Posts

“The Bohemian Cooks of St Wenceslaus”

One of the events Leelanau County locals make sure to mark on their calendars each summer are for the Catholic Church Chicken Dinners. Not only were the dinners a source of entertainment with plays, music, dancing, singing, and games, the dinners served as a communal festival to celebrate the summer season, engaging the congregations of the peninsula and the broader community. At one time, there were five different locations throughout the Leelanau Peninsula for the Chicken Dinners hosted by the local Catholic parishes. Sadly, in 2025, there are only two remaining Chicken Dinner events: St. Wenceslaus in Gills Pier on June 22 and Holy Rosary in Cedar on July 27.

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Descendents of Black pioneers return to Leelanau for film screening

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“The Search for Anna and Levi: A Lost History of Black Homesteaders in Leelanau County” will show at Leland School on May 31—not at the hamstrung Sleeping Bear Dunes headquarters, as originally scheduled. The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay initially screened the film in February. Northern Michigan has begun to feel like a second home for Philadelphia resident Carmen Hopson. Ever since she received a life-changing Facebook message in September 2022 from Kevin Brooks, an amateur genealogist based in Grand Rapids, who shared photos to show that their ancestors—hers Black, his White—were neighboring farm owners and pioneering homesteaders more than 100 years ago along Little Glen Lake. “It feels like we’re coming home. This is a place where we will be welcomed home,” said Hopson. The National Lakeshore decided that it could no longer host the screening following the Trump administration’s March 27 executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” that cast this nation’s collective reexamination of historical racism as a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

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Touring Burdickville’s art studios

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Art is often encountered in curated stillness—hushed in museums, framed behind velvet ropes, and stripped from the context of its making. But what happens when we encounter art at its source, in the textured, paint-splattered, light-filled rooms where imagination finds form? That spirit of transparency, invitation, and intimacy echoes here in Leelanau County in the quiet corner of Burdickville. Along Bow, Lanham, and Fritz Roads, a small but vibrant community of artists has embarked on something extraordinary: opening the doors of their studios to the public. They have come together under the banner of the Burdickville Studio Tour—11 artists inviting visitors into the heart of their creative process over Memorial Day weekend.

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Celebrating small towns and songs of Leelanau

Our story series celebrating songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes continues with Blake Elliott’s “Small Town,” which the singer-songwriter released in 2012 “after a really hard winter.” The song offers an homage to “how our little communities in Leelanau County show up and helped us through.” State Rep. Betsy Coffia used “Small Town” for her first official political campaign song when she ran for Grand Traverse County Commission. The Accidentals took part in the recording for the music video of “Small Town,” which was filmed and recorded at Halohorn studios in Leelanau County with Andy Van Guilder.

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League of Women Voters examine Affordable Housing in Leelanau County

The League of Women Voters of Leelanau County for its November Forum is presenting “Affordable Housing in Leelanau County: What is it Exactly?”, featuring Larry Mawby, president of Peninsular Housing. Mawby will provide an informative overview of what affordable housing means to those who live in Leelanau County. Time for Q & A will be given at the end of the presentation. This free event is open to the public. It will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 2:30 pm at the Leelanau County Government Center.

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Masks, Gloves, Social Distancing: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus

Listen. Do you hear it? A robin chirrs from its perch on a nearby branch. In response, a blue jay jeers from its nest. A squirrel scampers through leaves. Where humans retreat, if only temporarily, nature fills the void. Such is the soundtrack of spring in Leelanau County during the time of the coronavirus—the pandemic that has ravaged the world, infected millions, killed hundreds of thousands, scared us all, forced us to distance ourselves from one another, and brought our economy to its knees.

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Ready, set, reopen during a pandemic?: Leelanau businesses both embrace and brace for tourists

The bustle of late-May and the annual race toward Memorial Day weekend are obvious at businesses in Glen Arbor. Of course, there is NOTHING normal about this holiday weekend—the typical start to the tourism season in Leelanau County. The state, the nation, and the world remain on virtual lockdown—and yet, restaurants and bars in Northern Michigan were suddenly given the exclusive green light by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Monday to reopen today. No one knows how busy—or not—this Memorial Day weekend will be.

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Glen Arbor Sun offers free online ads, appeals to readers for advice during coronavirus shutdown

Since most Leelanau County businesses remain closed to diners, shoppers and pedestrians, we at the Glen Arbor Sun are forced to rethink how, where, and perhaps when, to publish and distribute our print editions once the season begins in mid-May. We invite our readers to offer their feedback and answer the following questions.

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If you travel here from afar, please self-quarantine for 14 days!

Tourists and owners of vacation homes here could conclude that rural northwest Michigan is a safer place to be than in a densely populated metro area during the coronavirus pandemic. But that conclusion is a dangerous one. Here in the Grand Traverse region—as with rural areas across the United States—Munson Medical Center is woefully unprepared to accept a deluge of infected COVID-19 patients.

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Love, and community solidarity, in the age of Coronavirus

Here’s a comprehensive (and growing) list of schools, businesses and organizations in Leelanau County that are stepping up or changing their practices to help people during this unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic. (We’ll update this list, so please let us know who else deserves to be included.)

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