Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan

We started our adventure at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Philip A. Hart Visitor Center in Empire, where we got our brochure and information on what to look for in the park. Before leaving the Visitor Center and heading out, I went through the museum area and took some pictures about the dunes. We did not go south in the park, but north to the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, then north on MI 109 to Glen Haven.

Dune Overlook

This is a land of legend, change, and survival. Ice, wind, and water shaped this place and continue to create a dynamic landscape -- piercing blue lakes, immense stretches of dunes, and lush, deep forests. Nature's pulse is all around. You can listen to the rhythm of the waves against the shore; the rise and fall of water and currents move shoals and share shorelines. The wind sculpts the dunes, building here, removing there. 

You can explore the shores, lakes, islands, and forests. The first people to live in this area faced hardship, heroism, and resilience; there are struggles for survival in plant, fish, bird, and mammal communities. And if you come at night, the sky will glow with the Milky Way and a multitude of stars and planets. The first people arrived around 8,000 years ago. The glaciers have melted: dense forests are growing back. You live lightly on this ground. You hunt, fish, and gather harvests from the land and lakes. Traders arrive with copper and other goods. Eventually you're growing crops, decorating pottery, and boiling sugar from maple sap at camps around Glen Lake. Your descendants -- the Anishinaabek -- form a Confederacy of Three Fires: the Odawa and the Ojibwe of the Upper Great Lakes, and the Potawatomi further south. In time, Europeans arrive and wars break out over furs. In 1836, with sadness in their hearts, your kin sign a treaty, allowing Euro-Americans to occupy the land. Yet, unlike other tribes, they tenaciously resist removal and remain a vibrant part of northern Michigan today.

Over the course of some two million years, glaciers covered northern Michigan, sculpting the land, gouging out the lakes and depositing drift to form hills. Each time ice advanced, the remains of previous glaciations were erased. What we see today is essentially the result of the last glaciation which retreated approximately 11,800 years ago.

Indians boiled maple sap to make maple sugar, which then was eaten like candy and used to sweeten fruits, vegetables, and other foods.

Ojibwa men spear muskrats

Spearing fish in winter

Although these people spent only part of the yearly cycle in their summer villages, this time was central to their way of life. Here they grew, gathered and preserved much of the food, held important ceremonies, made tools, weapons, and domestic implements of materials collected on earlier excursions. The elderly and infirm remained in the villages throughout the year.

Birchbark and woven reed mats covered tepees and wigwams. People generally spent most of the day outside, using the shelters mainly for sleeping and dry storage space.

Many men of many American Indian tribes, including the Ojibwa, courted their intended brides by playing a "courting flute" while standing outside the beloved's family wigwam, or on the outer edge of the village.

Snowshoes

Winter travel over deep snow or ice involved the use of snowshoes and sled or toboggans. These Ojibwa snowshoes are made with a frame of bent ash, two wooden crossbars, and woven rawhide thongs. Such snowshoes are thought to have been perfected by North American Indians from early Asian versions of wood.

Women used a tumpline attached to a cradleboard to carry small children while traveling overland. 

Europeans first came as explorers and traders, using the lakes and rivers as their highways. In the mid-19th century, settlers arrived on the Manitou Islands and the nearby mainland. Many made their livelihood in lumbering, providing wood to fuel steam-powered ships and build communities. Others came to try farming the cleared lands. As always, the dangers of the seas, whether fresh water or salt, brought forth those who would risk their lives to save the lives of mariners in danger.

The advent of steamboats on the Great Lakes in the1830s introduced the need for cordwood fuel. One of the early "wooding stations" was established at South Manitou Island's fine natural harbor about 1835. Small settlements sprang up around this and later refueling docks on the Manitous and the mainland. New sawmills cut lumber for houses, equipment and businesses as well as cordwood for steamers. The region supplied lumber to rebuild Chicago after the great fire of 1871.

"Big Wheels" was an ingenious log-dragging
device of the Edgewater Lumber operation

Following the extensive logging in the Sleeping Bear area, many families -- and some logging companies -- began farming the cleared land. The Homestead Act of 1862 spurred agricultural settlement, and waves of European immigrants poured into the region. Subsistence farming preceded commercial plantings of grains and potatoes, which flourished for a time in the sandy soils. Later, they were replaced by apple and cherry orchards which thrived in the favorable "lake effect" weather.

Proud, if weary, apple pickers display their harvest.
Cherries, however, became the most valuable orchard crop.

In the mid-19th century, the Manitou Passage between Sleeping Bear Point and South Manitou Island was one of the busiest places on the Great Lakes. Vessels of all kinds used the shortcut between Illinois and Wisconsin ports to the south and New York ports to the east. South Manitou's protective harbor gave safe refuge to ships in storms.

