From staff reports Firearm hunting season on Northern Michigan’s deer population commences on November 15, with leaves resting on the ground and a pre-winter chill hanging in the air. But Mike Walker, a retired educator at Glen Lake School and realtor at Coldwell Banker, has already been on the hunt for weeks. Walker and Greg […]

Nadine Gilmer narrates, and reflects on, the Northern Michigan autumn tradition of pressing apples to make apple cider. It’s hard to imagine apple cider making not being a community event. Aside from the sweet promise of fresh apple cider, this is a labor-intensive job. One person washes the apples while a couple of other cider-makers set up the press. Then one person holds the bowl at the end of the spout to make sure none of the juice is wasted. One feeds handfuls of apples into the machine while a sturdy volunteer turns the crank.

A press release posted various places on the Internet yesterday suggests that Eneliko Sean “Liko” Smith is about to acquire Sugar Loaf Resort, the long shuttered ski resort in Leelanau County, Michigan. Smith is an enigmatic former Samoan boxer from Las Vegas whose failed business deals, relationship troubles and run-ins with the law have made quite a splash in the media. He admits that he doesn’t “Google well”.

By Jacob Wheeler Sun editor Next time you have the munchies while driving between Glen Arbor and Leland, or find yourself in need of provisions for the cottage on Little Traverse or Lime Lake, there’s no need to scavenge for mushrooms in the woods. In early October, Neal Kokowicz plans to open Market 22, in […]

Local nonprofits Buckets of Rain and Great Lakes Friends of Safe Passage are organizing a “music marathon” next week in Traverse City which, if successful, will feature Woody Guthrie’s patriotic ballad “This Land is Your Land” sung, over and over again, for 72 hours straight. The performance will begin at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 17 and conclude at noon on Friday, Sept. 20.

I am a 95-pound, 7-year-old, American Bulldog. My master and best buddy, Dave Tris, rescued me from the Animal Care and Control shelter on Chicago’s South Side. I was less than a year old at the time. Dave picked me because I was the friendliest dog in the shelter. Hambone was the name given to me at the shelter. People always chuckle and pet me more when they hear my name.

Cedar’s fire department, like others in Leelanau County, is experiencing noticeable growing pains, with increased demand from the four townships it serves: Solon, Centerville, Cleveland and Kasson. The latest available data is from 2012, where Fire Chief Dan Petroskey wrote that the CFD had “the most calls ever in the history of the department, with a total of 686 responses.” These included 444 ambulance responses, 242 fire runs, and 17 mutual aid responses to other emergency servers, for a total increase over 2011’s 544 calls.

By Marc Boissoneau Sun contributor “You don’t mind if I work while we talk, do you?” Carol Worsley asks. “Because as a cooking teacher, I’m used to working and talking.” On this particular day, Worsley is shelling shrimp for a friend, but she already has plans to bake scones and cookies when she finishes that […]

It’s just after 7 a.m. and a milk-hauling truck is slowly climbing the gravel drive toward the milking parlor at Garvin Farms, north of Cedar. Two or three times a week, John and Anne Hoyt of Leelanau Cheese make the trek in their truck, aptly named “The Milky Way,” to the Garvins’ immaculately-kept dairy farm along Lakeshore Drive. Here, the Hoyts draw two test samples of the farm’s fresh milk from a stainless tank before loading the truck with what will soon be made into Swiss Raclette and, in summer, Fromage Blanc cheeses.

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.