Five Years After the Storm: Making Positive Out of Negative
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
They remember it like yesterday: August 2, 2015. The Pryors were in their summer home in the Woodstone neighborhood of Glen Arbor. “Around 4 p.m. it got super dark,” Zach recalls, “dark as night. There was deep thunder but no lightning. Then the wind hit. We heard the cracking of trees going down in our front yard.”
“We went down in the basement,” adds sister Bella, “expecting trees to come through our roof.”
“It was the scariest moment of my life,” Zach vows.
The day after the storm, with no electricity or water, Zach and Bella and their mom, Deanna, joined many other townies at the Glen Arbor Town Hall where there was food and water and a generator so you could charge up your phone. This continued for days until power was restored.
“We were really impressed with how the community rallied around each other,” Bella remembers. “We started talking about how you can take the negative and make something positive out of it.” On their new website, NorthernRootsMichigan.com, Bella and Zach continue their story: “Our family endured the storm, the fear, and the carnage that followed. While we counted our blessings that we weren’t hurt, and that our house sustained little damage, all of the fallen trees and many of our favorite trails, roads, and views were devastated. Once the dust settled and “the new normal” began to reveal itself, we kept seeing the result of this damage end up out by the street, ready for pick-up… old fences, broken docks, and scraps of wood to be discarded. And that’s when the idea came to us… to not let those old things go to waste, but to make things from them, things that epitomize and symbolize the Northern Michigan places we are rooted in, things that somehow balance old and new at the same time, and things that, with a little handmade care, become something Michigan again.”
Besides being positive and full of energy, Bella and Zach Pryor are artistic and creative. Zach was already making M-22 signs at home in Ann Arbor with his dad, Scott, a graphic designer, who is into woodworking. “He taught us all the time growing up,” they say together. “Dad taught me how to make signs, layer paint, and make stencils,” Zach adds.
“We picked up discarded docks set out for trash pickup around the Glen Lakes,” Ella continues. “We literally loaded up a trailer with docks and started making signs back in Ann Arbor that whole winter after the storm.”
“As trees littered the streets, construction crews removed leftover wood, and our community questioned what steps to take next,” their website recounts. “Rather than seeing the destruction of this momentous event as a barrier to our town’s healing, we instead saw it as a light to bring our community together. So, we loaded a trailer full of wood scraps left over from the storm, began thinking of Northern Michigan places that meant the most to us, and started creating wood signs that would turn a negative event into a positive one, inspiring us to create even more products and designs that depict these iconic Michigan places. Northern Roots was born.”
During the summer of 2016, and back in Woodstone, Bella and Zach started selling their newly crafted signs at the farmer’s markets in Empire and Glen Arbor. “So we made friends with the farmers, who started giving us more material to make more signs!” Zach smiles. Dana Boomer of Still Point Farm, one of the regulars at these farmer’s markets, is still providing material to Northern Roots for new signs. “It’s the same process every year,” Bella continues. “We bring wood home to Ann Arbor and make signs all winter there, then bring them up here and paint them throughout the summer.”
Their first sign remains their best seller.
“Known for its pristine blue waters, rolling waves, steep sandy dunes, and trails to a deeper understanding of nature, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore lies in the heart of Michigan’s pinky. While the destructive storm of 2015 brought Northern Roots to life, its beginnings were brewing long before in the grains of sand, drops of water, and continuous memories that make up our love for the Sleeping Bear Dunes. That is why our Sleeping Bear Dunessign continues to be our bestseller, with two unique designs and four color variations adhered to wood salvaged from a natural event we as humans must learn to accept and appreciate rather than resist.”
Now five years after the Glen Arbor storm, Bella is a junior at the University of Michigan School of Business, while Zach will be a senior at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School. “We look at sales trends and new painting styles,” Zach explains, “so I painted 29 signs today.”
“May I tell you something about Zach?” their mother Deanna chimes in. “Zach was this year’s national champion in DECA, an organization that ‘prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management.’
“You have to present a 20-page business plan in a 15-minute presentation and then take questions,” Zach explains. “I won the Districts at EMU, then the States in Detroit. Then I got to go to Orlando to the ICDC (International Career Development Conference), where there were people from 14 or 15 countries. I did two presentations, ended up in the top 14, and then ended up in first place with a glass trophy!”
“He is the first student in Pioneer High School history to win!” says his mom.
Bella and Zach are not just remarkable siblings who found a way to make lemonade from lemons, they also give back to this community.
“Our love for Northern Michigan doesn’t end with just visits, it is present through our dedication to volunteering for the Sleeping Bear Dunes Heritage Trail, where we are ambassadors. While the storm destroyed the beautiful canopy of trees lining the trail, this role allows us to help propel the healing process both physically and in our love for the national lakeshore. Each year, Northern Roots donates proceeds to the Sleeping Bear Dunes Heritage Trail, as well as to Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, which aids in the restoration process of historic property in the Port Oneida Farm District.”
Bella and Zach’s Northern Roots retail shop can be found on the back corner of the big deck at Boonedocks in Glen Arbor. They have expanded their product line beyond reclaimed signs to also include handmade soaps, candles, posters, jewelry, coasters, and stationary. Visit their website, NorthernRootsMichigan.com. In these crazy pandemic times, go-getters like Bella and Zach are a sign that there is hope for the future. Stop by Northern Roots and pay them a visit.
