Twin Flames Universe holds covert Traverse City wedding

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The photos and cell phone videos suggested a typical northern Michigan summer wedding. But the ceremony held between Daniel Carboni and Cristina Fernandez on Sunday, June 16, at the Lodge at Hickory Hills—Traverse City’s municipal-owned ski hill—was anything but typical. The nuptials were the culmination of a four-day “Spiritual Life Summit” held by the Twin Flames Universe, a new age relationship cult run by Suttons Bay residents Jeff and Shaleia Ayan. They are accused of charging their cult members thousands of dollars while pressing them into toxic relationships and manipulating their emotional and mental health struggles. To avoid detection, the summit’s organizers used alias names when they booked Traverse City venues. Even so, an informal group of concerned individuals who call themselves Citizens for the Prevention of Predatory Commerce have worked behind the scenes, contacting many venues in the Traverse City region and Leelanau County and encouraging them to exercise due diligence if contacted by Twin Flames Universe. In February, the National Writers Series hosted author Janja Lalich—an authority on cults—and Twin Flames survivor Keely Griffin to the Traverse City Opera House for an event packed with drama, emotion and education about the nature of cults, then and now.

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Navigating the corn maze: Jacob’s Farm champions agritourism

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“Houses are great, but I think this is real pretty,” Jacob’s Farm owner Michael Witkop said as he stood outside the hilltop Orchard View wedding barn and gazed north across their 10-acre corn maze to the red centennial barn, where workers scurried like busy ants to open the restaurant, bar, and outdoor music venue by early June. Beyond the M-72 corridor, which connects his destination to bustling Traverse City, the hills of Leelanau County hovered in the distance like low-hanging clouds. We’re featuring Jacob’s Farm as part of our series on innovative solutions to the farming crisis. On May 7, Witkop addressed 65 attendees of Michigan State University (MSU) Extension’s first-ever Agritourism Summit, which included a tour of local agritourism businesses that have succeeded in bringing customers directly to their farms—thereby forestalling the fate that has forced tens of thousands of small farms across the United States to close in recent decades.

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More than just a filet of fish

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It’s early April, and Jim VerSnyder is sitting at a big stainless-steel table that’s covered in fish blood at Carlson’s Fishery in one of the historic Fishtown shanties in Leland. He’s got a long, sharp knife in one hand, and with the other, he reaches into a bin filled with ice, pulls out a fish, and plops it on a cutting board, reports Dan Wanschura in this story adapted from a podcast for Interlochen Public Radio. Right now, the value of an average Great Lakes whitefish is around $15. But there’s a project that’s trying to double—even triple that amount in the next several years. And it does that by finding ways to use parts of the fish that are often thrown away. This project is based on a success story in Iceland.

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In Solon Cemetery lies D-Day story: Lilly Sergueiew’s heroics chronicled in new book

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A double agent who worked for the Allies during World War II under the codename “Treasure” and played a significant role in deceiving the Germans about the location of the D-Day invasion rests in Solon Cemetery, near Cedar in Leelanau County. The D-Day landings in Normandy, France, 80 years ago today played a pivotal role in the war and the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany. The spy was Russian-born Nathalie “Lily” Sergueiew, who was born in 1912 in St. Petersburg and fled with her family to France following the Russian Revolution of 1917. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Glen Arbor Sun interviewed British writer Peter Winnington, author of the new book “Codename TREASURE,” which chronicles Sergueiew’s heroics.

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Aquatic invasives threaten area waters

For many people visiting and moving here, it’s all about the water. Unfortunately, the same is true for other, less-welcome entities: Eurasian watermilfoil, Quagga mussels, purple loosestrife and other invasive species. Combating these and other unwelcome plants and animals is an ongoing challenge. For example, Lake Leelanau has been in the news for its battle against Eurasian watermilfoil, a plant native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Now Glen Lake has discovered signs of the plant. If unchecked, it spreads quickly and forms thick mats in shallow areas. It blocks sunlight and kills native aquatic plants that fish and other underwater species rely on for food and shelter. Glen Lake Association watershed biologist Rob Karner says treating invasives follows a simple formula: find it, deal with it, and repeat until it’s gone. But while the formula may be simple, it’s far from easy.

