Keith Burnham, Biscuit, and The Leland Report

By Sandra Serra Bradshaw

Sun contributor

Keith Burnham, with his great love of the charming village of Leland, and its accompanying historic Fishtown, lives by the words, “Every day’s a joy, and some days are more joyous than others…” And that right in his own special place. He has been taking photos of this area for well over five decades. Keith’s constant companion was his dog Biscuit. His daily photos turned into the blog the Leland Report, and the Report and Biscuit came to have followers in every state in the nation as well as from all over the world.

Keith and his wife Joan moved to Leland from Illinois in 1999. Though they have lived most of their life in Illinois, their hearts and mind, for most of their lives, has always been in their beloved Leland, and especially Fishtown.

Joan Gits’s family had been vacationing in Leland for well over 70 years starting back in the 1940s before World War II. She introduced Keith to the area in the summer of 1959 before they were married. “I knew I was going to live here the minute I came,” said Keith. As a couple, newly in love, they started coming to Leland whenever the time availed.

Besides their love for the area, there is an even greater love for their children. Their first born is Julie, the eldest of the Burnham family clan. Next in line is Mary, then John, and the youngest, James “Jim.” Even though they live in various places scattered across the country, they remain a close-knit family and always make that their priority. As for their Dad, despite living far from them, he shared his daily walks and the wonders of Leland—through his eyes—with them. He began emailing them his photos nearly every day when he and Joan moved full-time to Leland.

Fast forward to March 2001, when word—and his wonderful photos—got out beyond his communicating just with his own children. More and more people requested that they get the email too. “At first he emailed us photos every day. We forwarded them on to people we knew. It was such a big email, I thought it became easier to just create a website,” Jim explained.

Jim not only provided a link to the site, but allowed viewers to see the photos and have the ability to leave comments. Thus the official Leland Report began. “Its evolution was right in step with the evolution of digital photography itself,” said Jim. Keith and Jim were forerunners in the then new digital photography and the soon-to-boom Internet. Since 2001, the Leland Report has been a photo-a-day, every day, with very few days missed. This they accomplished even before Facebook became popular after 2004.

“So, while all the photography outings with my Dad when I was a kid were more to go for a ride on the Honda, I think subconsciously he set into motion this feeling I discovered back in the decade after college, but always knew I had. In high school, I had a camera,” Jim reminisced. “In college, I had a camera. During all the summers in Leland, I had a camera. I have a milk crate filled to the top with slides and negatives dating back to the early 1980s.”

As for Keith’s journey into photography, Jim explained, “My Dad’s journey was different. He was introduced to photography indirectly by his stepfather, Charlie Kluk. Charlie left Dad a pile of 3×5 negatives that Dad wanted to print, so he set up an ad-hoc dark room on the back porch of his grandparents’ house in North Riverside, Illinois.”

One family member that more must be included about in this story is Biscuit, their beloved dog. “Biscuit came into our lives by fate, after his predecessor ran away (or ran back to their previous owner, we aren’t sure),” explained Jim. “My parents adopted Biscuit in 2009 from an elderly gentleman who lived in Empire. The man was no longer able to care for the dog and we all know that he was fortunate to find a good home with my Mom and Dad.” 

Biscuit was well known both on the Leland Report site as Keith’s constant companion, and especially was this well-loved hound popular in Fishtown. So much so that Jim added him to the Leland Report logo. “Biscuit always loved to meet his fans and take a picture in Fishtown, his favorite place. At times Keith would say that more people knew Biscuit than knew him, but he was ok with that. Biscuit was a good dog and we will all miss him.”

“When I find the first Biscuit Report, I’ll post it. If you would like to honor Biscuit’s life, please consider a donation to Fishtown Preservation, it was his favorite place,” said Jim. “At a certain point, he was not physically able to get up into the Jeep anymore, so he would stay home the times Keith would go into town.”

“We always looked forward to the visits from Biscuit at the fishery in the mornings,” said Bill Carlson of Carlson Fisheries in Fishtown. “He always brought Keith with him,” Bill threw in with his grin. “Biscuit always got a treat of fish sausage or jerky as he waited patiently by the door. Sometimes they would be on the south side of the river taking the perfect shot for the day, and Biscuit’s treat would be delivered by airmail. A great start to our day. We’re missing them now.”

Keith didn’t actually get a camera until 1955 while living in California. “My Dad didn’t catch the photography bug until later, when he started coming to Leland regularly in the early 1960s. He took photos of Barbecruise day, developed them in the bathroom of the Beach House and mounted them for display the same night at the Barbeque,” he explained. 

Anyone who knows what goes into taking, developing and mounting slides the someday at home can attest to this Herculean task. The afternoon was filled with a cadre of volunteers cutting and mounting the slides for the show at the evening BBQ. Incidentally, the Leland Yacht Club Barbecruise will be held this summer Saturday, Aug. 7.

Following in his Dad’s footsteps as an excellent photographer, Jim has taken it upon himself to shoot the photos for the Leland Report. Jim, along with the rest of his brothers and sisters, says they were fortunate to spend all their summers in Leland growing up. “I’m the originator of the Leland Report, and for over 20 years I’ve given my Dad the palette on which he paints with his photographs.” Jim resides in Tremont, Illinois, but, just like his Dad, he travels back to Leland as often as possible. Julia, Keith’s oldest daughter, claims she lived in Illinois but “grew up in Leland.” A family love affair for sure.

The entire family is also avid rock collectors. “When we go to the beach, we all bring back our favorites,” said Jim. “Our collection includes a pretty good representation of most of the kind of rocks you’ll find on the shores of Lake Michigan: Granite, Agates, Petoskeys, Leland Blues and Frankfort Green, Honeycomb Coral, Charlevoix Stone (Favosite), Chain Coral, Basalt, Brachiopod Fossils, Chert, Jasper, Quartz, Sandstone, Unikite, and Septarian Stones.”

The Leland Report: 15 Years in the Leelanau Peninsula book was published in 2016. “It was a bare-bones effort. I reviewed over 20,000 photos, chose the best and laid it out in. When I finally showed it to a publisher they suggested, since I had most of the work done already, that I self-publish,” he explained. “I got some invaluable advice from Steven Klein who is a retired publisher. Thanks goes to Leelanau Press publisher Barbara Siepker for that referral. My sister edited it. Meggen Wat Petersen, Sandra Serra Bradshaw and Mark Smith contributed some of the writing. And as a bonus,” he continued, “Susan Ager agreed to write the Foreword. We also included some interesting quotes from our good friend Bill Hahn from ‘near Chelsea, Michigan’.” It is a coffee table keeper of a book for sure and available locally at Leelanau Books and Suttons Bay Books, or find it online at LelandReport.com.

“I’m very grateful to have the book available,” said Paula Aflin, manager of Leelanau Books in Leland. “Very few people are self-publishing coffee table books,” she explained. “People want it for their cabins or to take home. They connect personally with this book,” she said. “One man came in just the other day and pointed to a picture inside the book. He said that he used to stay right across from there as he pointed. People connect with this special book.”

“My Dad thanks everyone for their well wishes. He’s 88 now and feeling, well, just okay. I am going to be manning the old Leland Gallery location (the lower level of the building under Fishtown) from June 29 thru July 7,” said Jim. “I will have our Leland Report book, canvas prints, Keith’s Leland Pen and Ink prints, and some other items as well.”