Peninsula Housing has announced the availability for purchase of their first home. Located at 1002 S. Herman Road in Suttons Bay, this three-bedroom home was acquired by Peninsula Housing last fall. After extensive renovations, it is now ready to be sold at an affordable price to a qualifying buyer. “We are excited to be able to offer this home at a price that working families can afford,” said Peninsula Housing president Larry Mawby.
The Department of the Interior announced that visitor spending in communities near national parks in 2022 resulted in a record high $50.3 billion benefit to the nation’s economy and supported 378,400 jobs. The report showed that the approximately 1.5 million visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore last year spent an estimated $182 million in local gateway communities. These expenditures supported a total of 2,390 jobs, $72.5 million in labor income, $130 million in value added, and $234 million in economic output.
A heartwarming story unfolded in late July on the picturesque shores of Sleeping Bear Bay in Glen Arbor when a family’s beach outing turned into a serendipitous moment after an impulse Amazon purchase led them to assist another couple in locating their precious keepsake.
This summer means now. A sign reading “Opening this Summer” inside the window at Millie’s, the new pizza and ice cream restaurant on the footprint of the famed Riverfront Pizza, has been replaced by a new sign that reads “Grand Opening” and “Thursday to Sunday 12 pm to 8 pm.” Millie’s holds its grand opening on Thursday, Aug. 10, and features made-from-scratch “Roman Pizza al Taglio,” known for its semi-thick, light and fluffy interior and crispy exterior. Pizza slices, which cost $5 or $6 each, offer cheese, pepperoni, sausage and onion, or mushroom and roasted garlic. For dessert, Millie’s features ice cream in two flavors—cinnamon toast and dark cherry—crafted from a rich, custard base that uses cream, whole milk, sugar, salt and egg yolks. The restaurant is managed by Fernhaus Studio hospitality group, whose team also runs The Mill, another time-honored Glen Arbor landmark on the Crystal River, The Riverside in Leland, and Brew in Traverse City.
Six days in July, three emergencies on lakes near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, two cases of people not wearing life vests, and one death. These stories yield cautionary tales about enjoying but respecting these waters which are beautiful but can prove perilous, too. Read about the young men rescued in Lake Michigan floating in inner tubes one mile off Platte Point, a death on South Bar Lake in Empire, and a family that survived a boat fire on Big Glen Lake.
On July 20, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chose Suttons Bay High School as the venue to sign the state’s record-setting new education budget which allocates $24.3 billion for pre-K through 12th grade during the coming school year. Whitmer said the programs funded by the budget will help achieve education equity across Michigan. The new allowance per student will be $9,608 with more funding for students with disabilities, low-income families and English-language learners. “We know that potential is universal, but opportunity is not,” Whitmer said. “And when we make investments in the education of our kids, we’re creating opportunity for all. This is how we level the playing field. This is how we ensure that every student is prepared to be successful.” “It’s about priority,” Suttons Bay Superintendent Casey Petz told the Sun. “If we’re gonna put our money where our mouth is, this is the place to come. Suttons Bay has an incredibly diverse student population. We have a high-needs population. When a Governor and her team make it a point to come to a place like this, what they’re saying is, ‘We see you. We hear you’.”
Soon after Jason and Jennifer Mott Paupore, their children and dog embarked in their 2006 Galaxie Deck boat on Saturday, July 15 for an early evening of tubing, they accelerated and heard a sudden bang and a pop from the boat’s engine. Jason saw smoke and flames coming out of the engine. He used the fire extinguisher to attempt to put out the fire, but it didn’t help. “We couldn’t stop the fire, so we hopped in the lake and let the boat burn,” said Jason. Conor McCahill, owner of On the Narrows Marina, pulled up to the burning vessel, hopped on board and took Pepper onto his own boat, “like a hero running into a burning building,” said Jason. “A huge ‘thank you’ to the Glen Lake Fire Department, the sheriff’s office, the McCahills both for their work on the water and their hospitality when they got us back to shore, and to everybody on Glen Lake who came by and offered to help!”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel met with local business owners and nonprofit leaders at the solar array on the corner of M-72 and Bugai Rd in southeastern Leelanau County on Friday, July 7. Nessel said that renewable energy generators such as this solar array are an important tool to combat man-made climate change, which has affected Michigan in recent years in the form of rainstorms and flooding, heat waves, toxic algal blooms, rapidly fluctuating Lake Michigan water levels and beach erosion, and more ticks and tick-borne diseases. Warmer and shorter winters have also put northern Michigan’s cherished cherry crop at risk, and smoke from Canadian wildfires has polluted the air across the Midwest this spring and summer. “Climate change is real,” said Nessel. “And if you didn’t believe it before, you ought to start believing it now.” Under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and a Democratic-led state legislature, Michigan’s climate plan to wean utilities and industry off fossil fuels and coal- and gas-fired power plants is among the most ambitious nationwide.
Bikers and runners on the Leelanau Trail, which stretches 18 miles between Traverse City and Suttons Bay, encountered an extra thrill in the days after June 22. TART Trails—whose network includes the Leelanau Trail—and Michigan Writers teamed up to chalk poems by five writers: Lois Beardslee, Ari Mokdad, Jen Steinorth, Yvonne Stephens and Mae Stier. Created with stainless steel stencil sheets and marked on the trail with chalk dust, the poems left every few miles were expected to last two to four weeks, depending on the weather, and they may be reinstalled in August. Heavy rains on June 25 may have washed some of the chalk away and “gave some poems an ephemeral quality,” said Caitlin Early, TART’s campaign and development officer who also manages the “Art on the TART” initiative.
For more than 10 years, Wildsam has published books about great American places. The series delves into big cities, small towns, iconic American regions and cozier places better known to locals. Wildsam also hopes their field guides light up culture and history in ways that ring true in the places they cover. The series aims to celebrate landscapes that might surprise a few people with their cultural vitality and depth of heritage. Northern Michigan is Wildsam’s newest field guide. Contributors to this book include Glen Arbor Sun editor Jacob Wheeler and frequent writers, Anne-Marie Oomen and Mae Stier.