The ore carrier is a common sight on the Great Lakes. These vessels transport bulk cargoes of grain, coal, and ore between the ports during the navigation season from April to December.

Carolina Springbeauty

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

The Jack-in-the-Pulpit bears tiny flowers on the fleshy spike, or spadix. The flowers are pollinated by mosquitos and other small insects attracted to the plant's slightly "stagnant pond" odor. While the plant is not listed as endangered, it is a protected wildflower in Michigan.

Dutchman's breeches. Whimsically named for the
pantaloon-shaped flowers, grace moist, shady woods

American spikenard

American spikenard is a member of the ginseng family and has historically served as an ingredient for root beer and for various medicinal purposes. It is protected in Michigan.

White Baneberry

These berries are toxic; they grow along watercourses and in rich woods, but do not eat the berries!

American Redstart

Red-eyed Vireo

One of the types of forest that encompasses the Sand Dunes is the Beech/Maple forest. It covers many of the region's glacial hills and some long-stabilized dunes. The rich soils, built up over thousands of years, support a variety of hardwoods. Many wild flowers of this habitat bloom in the early spring, taking advantage of a few brief weeks of sunlight before the trees leaf out. Some of the animals found in the Beech/Maple forest are the Coyote, White-Tailed Deer, Black Bear, Great Horned Owl, Ovenbird, Opossum, and Ruffed Grouse.

Coyote

Whtte-Tailed Deer

Black Bear

Great Horned Owl

Ovenbird

Opossum

Ruffed Grouse

Large Flowered Bellwort

Another type of forest in the Sand Dunes is the Pine/Oak forest. Thousands of years have passed since the retreat of the glaciers. A succession of plant communities has occupied the site, slowly building the soil and creating conditions that allow pines and oaks to thrive. While the trees climb to the sunlight, mosses, ferns and flowering shrubs dominate the understory. This is a stable plant community, one that can persist for a long time unless fire or human activities destroy the fragile environment.

Some of the plants and animals found in the Pine/Oak forest are Upright clubmoss, the woodchuck, striped skunk, trailing arbutus, raccoons, porcupine, and bobcat.

Upright club moss

Woodchuck

Striped Skunk

Trailing Arbutus

Raccoon

Porcupine

Bobcat

Another section to the Sand Dunes is the Shrub Zone. Inland from the lake, typically on an old dune sheltered from the prevailing winds, is a narrow strip of land with its own characteristic plant community. Here the dune is old enough for decaying plants to have enriched the sand with organic matter, and low shrubs and bushes to have taken root. These plants continue the process begun by the hardy dune pioneers and the site gradually becomes shadier, richer and more stable. In this narrow habitat most animals are transient, passing through the heath from woodlands to lake.

The animals found in this area are the red fox, red-tailed hawk, thirteen-lined ground squirrel, badger, and mink.

Red fox

Red-tailed Hawk

Thirteen-lined ground squirrel

Badger

The next part of the Sand Dunes are the Active Dunes. Wind and sun, rather than water, make life difficult in the active dune zone. Wind constantly pushes the grains of sand, making it difficult for plants to establish themselves. Beach grass is particularly adept at binding the sand. This pioneer sets its roots, stabilizes the moving sand, and creates an environment in which other dune plants can thrive. Small animals and birds soon follow. The dune is not permanent; blowouts occur and the dune marches on. In some situations the dune overcomes a small grove of trees. When the sand moves on, the stark branches of a ghost forest remain.

The plants and animals found in the Active Dunes are Northern Harrier (formerly called marsh hawk), horned lark, beach pea, and harebell.

Beach Pea

Horned Lark

Northern Harrier (Marsh Hawk)

Harebell

The last section of the Sand Dunes is the Beach. Life is hard along the water's edge. Waves constantly tear at plants that try to establish a roothold near the shoreline. Without plants, there is little shelter for land animals. Water birds, some mammals, and insects visit the water's edge scavenging for food. Along the beach you will find the Common Merganser, Herring Gull, Spotted Sandpiper, and Piping Plover.

Common Merganser

Herring Gull

Spotted Sandpiper

Piping Plover

As a result of human impacts such as habitat destruction and environmental pollution, plants and animals are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. The survival of a species depends upon the preservation of a variety of natural habitats. National parks are among the few places where large tracts of natural America remain. Sleeping Bear Dunes preserves over 71,000 acres of natural habitats where plants and animals interact in a complex web of life.

