The National Park Service plans to conduct four prescribed fires in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore before May 15. Prescribed fire is used as a tool to assist in restoring forest habitat while also reducing the threat of wildland fires. In the Platte Plains area of the National Lakeshore, two prescribed fires will be on 1,490 acres. One burn unit includes and surrounds the Lasso Loop of the Platte Plains Trail. The second burn unit falls between Peterson and Lasso Roads.
Ready or not, here they come. The endangered, migratory Piping Plover birds will return to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in April and set up their stony nests—regardless of National Park staff cuts and federal politics. Sleeping Bear staff might not be able to hire all the seasonal employees it needs to work with the shorebirds—or those workers might not arrive on time—since the federal hiring process resumed late in the winter. In their potential absence, volunteers are stepping forward. Grawn resident Maryellen Newport is recruiting local volunteers to monitor and protect the Piping Plover from predators. Read the story for a link to sign up.
UPDATE (March 12): The National Park Service once again has the green light to hire seasonal workers, but the late start has hampered the ability of Sleeping Bear Dunes to populate its seasonal roster. As of Glen Arbor Sun press time, approximately 80 percent of the National Lakeshore’s more than 100 seasonal positions remained vacant. The federal government chaos and the inability of seasonals from outside the area to find housing has prompted a slew of declines from candidates who were suddenly called and offered seasonal positions in March. Sleeping Bear Dunes staff have been paralyzed in other ways, too. Government-issued credit cards used by Park staff are frozen. They can’t buy ammunition or ranger supplies; they can’t even buy toilet paper for outhouses at hiking trails.
Bitter cold winds and temperatures in the teens didn’t stop them. Neither did the catatonic state of the federal government as the Trump administration and oligarch-in-chief Elon Musk take a wrecking ball to the national workforce. Yesterday, March 1, more than 60 local demonstrators gathered at noon at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore headquarters in Empire to rally on behalf of their fired National Park workers and to protest the federal spending freeze that will delay the hiring of more than 100 seasonal employees who are integral to opening our National Lakeshore to 1.6 million visitors this summer. They marched through snow and wind from the Visitor’s Center to the Empire public beach and back.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore announced in a media release that it has rescheduled the candlelight hikes and Maple Sugaring Days program originally set for Feb. 28 and March 1 to Saturday, March 22, at the Dechow and Olsen farms, due to a rapid drop in temperatures and dangerous winter conditions at the park.
The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, which maintains the popular Heritage Trail and grooms it for cross-country skiing during the winter months, reported “fantastic” conditions in an mail update on Friday. Here are current ski conditions, as of Friday.
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.
You can read about how animals and plants survive winter or how to identify trees, but it’s more fun and more engaging to see up close and personal. That’s the premise of the winter experience programs offered by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore rangers. “We show what plants and animals do, evolutionary strategies … like rabbits changing coat colors, cedar boughs have scaly leaves (for) less water loss,” says David Fenlon, the Education Lead at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Winter arrived in a hurry after Thanksgiving, and Leelanau County is covered in fluffy snow. Here’s the downhill and cross-country skiing, sledding, hiking and tubing report, as of Wednesday, Dec. 4. Drive safe, stay warm, and enjoy!
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is putting the brakes on its planned 4.5-mile extension of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail, which was to run near Little Traverse Lake and conclude at Good Harbor Trail. National Lakeshore superintendent Scott Tucker announced the news today during a press conference at Park headquarters in Empire. (Click here to watch a livestream of the news conference.) The National Lakeshore is pausing the design of Segment 9 following months of conversations with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, which opposes the route of the extension and which sent a letter of concern on Aug. 26 to Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland and U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow.