Leelanau County Road Commission

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Crystal River high water: an omen and a lesson in resilience

The good news is that the Crystal River is healthy. She winds like a lazy snake through wetlands protected by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, so when excessive rain or snowmelt inundate her environment—as happened during record flooding in early April—the extra water has a place to go. The other good news is that the removal of culverts in three locations under County Road 675 during the past five years has helped the river flow more freely and relieves pressure during high water events. The bad news is that two more culverts remain downstream of The Mill. Those culverts restrict water flow beneath Overbrook Drive. The other bad news is that scientists who study climate change in the Great Lakes region predict more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, including rainstorms.

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Leelanau’s influencers of 2024

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With 2024 in the rearview mirror and 2025 upon us, we’re recognizing 25 “influencers” we covered in the Glen Arbor Sun this past year who are making a meaningful impact on Leelanau County communities, commerce, and culture. Read below about those 25 local influencers, who include everyone from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, to Leelanau Investing for Teens, to Empire’s polar dippers, to popular new destinations River Club Glen Arbor, the Sleeping Bear Inn, and the Lively’s NeighborFood Market.

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Video: Timber Bridge replaces Crystal River culverts

The Crystal River culverts under County Road 675 are gone and have been replaced by an 80-foot timber bridge (Click on the story to watch our video). Grand Traverse Engineering & Construction and the Leelanau County Road Commission completed the work earlier this month, and CR-675 is now open to traffic. Work to replace other bridges over the Crystal River will commence in summer 2025.

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Goodbye culverts, hello timber bridge over the Crystal River

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“Shooting the tube” through the Crystal River culverts under County Road 675 is now an experience of the past. This month the Grand Traverse Engineering & Construction will remove the three culverts and replace the road above them with an 80-foot timber bridge. The work should be complete by the end of November, according to GTEC construction manager Ken Ockert. S. Dunns Farm Road will be closed to thru traffic and rerouted around Big Glen Lake for the duration of the project. Labor Day Monday, Sept. 2, was the last day for kayakers, canoers and paddleboarders to float through the culverts. Their removal is bittersweet for the staff at Crystal River Outfitters, which has sent thousands of people down the river in the past three decades. “It’s fun to look back at the last 30 years and think that the term ‘shoot the tube’ has become synonymous with Crystal River Outfitters kayak trips down the Crystal River,” said Katy Wiesen, who co-owns the business together with her husband Matt. “Shooting the tube became not only an annual family tradition but also led to many variations on stickers, hats, t-shirts and more that are soon to be a piece of history.”

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Crystal River culvert work along County Road 675 to resume this fall

Grand Traverse Engineering and Construction and the Leelanau County Road Commission have announced that roadwork to improve Crystal River stream crossings along County Road 675, northeast of Glen Arbor, will resume late this summer or early this fall. The culverts where kayakers on the Crystal River gleefully “shoot the tube” are next on the list. Click here to read more and to view a map of the project.

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Multi-million-dollar bridges will replace Crystal River culverts: County Road 675 closes this Fall

Just outside of Glen Arbor, a well-traveled section of County Road 675 is imperiled as it crosses three sets of undersized culverts slowly crumbling into the Crystal River. That’s a multi-million-dollar problem for the Leelanau County Road Commission. The engineering plans call for the construction of a concrete and steel structure to replace the culverts under CR 675 closest to M-22. That will keep the two road surfaces closely matched in elevation. The two sets of culverts further east, including the “shoot-the-tube” culverts, are to be replaced with classic wood bridges providing a lot of headroom for paddlers, ending the need for portages across the road. Plans call for the replacement of the Tucker Lake overflow culvert with a wide and substantial concrete box culvert.

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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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Slow down, stop racism, fight for equity

“We have a geographic implicit bias right here in our county, where the highway was built upon a village,” said Melissa Petoskey on Aug. 19 as cars zoomed by on M-22, seemingly unaware that they were driving through a tribal reservation between Suttons Bay and Northport. Petoskey is the human relations executive for the Grand Traverse Band. “There’s no reduction in speed limit here. We’re the only village in Leelanau County without a reduction in speed.

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Racist road commissioner resigns. What’s next?

In the wake of former Leelanau County Road Commissioner Tom Eckerle’s public racist tirade, and subsequent resignation, activists are pondering whether to launch a movement to change the name of Eckerle Road, a small stretch of road just south of Suttons Bay, and coincidentally where the Leelanau County Road Commission sits. Here’s what it would take to change the road name.

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Bohemian Road Beach to be closed for seven weeks this summer

Bohemian Road Beach, a popular summer destination within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore between Glen Arbor and Leland, will be all but closed for 7 weeks this summer for road work on County Road 669 (Bohemian Road) which runs between M-22 and Lake Michigan.

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