My island, photo by farroutdude.
See more of farroutdude’s work in his Flickriver or his slideshow on Flickr.
A Celebration of Lake Superior
Heaven’s Light, photo by n.weaver.
This weekend (Apr 3-5, 2009), the Superior Water Festival takes place in Marquette. It’s a celebration of Lake Superior and the rest of our water in Michigan and the world that unites organizations and thinkers about water with musicians, artists, students and citizens.
Water is what makes Michigan, Michigan, and the Water Festival is a great and ongoing celebration and dialogue on how we care for our liquid legacy.
You can see other photos of the UP and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Neil’s U.P. set (slideshow). You can also drill down to Twelve Mile Beach or go get some of your own at Twelve Mile Beach.
Holy Spring, Batman!
Holy Spring, Batman!, photo by Rudy Malmquist.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, Bokeh!
Be sure to and get yourself a Bokehlicious Background from Michigan’s Perspicacious Prince of Pictoral Presentment.
Detroit’s Lafayette Building to meet the wrecking ball
Towering Sections, photo by SNWEB.ORG Photography, LLC.
Yesterday Crain’s Detroit reported that the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. has issued a request for proposals to demolish the Lafayette Building. The building has been vacant for 12 years and although numerous people have explored renovating it, none decided to go through with it. Once concern with demolition is that American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island both abut the Lafayette building (photo).
Over on Flickr, southofbloor writes:
The Lafayette bldg is an early skyscraper at the corner of Lafayette and Shelby in downtown Detroit, stretching to Michigan Ave. It was built in 1923, and closed a few years ago, just in time for the Book-Cadillac Hotel to open up. The abandoned building is one of a few in town designed by C. Howard Crane, a remarkable theatre architect, and the plan of the building is one of those spectacular charcteristics unique to Detroit, sort of modified wedge shaped triangular flatiron, crowned with a great classical cornice.
You can get more at Wikipedia’s Lafayette Building entry, Emporis.com and at Skyscraper page. Here’s a link to the Lafayette Building on Absolute Michigan’s Map of Michigan.
SNWEB has some more photos of the Lafayette Building (slideshow). See a bunch more photos in this Flickr slideshow for the Lafayette Building in Detroit including a cool angle from Allan M and this gorgeous photo of the cornice by dropsheet.
Broken light
Broken light, photo by Photo Jimbo.
When light breaks, Michigan photographers fix it.
Bigger in Jimbo’s slideshow.
the day after the end of the war
the day after the end of the war, photo by jamelah.
…he was going to show me spring.
Jamelah writes that Michigan in the springtime is her favorite … until Michigan in the summer with the moody thunderstorms and the lush green geometry of cornfields.
See some more springtime shots in her Spring set (slideshow) … and maybe remember not to wait too long.
The Timber Wolf (canis lupus) in Michigan
2007 0300 Wolf on LakeMIUS2, photo by Dennis Raney.
Alexis writes Paw took this one of a wolf on Lake Michigan off US2 on the way back downstate. There was another wolf on the ice, but it didn’t make it into this frame It’s part of her very cool Michimania set (slideshow).
Wikpedia says the timber wolf, gray wolf or simply wolf is the largest member of the Canidae family. From the Michigan DNR page on the Gray Wolf (canis lupus) and a recent DNR release regarding the delisting of the gray wolf, we get a picture of the state of wolves in Michigan:
It is believed that wolves were once present in all 83 counties in the state of Michigan. A combination of European werewolf mythology, fairy tales, views that wolves were incompatible with civilization, and active predator control programs throughout the 20th century virtually eliminated the gray wolf from Michigan: by 1840, they could no longer be found in the southern portion of the Lower Peninsula; by around 1910 they had completely disappeared from the Lower Peninsula; and by 1960, when the state-paid bounty on wolves was repealed, they had nearly vanished from the Upper Peninsula.
In 2008, a minimum of 520 gray wolves lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, part of an estimated population of 4,000 gray wolves living in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
(DNR Director Rebecca Humphries) emphasized that while the gray wolf has been removed from the federal endangered species list, it remains on the state’s protection as a species. There currently is no hunting or trapping of gray wolves allowed in Michigan, and starting on April 22, the gray wolf will be listed as a nongame species in Michigan. In order for hunting to occur, the Michigan Legislature would need to pass a law to add the gray wolf to the list of game species in the state, she said.
You can get more about Canis lupus (gray wolf) from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web and check out pictures & sounds of the gray wolf from Wikimedia including this pic of a wolf print and these sounds from a wolf pack.
You might also want to check out this Absolute Michigan “Weird Wednesday” on the Giant Wolf of Flint by the author of Weird Michigan, Linda Godfrey.
Memorial for the 1971 Port Huron Water Tunnel Explosion
“TUNNEL DISASTER”, photo by uthomie7264.
I got all excited that the 60,000th photo had been added to the Absolute Michigan pool on Flickr, but when I researched it, I found that there’s a terrible tragedy associated with it. The Detroit News relates that the events of December 11th, 1971 that resulted in the deaths of 22 workers.
Construction of the tunnel had begun in the spring of 1968 and was plagued by controversy, mishaps and plan changes from the start. The tunnel was to go five miles under the lake off Port Huron through bedrock to access fresh water for metropolitan Detroit. It was to be capable from the beginning of pumping 400 million gallons of pure drinking water per day to a thirsty Detroit, later expanding to 1.2 billion gallons to meet the demands of a rapidly growing area. The $120-million project was only three weeks from completion at the time of the blast.
“I don’t remember much about the explosion,” said one of the survivors, Richard Green, then 27. “I thought an air line broke, but it pushed the hell out of me. It seemed like a bomb. I was on top of the form (for concrete pouring) and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air.”
You can read more about the Memorial for the 1971 Water Tunnel Explosion from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and more about the sculpture from sculptor Paula Slater’s web site.
Be sure to check this photo out bigger too!
Set Sail on the SS Keewatin in Saugatuck / Douglas
Set Sail, photo by chicagokristi.
The Keewatin Maritime Museum is located in Saugatuck / Douglas and offers folks a chance to tour this 350′, wooden frame steamship:
The Keewatin was built for the Canadian Pacific Railway, in Scotland. Delivered to the Great Lakes in 1907, this lovely steamer was destined to make history. For over 50 years she served as a railway link, connecting the Georgian Bay and upper Lake Superior railheads. She is the last of the Classic Great Lakes Passenger Steamships still afloat.
Take a quick tour right here.There’s some cool views of this steamship in the Keewatin slideshow including a postcard of the Keewatin steaming along.
Be sure to view this photo larger
There’s music on the Spring Wind
Love calls like the wild birds, it’s another day.
A Spring wind blew my list of things to do … away.
~Greg Brown, Spring Wind
In celebration of the first day of spring and the vernal equinox, I went looking for a photo of “spring” in the Absolute Michigan pool. With almost 2000 photos, it’s practically a synaesthesia inducing experience. It also shows the riotous glory that is Michigan in springtime: flowers, flowing water, new shoots covered with snow and people who don’t care that the water is too cold for sensible folk to wade in.
Be sure to check this photo out bigger and in Yolanda’s Nature sideshow.
Check out one of my very favorite songs, Spring Wind by Greg Brown on YouTube and enjoy the return of spring.
Michigan in Pictures 
