Will the Lake Street boat ramp move to Glen Haven?

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
High summer means a bottleneck of car and pedestrian traffic in downtown Glen Arbor, and nowhere is the problem more acute than at the north end of Lake Street, where the public boat ramp, Le Bear Resort and sunset watchers all compete for breathing space.
For years now the Glen Arbor Township Board has pushed for an alternative boat ramp at a different Lake Michigan access point in order to relieve congestion. That quest has been kicked into high gear in the last three years since the building of the enormous luxury resort, which, officials admit, has increased the pressure on traffic.

All eyes are now on nearby Glen Haven, where a onetime vibrant fishing village and Coast Guard station have given way to a preserved historic district in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the local chapter of the National Park Service.
Before there was Glen Arbor, there was Glen Haven, once a maritime hub: for early settlers like D.H. Day arriving from Chicago; for fishing expeditions; and for brave shipwreck rescues in the Manitou Passage, as evidenced by the wood pilings offshore that once supported a giant dock. And yet, the Park opposes moving the public boat ramp to this unique historic town shaped today by its Coast Guard museum, throwback General Store and, of course, its popular, quiet beach.
“We think that putting modern boats into the water would be a detriment to the historic scene,” explains Tom Ulrich, Assistant Superintendent at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. “The further you go toward Sleeping Bear Point (to the west), the quieter it gets. Physically, Glen Haven is the worst location for a boat ramp because of the historic village and the historic pilings.”
The boat ramp that serves Glen Arbor and the surrounding area is used more than a thousand times every summer season, Township officials estimate, and we’re not talking about rowboats and little put-puts. Quaint Glen Haven would host today’s big, muscle boats that take tourists on charter fishing trips to the Manitou Islands if the move happens. The Park claims this would be detrimental to the endangered Piping Plover birds, which now nest near the beach, and the Pitcher’s Thistle plant, which also calls Glen Haven its home.
“Any time you put boats at focused points like that, you create the potential for damage to the natural environment.”
But for Township officials like Terry Gretzema, who heads the Future Boat Launch Ramp Committee, this isn’t an issue of mere convenience, but safety. The boat ramp on Lake Street is the only launch site with docks that allow people in and out of their boat without getting wet anywhere between Leland and Frankfort — more than 50 miles of lake frontage along some notoriously hazardous waters.
The Glen Arbor Township has the support of the Leelanau County Sheriff, the Coast Guard and other townships to move the dock to Glen Haven. The wider access road on M-209 and the open beach area without private businesses to contend with would make future rescue operations in the Manitou Passage quicker and easier.
“These are long runs, and these are treacherous waters,” says Gretzema. The Township has the undisputed rights to three access points in or around Glen Arbor: Lake Street, Manitou Street, and Bay Lane, but none are more than 60 feet wide, and the prevailing winds and waves hammer all three of those spots, whereas Glen Haven is protected by nearby Sleeping Bear Point, Gretzema adds. “We’re restricted as to what we can do as a Township.
“The settlers, and the Native Americans before us knew where to put the boat dock, and it was in Glen Haven.”
Ironically, the Park once considered building an entire marina somewhere in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but an Environmental Impact Statement in 1984 ruled that the impact on the resources the Park is here to protect would have been too great. To be fair, points out Assistant Superintendent Tom Ulrich, the 1984 study was for a marina and not just a boat launch.
The National Lakeshore’s 1979 General Management Plan highlights the need to provide people with recreational access to the lake and to the land. And that battle between recreation and preservation has taken center stage in almost every ideological debate within the Park, and with the local community, since the 70’s. This boat ramp issue is just another chapter in that ongoing saga.
The other question here is who actually owns the beach at Glen Haven, or better put, whether the Leelanau County Road Commission’s legal road right-of-way on M-209 runs all the way to the water, since the pavement actually stops short of Lake Michigan. The Glen Arbor Township believes it does, and the Road Commission will likely hear the Township’s request for a Glen Haven boat dock at their September 5 meeting. But the Township’s pitches to the Park have so far fallen on deaf ears because, Ulrich says, the National Lakeshore does not believe the right-of-way extends to the water. And the Park’s Midwest region Lands Office in Omaha, Nebraska has been exceedingly slow at investigating the Township’s legal request — not atypical of the National Park.
“We’ve been bugging them to act,” Ulrich says about Omaha. “But they are understaffed.”
To Terry Gretzema and the Township Board the situation is clear: local government does have the right to build a dock at the end of M-209; and the pilings off the beach and the settler village’s history as a maritime community and Coast Guard station prove that Glen Haven is the best spot around for a new boat launch. Gretzema also told the Glen Arbor Sun that the Park ought to lend the Township a hand and help facilitate certain recreational activities because when the National Lakeshore was established in the 70’s it ate up most of the Glen Arbor Township’s public land.
Glen Arbor’s zoning laws favor private homes and private business, like Le Bear Resort (the building of which the Township approved, before Gretzema joined the board), and that often puts the Township between a rock and a hard place. But Gretzema doesn’t blame Le Bear for the current congestion on Lake Street. The developers “were within their rights to build” the resort, he says. “I don’t think Le Bear caused it. This has been a problem for years and years.” And the Township’s efforts to move the boat ramp to Glen Haven are much older than Le Bear Resort.
One day in mid-August Gretzema noticed 20 boats and trailers along Lake Street, making it tough for any large vehicles from getting to the boat ramp without causing a fender bender. Meanwhile, in nearby Glen Haven, beachgoers and visitors to the maritime museum were enjoying a peaceful afternoon without the sounds of motorboats or jet skis filling their ears — a scene that would certainly change if the Glen Arbor Township rebuilds a boat dock in the historic district.
Something’s gotta give.
What do you think? Please visit our website, www.glenarborsun.com to post a comment, or mail us a letter to the editor at P.O. Box 615, Glen Arbor.