Sleeping Bear Dunes offers Memorial Day programs
From staff reports
Park Ranger-led programs will be featured at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Visit the National Lakeshore on Memorial Day Weekend and tour the Glen Haven Maritime Museum, watch a blacksmith, take some photos, and learn more about lighthouses, owls and other birds.
The Saturday and Sunday (May 25-26) schedule will include the always-popular “Heroes of the Storm” program at 3 p.m. at the Maritime Museum in Glen Haven. Park Rangers recruit the assistance of young audience members to serve as U.S. Life-Saving Service surfmen to recreate a shipwreck rescue on land. They haul lines and use replicas of historic equipment in an effort to save Raggedy Ann and Andy from their sinking vessel.
Saturday, May 25
4 p.m. Afternoon Program – Picture Perfect Sleeping Bear
Join a Park Ranger at the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center in Empire to review photography basics before heading out to the Empire Bluff trail for details on how to get the most out of your camera.
7 p.m. Evening Program – Lighthouses: Lore and Legend
Enjoy an evening outdoors with a Park Ranger at the Platte River Campground Amphitheater. Discover the important role lighthouses have played in the history of our nation. Their stories of peril and heroics still ignite our imagination and yearning to visit these “beacons of hope.”
Sunday, May 26
8:30 a.m. Morning Program – Real-life Tweets and Twitters of the Lakeshore
Meet a Park Ranger at Esch Beach for a bird walk where you will meet the National Lakeshore’s feathered residents/friends.
7 p.m. Evening Program – Owls of Sleeping Bear Dunes
Spend an evening outdoors with a Park Ranger at the Platte River Campground Amphitheater. Hear a 45-minute program about the many unique adaptations of owls that make them effective nocturnal predators. Their hoots and howls resonate throughout the forest. They are the silent night flyers of Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Park Ranger-led programs will be provided at no charge. Participants need only purchase the Park Entrance Pass or have an Annual Pass displayed in their vehicle to join in the fun. Please call (231) 326-5135, ext. 328, to make reservations or ask questions, or visit their website at www.nps.gov/slbe.
