Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has set a new yearly visitation record. Through the month of November, the National Park has recorded 1,697,940 visitors, besting the previous record of 1,683,553 in 2016. And that doesn’t even include the current month of December.
A modern-day cowboy whose life story is tightly interwoven with that of modern-day Glen Arbor—and one of the most vocal and passionate opponents of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore—Rich Quick has died. He was 92 years old, and spent most of his final seven years at Maple Valley Nursing Home, where he suffered from dementia. His step-grandson, Joshua Humphrey, confirmed the news on Facebook yesterday, writing that Quick “is now with his sweetie Bonnie Quick in heaven. He loved Glen Arbor and this area more than anybody I have ever known or known of. He had an undying respect for this land and for those around him.”
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is pleased to announce the delivery of a mobile visitor center to the park—just in time for its 50th anniversary on October 21. The mobile visitor center is a custom-designed van that will help park rangers reach people who don’t usually get to visit the National Lakeshore.
Twenty-five years from now a future superintendent of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will open a time capsule stored in a metal lockbox and read a letter written to them by Scott Tucker, the Lakeshore’s current superintendent, on the occasion of Sleeping Bear’s 50th anniversary on October 21.
Nearly half a million visitors recreated in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in August, setting a record for the month. Our National Lakeshore has welcomed nearly 1 million 422 thousand people through the proverbial turnstiles during the first eight months of 2020, putting us on track for Sleeping Bear’s busiest year ever.
Nearly 600,000 people visited our National Lakeshore last month (the exact number was 592,404)—sprinting by the previous monthly record of 561,784 from July 2017, like a happy teenager gaining speed as they descend the face of the Dune Climb.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will resume the collection of entrance fees beginning Saturday, July 25. The $25 park entrance pass allows everyone riding in a private vehicle to recreate in the National Lakeshore for seven days.
Discovery of a 70-year-old glitch in deeds reveals that the National Park does not own the Glen Arbor Township Cemetery; Glen Arbor does. This marks a major turning point in what had been a growing list of massive indignities regarding the site—lost grave markers and lost records, resulting in lost names, then obliteration by a massive storm.
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.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was scheduled to host a naturalization ceremony today, June 11, for new United States citizens. The ceremony was canceled by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), along with all routine in-person services, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.