Within the next few weeks, the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail will officially open its third leg, which stretches roughly from the Crystal River dam (on County Road 675, 1.5 miles east of Glen Arbor) up to the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. That 3.4-mile stretch will make the popular Heritage Trail nearly 13 miles long.
Glen Arbor’s sleeping bear has awoken and had been sighted all over town in recent weeks. The presence of this black bear has drawn mixed reactions from the townsfolk. Bruce Laycock, who lives off of Trumbull Road, above Dunn’s Farm, in Glen Arbor Township, took the following video on Wednesday morning, May 6, of the Glen Arbor black bear and its cub.
“Sugar Loaf is like a beautiful girl who wants to get married. But she keeps getting left by guys at the alter, so she keeps coming back to me.” — Liko Smith … But Sugar Loaf, the long-shuttered ski resort in the heart of Leelanau County, is no longer on the front of Liko Smith’s to-do list.
It began last March over at Woodstone. While Karen and Peter Van Nort were off in sunny Arizona, their house sitter was out walking their dog one day when an acquaintance drove by in a Glen Arbor Outdoor truck. He mentioned that he was checking their clients’ vacant homes as a precaution and asked if she had checked the Van Nort’s basement.
Nearly 10 years ago, in August 2005, this community newspaper published a celebratory feature story titled “Old Cowboy, New Tricks”, about the late Bill Bricker. In 2011, online commenters using anonymous email addresses suddenly began to allege that Bricker had sexually molested them and other underage boys. The accusations of pedophilia became more and more serious, and seemed to coincide with the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal.
The most popular Glen Arbor Sun story of 2014 was an investigative article in February that featured a proposed canopy air walk in Kasson Township, near Burdickville, that never materialized. Local opposition to Mark Evan’s “air walk” was nearly unanimous, and passionate. Our story attracted thousands of views, and 55 comments.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is requesting public comment as the Park considers an increase to entrance and camping fees beginning in January 2016. The current entrance fees and first come-first served camping fees have been in place since 2004 with only a slight increase in fees for reservable campsites which occurred in 2006. The National Lakeshore is one of only 131 of the 401 National Park Service (NPS) sites that charge entrance fees and were recently authorized by NPS Director Jon Jarvis to consider fee increases based upon a new fee structure.
On her way to work one morning this past summer, Kama Ross noticed some sick-looking oak trees near a recently cleared right-of-way in Bingham County. Luckily, Ross knew what she was looking at: the first confirmed case of oak wilt disease in Leelanau County.
A “Bay to Bay” hiking, paddling and camping trail proposed for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has generated excitement among local business owners and recreation enthusiasts but also attracted significant opposition from private property landowners who live near the trail’s potential route. Staff at the National Lakeshore have subsequently slowed planning for the Bay to Bay Trail initiative. They extended the public comment period by an extra month this fall, and have drawn out the project’s scoping phase until next summer.
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.