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Invasives threaten local environment

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They may be beautiful. They may look nice as lawn ornamentation. They may even be as familiar as the bouquet from the florist. But make no mistake: non-native plants and animals threaten native flora and fauna as well as the enjoyment residents and visitors derive from the area. Knotweed, barberry, baby’s breath and Eurasian milfoil are just a few of the invasive species found in our fields and forests, lakes and waterways. Some target specific hosts, such as hemlock wooly adelgid, and before that, the emerald ash borer. Others simply crowd out native plants, such as garlic mustard or autumn olive. The Northwest Michigan Invasive Species Network works with a number of partners, including the Leelanau Conservancy, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Leelanau Conservation District, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and numerous private landowners to combat these and other invasives.

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Can we coexist with black bears?

Sleeping Bear. It’s our home, the namesake of our national park. We delight in living here, on the edge of the wild. But when a black bear emerges from hibernation and crosses our privacy thresholds, breaks into our shops, drags our dumpster trash through the village, eats our chickens, and leaves paw prints on our windows, do we suddenly fear it? Do we condemn its right to live amongst us? Do we breathe a collective sigh of relief when the authorities set traps and take the bear away? This may be the land of the sleeping bear, but only so long as it sleeps, we tell ourselves. When it wakes, we must remind the bear that this is our land now. Sun editor Jacob Wheeler asks whether we can coexist with bears in the cover story for our May 16 edition—several weeks after a 450-500-pound bear broke into the local chocolate shop, devoured a 50-pound bag of sugar and was later trapped and relocated by the DNR.

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Victorious in National Park lawsuit, Riverside Canoes celebrates 60 years

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Riverside Canoes will not need a commercial use authorization from the National Park Service to continue renting canoes, kayaks and tubes on the Platte River at the southern end of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Nor will the business have to share five percent of its gross sales with the Park. On March 1, federal judge Paul Maloney with the Western District of Michigan ruled in favor of Riverside, which will celebrate 60 years of operating on the Platte when it opens on May 1. The National Park Service has until the end of April to appeal. Riverside previous owners fought a long legal battle with the Park after Sleeping Bear Dunes was created in 1970. In 1992 they signed an agreement that allowed the business to continue operating within the National Lakeshore. It’s unclear why the Park sought to revisit the matter in 2022. Officials with the National Lakeshore declined to comment, citing active litigation. “Riverside is an anomaly. The business existed before the Park was there,” said Riverside co-owner Kyle Orr. “We try to provide family fun for generations. But we also recognize that we are stewards of the river. We are not anti-park. At end of day, I just want to coexist.”

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A brutal murder, politicizing a family’s pain, scuffing the thin blue line

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Leelanau County sheriff Mike Borkovich flanked Donald Trump at a campaign appearance in Grand Rapids on April 2, where Trump used bombastic, anti-immigrant rhetoric following the murder of Ruby Garcia by an undocumented immigrant in late March. The victim’s family accused Trump of politicizing their pain. He said that he had spoken with the Garcia family, which he did not. At the Leelanau Board of Commissioners meeting on April 9, some constituents are expected to voice their displeasure with Borkovich traveling, in uniform, to stand with Trump.

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April Fools Day: Leelanau to solve housing/workforce crisis by housing workers at Sugar Loaf encampment

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Leelanau County businesses have found an innovative solution to the region’s vexing affordable housing and workforce recruitment crisis. County government, chambers of commerce, and local businesses will team up to build a vast tent encampment at the vacant and abandoned Sugar Loaf property, which was once a cherished ski resort and Leelanau’s biggest year-round employer before gangsters, con-men and real estate tycoons closed it for good nearly 25 years ago. “We had the same housing and workforce crisis in the metropolis of Traverse City,” said Rikardo Liko, former Traverse City chancellor and Leelanau’s current interim county administrator. “But the tent encampment in the pines in the Grand Traverse Commons solved all that. We found that hardworking people who can’t afford to pay $3,000 per month for rent in northern Michigan, and can’t afford a $1 million home on the water, could instead live in tents in the woods and keep our tourism and service economics afloat.”

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