The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and surrounding communities are suffering growing pains as we’ve become a prime destination for tourists from all over the world. Conscious of these growing pains, a new group called the Sleeping Bear Gateways Council is stepping forward to facilitate dialogue between the National Lakeshore, local business leaders and civic leaders.
Nature enthusiasts who live with disabilities are often limited in their ability to hike more rustic trails in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes (official nonprofit partner of the National Lakeshore) wishes to provide an opportunity for more visitors to experience the Park’s natural beauty through the use of a personal mobility device.
Beginning on the Summer Solstice, Yoga on the Beach and the Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes are partnering up to offer these outdoor, donation-based yoga classes to the community.
The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore enjoys a healthy relationship with a nonprofit group of local volunteers, Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, which has pitched in to keep trails and parking lots plowed, collect trash and keep toilets clean and accessible during the federal government shutdown.
Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will host a training meeting on Saturday, May 19, at 1 p.m. for Adopt-A-Beach, BARK Ranger, Adopt-A-River, and Adopt-A-Trail volunteers.
The area in Northern Michigan which is now the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was first inhabited by Native Americans, who lived in small settlements around rivers and lakes. But the village known today as Glen Haven was not a major site of Indian settlement. It didn’t even attract much attention from European settlers until 1857, nearly a decade after the Leelanau mainland had begun to be inhabited. By that time, the opening of the Erie Canal had greatly increased steamship traffic on the Great Lakes, with vessels carrying freight and passengers from Buffalo to Chicago. The need for wooding stations to fuel the ships that passed through the shipping lane reached an all time high, and in 1857, C.C. McCarty, the brother-in-law of Glen Arbor pioneer John E. Fisher, recognized the potential of the Sleeping Bear Bay area to become a major refueling station and a thriving settlement.
Ten local, state and national organizations have joined together in endorsing a statement calling on The Homestead Resort and the Michigan Department of Enviromental Quality to work together to correct the problem of partially-treated wastewater spray blowing into a portion of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, rendering it unavailable for public use.
Kerry Kelly, chairman of Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, reports on Sunday, March 16, that grooming on the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail is probably over for the year. It was a great year for skiing, but the warm weather and rain followed by freezing left us with an ice rink.
Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes board chairman Kerry Kelly reports that a phantom snow plower is plowing 100 yards of a seasonal road that forms the section of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail between M-109 and DH Day Campground. That inhibits the ability of cross-country skiers to glide, uninterrupted, between Glen Arbor and the Dune Climb.
Kerry Kelly, board chairman of Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, reports on Monday, Dec. 9, that the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail between Glen Arbor and the Dune Climb has some snow, but not enough to ski on.