“The Park has got to figure out how to address the dead fall hazard,” declared Glen Lake Fire Department chief John Dodson after the October Glen Arbor Emergency Services meeting. The “Park” he refers to is the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (SBDNL). All that dead wood, he says, “is fuel building up. Our fire department does not have the staff to maintain a wildfire the size of Alligator Hill.”
Although my friend, Bonnie Gonzales, didn’t quite make it up Alligator Hill when she tried the first time, she felt it was doable. She wanted to try it one last time before she left for the winter. The trick would be to take the fairways rather than the impassable trail. I was game, so we met at the trailhead entrance by the charcoal ovens one sunny Sunday in mid-October.
This week, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore workers began clearing the Alligator Hill Trail of downed trees, following the Aug. 2 storm that decimated local forests. Alligator Hill is located just west of downtown Glen Arbor, north of Little Glen Lake, and offers stunning views of Sleeping Bear Bay.
The public is invited to buy their copy of Storm Struck: When Supercharged Winds Slammed Northwest Michigan and help cash-strapped private Glen Arbor property owners tidy up their property and replant trees in the wake of a fierce Aug. 2 storm.
Amidst the pain, it’s important to remember this lesson: the Aug. 2 megastorm — though it may have been the storm of the century — is one of several cataclysmic events that have changed this land we call Sleeping Bear since the glaciers receded and left behind the great lake and the rolling dunes and forests. And after each event, the land and its animals adapted and tended ahead. Alligator Hill will do the same.
New York City resident Emilie Lee rolled into Glen Arbor for a two-week visit on Sept. 27. Did she come to color tour? Wine tour? Any one of a million natural and artificial attractions that draw work-weary travelers to this little R+R oasis called Leelanau County?
The road to our own personal ‘Tour de Leelanau’ started, in a grand sense, around the summer solstice, when we and our bikes pedaled out of the Chicago area with the intention, like so many others, of getting ‘out to the country’ to celebrate the warm months. Earlier, in the spring, while living and working in Los Angeles, we used a program called World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) to get in contact with a number of farmers situated up and down the western coast of your great state.
Skyrocketing land prices and high taxes have priced Glen Arbor out of the market for most service workers and working professionals like teachers and emergency medical workers. Over the past five years, we’ve lost countless professionals who have moved to other areas. But it’s not hopeless, say some.
Sculpture — architectural and totemic — comes to Center Gallery for an extended stay. The work of artists Larry Fox and Van Wilson is on display Sept. 18-Oct. 11. A 6 p.m. reception for the artists opens the show.
In case you missed the Glen Lake Association’s post-storm workshop on Aug. 29, you can watch the following video of the workshop. Also, listed below are some highlights and suggested guidelines, compiled by watershed biologist Rob Karner, for your review and consideration.