After leaving the Visitor Center, we headed into the park and Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The first stop was the overlook of Glen Lake. Glen Lake was once a bay. More than 10,000 years ago enormous rivers of ice covered the land over Glen Lake. They gouged the earth like plows and left piles of sand and gravel called moraines in their wake. Eventually, glaciers thawed, turning their deep tracks into large lakes of meltwater. One of these, Lake Nipissing, gradually became Lake Michigan as its water level fell. 

Glen Lake

Meanwhile, waves were eroding beaches and bluffs. Currents carried sediment along the shore to form sandbars. By about 2,000 years ago, these currents had deposited sandbars on either side of an island to landlock Glen Lake. Over time, grasses and trees took root. Today, this forested sandbar is where you'll find the town of Glen Arbor, and a beach of ancient sand.

Why is the water so blue? Lakes in forested areas are often fed by runoff. Soil, leaves, and other dissolved organic matter stain the water like a teabag. Sunlight can't penetrate the dark water.

Glen Lake is fed by clear groundwater, not runoff. The water's clarity allows sunlight to penetrate deep into the lake where only shorter wave length blue light is reflected.

D.H. Day's Million Dollar Plan. The view of Glen Lake differs dramatically from what you would have seen were it not for the Great Depression. As lumbering declined in the 1900s, tourism began to boom. Travel writers called Glen Lake the "Switzerland of America." Not one to miss an opportunity, D.H. Day of Glen Haven began planning an exclusive resort on Alligator Hill in the 1920s. He built an 18-hole golf course and cleared land for an airstrip. There were to be tennis courts, bridle paths, a polo field, ski jump, toboggan slide, and more than 100 estates -- "ideally restricted." Two events altered that fate: Day passed away in 1928 and the stock market crashed a year later. Investors pulled their funding. By the 1940s, state residents and officials were imagining a new use for the land: not a playground for millionaires, but a park for all of us.

The next stop was the Dune Overlook. Imagine you are the first person to ever take in this view. It's 8,000 years ago. The glaciers have melted, dense forests are growing back. You live lightly on the ground. You hunt, fish, and gather other  harvests from the land and lakes. Traders arrive with copper and other goods. Eventually you're growing crops, decorating pottery, and boiling sugar from maple sap at camps around Glen Lake: your descendants -- the Anishinaabek -- form a Confederacy of Three Fires: the Odawa and the Ojibwe of the Upper Great Lakes, and the Potawatomi further south. In time, Europeans arrive and wars break out over furs. In 1836, with sadness in their hearts, your kin sign a treaty, allowing Euro-Americans to occupy the land. Yet, unlike other tribes, they tenaciously resist removal and remain a vibrant part of northern Michigan today.

Our next stop was Sleeping Bear Overlook. The Legend of Sleeping Bear goes as follows:

Long ago, the Ojibwa say, across the great lake in Wisconsin, there was terrible hunger and many people and animals died. A bear and her two little cubs, desperate for food, left that place to swim the long distance to the other side of the lake. 

After a while the cubs became very tired, and so the bear said: "Try hard, the land is not very far." But gradually the cubs weakened. Exhausted, one cub sank into the water when they were within sight of land and soon after the other also drowned.

The bear's heart was broken, but she could do nothing. She waded ashore and climbed the bluff to lie down looking out on the water where her cubs had died. However, both of them surfaced as two little islands. And so the bear still lies there now -- looking after her children.

A solitary dune covered with dark trees and shrubs arose where the mother bear waited. Offshore, the Manitou Islands mark the spots where the two cubs drowned. Today, the land of the Sleeping Bear is preserved as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Do you see her? The Sleeping Bear is the large dune about a mile away, perched along the edge of the bluff. She hardly looks like a bear now, but in August 1721, French historian Pierre Charlevoix canoed past the dunes and described "a kind of bush" shaped like "an animal lying down." The Bear kept her shaggy shape until the early 20th century when a series of natural events and human intrusions inflicted irreversible damage. The erosion continues. One day, it seems this sleeping bear will wake up and move on. 

When walking up to the dune at the top, it's there and then you don't see anything. I did not want to go near the edge, but walked to a deck to see what it looked like. It appeared that you could just walk right off the edge.

The Dune at this point is huge. The bottom is so far away that the people look like ants. I walked over to a deck where I was able to see the hill going down to the lake. Those tiny figures you see are people going up and down the dune.

Then there was this sign at the top of the dune ~~

From here we drove the rest of the Piercing Stocking Drive and turned left onto M 109 and drove north to the Dune Climb. This dune was not as large as the last one, but needless to say, I did not climb it and neither did Jim. In fact, he sat in the car while I got out and looked around.

We ended the day at Glen Haven and the Maritime Museum and Sleeping Bear Life Saving Station. We did not stay long and I did not get any good pictures. So, from we headed back home.