This week is Earth Week, with Earth Day honored on Tuesday, April 22. It’s also National Park Week. Events in Leelanau County include a rally on Tuesday at 3 pm in Empire to support Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore—which has faced deep spending cuts and a hiring freeze by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Leelanau Conservancy offers opportunities each day this week, starting tomorrow, to join hikes, volunteer, attend a trivia night, and learn about local efforts to preserve trees.
Thanks to support from Ray and Jan Pezzi, the Leelanau Conservancy has preserved a vital wetland near the Leo Creek Preserve south of Suttons Bay, ensuring the protection of one of nature’s most precious resources. Their generosity has paved the way for Phyl’s Forest to become the newest preserve under the Leelanau Conservancy’s care, joining 29 other protected natural areas and preserves. The preserve, which will remain wild and full of life, is 67 acres and named in honor of Phyllis Stites, the late mother of Jan Pezzi.
The Leelanau Conservancy has unveiled its new logo, which offers a peek through trees and toward a grassy hill with sand dunes, open Lake Michigan, and an island or peninsula in the background. The new logo retains its oval—a nod to the shape of the old logo, which served the Conservancy for 36 years. The old logo featured a ship sailing by sand dune cliffs. “The new refreshed logo feels familiar for our audiences, keeping an alignment with the current logo, but removing elements that do not represent our services,” the Conservancy stated in a press release. “The refresh also captures the scenic character of Leelanau—the ‘peek’ through the trees makes you feel like you are here, in Leelanau.”
The Leelanau Conservancy invites the community to “Fall for Leelanau,” which runs from Oct. 14-20. This week-long celebration features guided hikes, scenic driving tours, and trail stewardship activities, all designed to connect people with the land while supporting vital conservation efforts. Key events include the Harvest Celebration on Oct. 18 and a Super Moon Paddle on Oct. 17.
They may be beautiful. They may look nice as lawn ornamentation. They may even be as familiar as the bouquet from the florist. But make no mistake: non-native plants and animals threaten native flora and fauna as well as the enjoyment residents and visitors derive from the area. Knotweed, barberry, baby’s breath and Eurasian milfoil are just a few of the invasive species found in our fields and forests, lakes and waterways. Some target specific hosts, such as hemlock wooly adelgid, and before that, the emerald ash borer. Others simply crowd out native plants, such as garlic mustard or autumn olive. The Northwest Michigan Invasive Species Network works with a number of partners, including the Leelanau Conservancy, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Leelanau Conservation District, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and numerous private landowners to combat these and other invasives.
As the climate warms and our world responds, Leelanau witnesses the familiar signs of spring’s arrival—a season now marked by changing weather patterns and ecological shifts. In recognition of these changes, the Leelanau Conservancy invites all to partake in Earth Week 2024. Amid concerns of climate disruption, the Conservancy’s annual series of events aims to foster community resilience and environmental stewardship. From April 22-28 the Conservancy will engage in hikes, volunteer opportunities, and community gatherings, all emphasized by a collective commitment to mitigate the impacts of climate change and protect Leelanau for generations to come.
Leelanau County has long been a haven for artists and creatives, and the region is rife with individuals, businesses, and organizations working together towards common goals. For Kelsey Duda, co-founder and creative director of Fernhaus Studio, a hospitality group based in Traverse City, the region’s creative culture and collaborative community was a large part of what drew her to move to northern Michigan in 2020. In the three years since, the hospitality group has taken over Riverside Inn in Leland, Outpost (formerly Brew) in Traverse City, and perhaps most notably, restored The Mill in Glen Arbor, opening it in the spring of 2023 as a cafe. This summer, Fernhaus opened Millie’s in Glen Arbor, a pizza and ice cream shop where Riverfront Pizza was previously.
This year was a banner year for news in Leelanau County. The Glen Arbor Sun’s top viewed stories on our website in 2023 included the strange—a relationship coaching cult in Suttons Bay (“Twin Flames, a Suttons Bay cult, an inferno of controversy” was our fourth most-viewed story of all time); the heroic—a neighborhood effort to rescue boaters from a burning craft; the celebratory—The Mill made its long awaited opening on the Crystal River, and collaboration between the National Lakeshore and Leelanau Conservancy to preserve Glen Lake ridge property; the breaking news—an 18-hole putting course and restaurant planned to open next year in Glen Arbor; the historical—our 12-part series covering Leelanau’s farming families; and the reflective—remembering Horndog Newt Cole. Thanks for your readership, and Happy New Year! Here’s the list of our top 10 stories by online views in 2023.
Late last month Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore acquired 8.66 acres of picturesque Miller Hill ridgeline property with views of the Glen Lakes and Lake Michigan from the Leelanau Conservancy for $685,000. Conservancy executive director Tom Nelson said the conservation of the Glen Lake Ridgeline project was the result of a collaboration with true, unsung heroes in the Glen Lake community and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The Conservancy and the Lakeshore have an innovative history of working together to acquire and preserve pristine and sensitive land. In 2005 the Conservancy acquired property along the Crystal River that had been potentially slated for a golf course and turned it over to the Lakeshore. The acquisition represented a happy ending to a saga that divided the local community.
An important question hovers over the Leelanau Conservancy’s push to build a 10-car parking lot east of Wheeler Road, which mountain bikers will use starting next year to access the expanding Palmer Woods trail network. Neighbors opposed the initiative, but the Cleveland Township Board sided with the Conservancy and greenlit the project on Nov. 14. Do mountain bike trails and infrastructure in preserved natural areas reflect development (most mountain bikers drive fossil fuel-burning cars to access trails)? Or does the sport increase environmental awareness? In other words, does mountain biking compromise or help the environment?