, and, I’ll be honest, not exactly roughing it campers. Heading to D.H. Day Campground several times each summer, our cars were overloaded, not with children, but with stuff. The children were mixed in between the crevices and cracks of the stuff, writes Rebecca Carlson in this sixth story in our series on the history of Leelanau County resorts and getaways.

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The Finchers’ Labor Day reflections

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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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The dogs of New Orleans: 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

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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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Vintage Views and Early Michigan Travel

On July 12–17, 1915, the third annual auto Pike Tour commenced. The route followed the Michigan lakeshore route of what everyone knows as U.S. 31, once called the West Michigan Pike in the early days of auto travel, writes Rebecca G Carlson in this fifth story in our series on the history of Leelanau County resorts and getaways. Averaging “14” miles per hour, this auto group of an estimated “100” automobiles would cover “635 ½” miles in total beginning in the St. Joseph-Benton Harbor area, and ending the five-day tour in Manistee, according to Byron and Wilson’s book “Vintage Views Along the West Michigan Pike.”

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Teenagers picking cherries: a migrant farmworker’s memoir

Here’s an excerpt from Robert “Carlos” Fuentes’ self-published book, “The Vacation: a Teenage Migrant Farmworker’s Experience Picking Cherries in Michigan”—a coming-of-age story that intertwines the bonds of family and friends, emphasizes the importance of heritage, captures the sweetness of first love, and showcases the quiet dignity of hard work. According to Rubén O. Martinez, professor emeritis at Michigan State University’s Julia Samora Research Institute, Fuentes’ story, which is set in 1969 not long before the introduction of the mechanized cherry shaker, “provides a window to family, religion, race relations, and short-term community life among migrant farm working families through the experiences of an adolescent boy who is coming of age in a migrant camp and the orchards of cherry growers.” Fuentes’ book “The Vacation” is available at Leelanau County bookstores.

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The Anishinaabek: Michigan’s original people

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Tim Mulherin, author of “This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan” includes an excerpt of his book that features JoAnne Cook, chief appellate court judge for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and an outreach educator. Cook sometimes teaches an adult education course at Northwestern Michigan College, “The History of the Anishinaabek.” Her historical overview incorporates cultural and spiritual aspects of the band, and she covers the legal issues involving treaties (which are still ongoing) leading up to tribal life in modern time and the efforts to restore and advance Native traditions.

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