Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear is offering the return of the program, “Port Oneida Path to Page” on Friday, Oct. 17, from 12-4 pm, for writers at any level, but especially for those interested in creating history-inspired pieces. Participants will explore their creative muse hiking this fall through select farms, woods and fields of the lovely Port Oneida historic region with local poet and playwright Anne-Marie Oomen.
The 13th annual Port Oneida Run—an event of the National Park’s nonprofit partner Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear—will take place on Saturday, August 2. The run starts and ends at the big red barn and lawn area at the Olsen Farm/Port Oneida Farms Heritage Center, 3164 W. Harbor Hwy, (M-22) Maple City, MI, just four miles north of Glen Arbor.
Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear invites artists to the Thoreson Farm in Port Oneida, for a Plein Air Event on Saturday, May 24, from 9 am to 4 pm. The event is to encourage artists to paint and submit artwork of the farm to be considered for the 2025 Port Oneida Fair poster.
Longtime Glen Arbor custodian Leonard Ole Thoreson, passed away on March 15 at age 98. Thoreson was born on November 28, 1926, in Port Oneida (on the Thoreson Farm). As a young boy his father worked the fields with horses until he purchased the Ford Tractor that is on the farm today. A lifelong resident of Leelanau County, Thoreson served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was a dedicated member of St. Philip Neri Catholic Church.
Spend a summer evening in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore swinging to the ever-popular tunes of the big band era at one of the national park’s historic farms. A “Big Band by the Barn” fundraiser will be held Thursday, Aug. 15 from 5-9:30 pm and promises to be a unique event at the Port Oneida Heritage Center/Olsen Farm located 4 miles north of Glen Arbor. The celebration supports National Park partner, Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, marking their 25th year in service to Sleeping Bear Dunes, helping to preserve the 19th century historic properties and stories within the Lakeshore that at one time were at risk of being lost.
May is National Historic Preservation Month, a time set aside to highlight the important work of organizations working to preserve historic places like Port Oneida. Locally, in Leelanau County, there are 25 nationally recognized historic places and 18 additional state recognized historic sites, with several organizations which operate to support their preservation. Mae Stier writes that she and her husband Tim Egeler—a descendent of the Egelers and Kelderhouses, who were early settlers to Leelanau—spent the summer leading up to their wedding learning the names of family members. “When we committed to creating our future together, we did so by standing under a giant old oak tree that looked out at the Manitou Islands, on a farmstead that members of his family had once cared for.”
It is maple sugaring time in northern Michigan, and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is hosting its second public maple sugaring event. Maple Sugaring Days will be at the Dechow and Olsen farms in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District Saturday, March 2, and Sunday, March 3, each day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Experience the process of making maple syrup from start to finish and learn how maple sugaring has evolved over the last 400 years. Maple Sugaring Days is presented by the National Lakeshore in partnership with Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, and in collaboration with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ Natural Resource Department. On Saturday, March 2, join a Community Pancake Breakfast from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., just down the road from Port Oneida at CQ’s Cabin in the village area of The Homestead Resort.
The 20 goats had moved into Dechow Farm in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Port Oneida Rural Historic District just a few hours before, and already YouthWork director Bill Watson was laying in the grass near the goat pen and cuddling a couple kids who approached him. “He was a puddle,” said Amy McIntyre, co-owner of Pontiac-based City Girls Farm, which brought the livestock to Leelanau County on June 11 to graze in the fields and remove invasive species through the summer. This is the first year that Sleeping Bear Dunes officials embraced livestock grazing on Park land for a full season.
The farms of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore offer sweeping views of land, barns, farmhouses, and various outbuildings. They have interested painter David Giordan for decades. Driving up from their Lansing home, he and his wife would see the farms on their way to Lake Leelanau. One day they stopped and fortuitously met a park ranger who told them about the rich history of the Port Oneida farms. At that time, the National Lakeshore’s plan was to let the farms languish and be removed.
We’re home. We’re self-quarantining ourselves. We’re practicing social distancing. The restaurants and bars are closed. Crowds no longer gather. What better way to spend these pandemic days than to read books newly published by Leelanau authors? Here’s a roundup of local books, or books by local authors, in 2020: