Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Dusty Shultz announced that the National Park Service proposes to restore, as much as practicable, the hydrological connection between the Mill Pond and Little Glen Lake. To do so, the National Lakeshore will prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) which will describe and analyze alternatives for this hydrological connection.
By Jacob Wheeler Sun editor The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will not close Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and facilities at the Dune Climb, Glen Haven and other crowned jewels of this National Lakeshore — as local administrators had planned to do after Labor Day weekend, the traditional end of the summer tourism season in […]
Jim Dorsey is the living grandson of 1850s pioneer John Dorsey. He and his wife Velma, and daughter and son-in-law, Christine and Duane Shugart, still live on the old home place on the south shore of Little Glen Lake. Where the farm and its sheep and cows used to be, is now a well-kept summer trailer park with a view of the dunes in the distance. Jim Dorsey says the Indians helped his grandfather locate this place, pervaded even now by an unusual peace and beauty.
Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB) was founded in 1998 in an attempt to halt the demolition of several buildings owned by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Some 15 years later, the organization continues a partnership with the National Park Service in which its volunteers maintain and restore those buildings.
The pristine water quality of Big and Little Glen Lakes along with the protected shorelines, natural hillsides, turquoise water, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore being the largest riparian on the lake, it is hard to find a more unique and beautiful lake in the country. Furthermore, this national treasure should be protected so as to keep it in a natural and pristine condition, now and for future generations.
Three years after the July 25, 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, this tragedy holds important warning signs for communities and municipal and state governments. Oil pipelines now crisscross the entire country, running through Midwestern states that are not oil producers but have become oil transit zones. Many of them already carry Canadian Tar Sands oil.
On Sunday, July 14, a group of state and national environmental organizations intend to bring the two lines out of the depths at a noon rally in St. Ignace, Michigan. The goal of “The Oil & Water Don’t Mix Rally”, say organizers, is twofold. The first is to define the potential risks of a leak or rupture to the Great Lakes, the largest body of clean surface freshwater in North America. The second, more ambitious, is to clarify the role that Enbridge and its customers are playing in expanding the transport and processing of a gusher of oil and natural gas under development on the American and Canadian Great Plains, and from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.
Leelanau writer Kathleen Stocking reflects on her father, Pierce Stocking, who passed away the day after selling his vast tracts of land near Glen Arbor to the federal government. That land is now part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
When Sue Burns’ husband Kevin accidentally shrank her wool sweaters in the wash 20 years ago, she had no idea that their laundry mishap would be the catalyst for growing a creatively satisfying, financially robust business in Leelanau County. Unable to throw away her favorite garments, she cut and resewed the fabrics into colorful hats, jackets and sweaters for her two young daughters. When friends, acquaintances and even strangers asked where she’d gotten them, she realized she had the beginnings of a promising niche in the fiber arts market. Thus Baabaazuzu — the name combines the sound of a sheep with Sue’s nickname “Zuzu” — was born.
National Park week, which begins April 20, is typically an opportunity for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to strut its stuff and demonstrate its value to the local community a month before the summer tourism season opens with Memorial Day weekend. During this year’s National Park week, the Lakeshore will hold a water testing demonstration on Esch Road Beach, a swearing-in ceremony for junior rangers, a showing of the film Chasing Ice at the Empire Visitor Center and a star gazing party on Platte Point Beach.