Here in Northern Michigan, we suffer (no, enjoy!) many bone-chilling months, but those of us who speak the language of the sauna fear not the onset of temperatures that plummet to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, or below. Here are a few avid sauna lovers in our community who heat their hot rooms with Nippa stoves.

The January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, D.C. attracted more than half a million demonstrators to the banks of the Potomac. Writer Anne-Marie Oomen of Empire, and other Leelanau women shared their experiences from that day.

This is Sugar Loaf, once the region’s premier ski resort and Leelanau County’s largest employer. Three hundred once worked here. Located off M-22, the artery of the peninsula, Sugar Loaf pulsed with traffic and commerce during these cold, quiet winter months until it closed in 2000. This isn’t the story of those who ran Sugar Loaf into the ground. This is the story of her characters and personalities, how they reflect on the resort, and what they’re up to now.

The 11th and final installment in a year-long series of articles about local art, culture and creativity. Five visual and performing artists were asked to peer into the new year, and consider what lies ahead for them and their practices. Here’s what they said.

They met in the summer of 2012. Still in college, she had come north from a suburb of Detroit to take a job as a waitress at the Cove in Leland. He was managing The Cyclery in Glen Arbor and beginning to think about ways to create a high-density apple orchard in the hills above Lake Michigan, land his family has farmed since they came from Bohemia in the 1870s. They had friends in common. Her best friend, Bradi Pasch, from college, was the sister of one of his best friends, Dave Pasch, a young man who was his partner in the orchard enterprise. He is Brad Houdek. She is Gina Wymore.

Totem poles are, historically, monumental sculptures carved from tall trees. The Leelanau School project got its totem tree from Art’s Tavern owner Tim Barr. He donated a 26-foot-tall cedar, which had graced the Barr home before the storm had turned it into a supine lawn ornament. McCue’s students resurrected the cedar through the transformative power of art. And like other historic totem poles, this one was endowed by it creators with a story to tell about their tribe.

If you are election-weary and searching for ways to honor the “best” in all of us, consider Four a.m. December 25. Written and illustrated by the local team of Bill O. Smith and Glenn Wolff, Four a.m. is a holiday picture book that takes the reader around the world at this one wondrous moment, then back home to the United States where a soldier is trying to get home in time for Christmas.

In advance of the Nov. 8 general election, the Glen Arbor Sun reached out to interview candidates for Leelanau’s seven County Commission seats (both incumbents and challengers) and two candidates vying to replace John Soderholm as Glen Arbor Township Supervisor. At least one candidate for each County Commission seat responded to our interview request, as did both candidates for Township Supervisor — Bob Hawley and Peter Van Nort.

Bob Hawley (Republican) and Peter Van Nort (Independent) are running for Glen Arbor Township Supervisor. We conducted the following Q&A with the candidates.

Big Glen Lake resident Chip Hoagland — dubbed the “Warren Buffet of food” in a recent Traverse Magazine feature story — will be honored with the Milliken Leadership Award by the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities on Saturday, Oct. 8 at the nonprofit’s annual Harvest at the Commons celebration. Tickets to the event, including dinner and entertainment, cost $45 and are available at MyNorthTickets.com.