Leland filmmaker says go fly a kite

James Weston Schaberg says there’s nothing like the view from the sky. As a longtime commercial pilot, he would know. But that’s not necessarily what he means. The Leland native has turned his love of the sky into multiple businesses while reveling in the joy of flying the skies – and flying a kite. That was the inspiration for his film Eye of the Wind, a documentary that was due to be released on video earlier this month. “I didn’t set out to make a movie, just a video journal,” Schaberg says. It premiered for a sold-out show at the Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay before a similarly receptive audience at the Garden Theater in Frankfort.

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Peninsula Housing offers first affordable home for sale in Suttons Bay

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.

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National Park visitation sets nationwide record as economic engine

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.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts late summer events

Massachusetts artist Ian Kennelly will use his Glen Arbor Arts Center residency to “further his observations” of the ephemeral space that exists where water, land and sky meet. Kennelly will talk about his project during a free public presentation on Friday, Aug. 25, at noon, at the GAAC, which also bids farewell to summer with a Front Porch Concert on Aug. 25 from 5-7 pm. The Arts Center also hosts Sarah Shoemaker for a Coffee With the Authors event on Aug. 26, a A guided walk-and-talk of “In Translation” on Sept. 2, and a screening of the film “Plague Phase” on Sept. 7.

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Writing the books she’d want to read: a conversation with Sarah Shoemaker

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Novelist Sarah Shoemaker of Northport has been an educator, university research librarian, world traveler, wife, mother, and grandmother. She recently spoke with the Sun about her most recent books, Children of the Catastrophe (2022) and Mr. Rochester (2017). Shoemaker will appear at the Glen Arbor Arts Center on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 11 a.m. for “Coffee With the Authors.” Other events this fall can be found on her website, SarahShoemaker.net.

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Manitou Winds premiers Old Art Building’s Song & Story concert series

Leelanau County-based chamber music ensemble Manitou Winds will perform on Friday, Aug. 25, at 7 pm at the Old Art Building in Leland. The organization’s new Song & Story concert series will combine music, poetry, and storytelling. According to Manitou Winds founder Jason McKinney, the performance will feature an eclectic program of traditional works and original songs bridging Classical, Celtic, and Folk styles, interspersed with inspiring spoken word.

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Cedar Polka Fest crowns first-ever princes and princesses

This year’s Cedar Polka Fest boasts something new — a Junior Royalty court. Two first graders from each Leelanau County public school, as well as Lake Leelanau St. Mary, are represented as princes and princesses to promote this year’s festival, which is scheduled for August 24-27. They’ll ride in the Polka Fest parade on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 12:30 pm.

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Pete Edwards proselytizes Nordic ski walking

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Today, 15 million Europeans are using specially designed Nordic ski walking poles, and that trend is slowly spreading to the United States—even right here in Leelanau County. It is a modern-day walking sport that started in Finland. For decades, beginning sometime in the mid-1900s, skiers deprived of snow in Finland kept in shape for winter cross-country skiing by walking in the summers using their snow ski poles. They simply called it “ski-walking.” Here, at home, we have the ski pole companies, American Nordic Walking System and Ski Walking.com headquartered in Empire, both founded and owned by Pete Edwards.

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Lumberjacks and Cracker Jacks

Ghost towns—sometimes called “boomtowns”—were formerly bustling communities where a natural resource, such as gold, was exploited and subsequently depleted, then the town was quickly abandoned. Most people are aware of Wild West ghost towns, such as California’s famous Tombstone or Bodie, but they are generally unaware of northern Michigan’s host of ghost towns, built not upon gold but timber.  Aral is one such Michigan ghost town. If you ever put on your bathing suit to swim at Otter Creek/the dead end of Esch Road, just off M-22 in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, you have driven past the old schoolhouse and continued down the main street of that ghost town to the beach, and you just did not know it. 

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The Korson Family: Angel harvesters

Martin Korson’s great-grandfather, Martin, was one of the Bohemian families who settled the Gill’s Pier area, writes Rebecca Gearing Carlson in installment seven of our Leelanau Farming Family Series. Korson, pronounced Keer-shan, first settled and worked in Leland at the charcoal foundry that fueled the steam ships running Lake Michigan. Then the work became about clearing the land for homes and farms. Thus, timbering and the saw mill at Gill’s Pier gained importance as the community grew.

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