Come Sail Away…, photo by Mike Millspaugh
What a gorgeous photo of a tall ship under sail off Grand Haven. I looked around for a while trying to figure out what ship this is until I remembered that I can just ask all of you. Let me know in the comments!
View Mike’s photo bigger, see more in his slideshow, and view more of his work on his website.
You know I can’t resist…
Sailor’s Delight, photo by Maury Page
Maury shares:
This photo was taken at Crispell Lake in Clarklake, MI on a calm, summer evening. I couldn’t capture the sun rays from where I was standing, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get out my new drone. There were only a couple boats on the lake and it was a nice quiet night. When I was capturing this scene it just so happened that a bird flew into the frame at the perfect moment.
Regarding Crispell Lake, Lake Link says:
Crispell Lake is located in Jackson County, Michigan. This lake is 82 acres in size. It is approximately 25 feet deep at its deepest point. Anglers can expect to catch a variety of fish including Black Crappie, Bluegill, Brown Trout, Grass Pickerel, Largemouth Bass, Sunfish, Walleye and Yellow Perch.
View Maury’s photo bigger, check out more on his Instagram at mopage19 and also on his website.
More lakes on Michigan in Pictures.
Holland, MI – Sailboat City, photo by Cyndie M
Over the weekend, Pure Michigan rolled out a new hashtag on Instagram, Twitter and Vine. You can click those links to check out #PureMichiganLakeEffect on each of the services or head over to the Pure Michigan Lake Effect Gallery to see how to share yours and what kind of summer fun people are up to in the Great Lakes State!
View Cyndie’s photo background big and see more in her slideshow.
Bay City River Roar, photo by Jeff Caverly
Summertime in Michigan is perfect if you enjoy things that go fast. From the Belle Isle Grand Prix to last weekend’s Bay City River Roar, Michiganders get a healthy dose of go fast. It doesn’t stop on land and see, as a lot of aerial teams are in our skies including the cream of the crop, the Blue Angels in Traverse City all weekend for the National Cherry Festival.
View Jeff’s photo background big, see more action in his slideshow, and view and purchase photos from Bay City & elsewhere on his website.
Homeward Bound, photo by Bobby Palosaari
Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light is my go-to for Michigan lighthouse lore. His entry for the Keweenaw Upper Entrance Lighthouse says in part:
With the meteoric growth of copper mining in the Keweenaw between 1843 and 1968, increased shipping access to the twin cities of Houghton and Hancock became increasingly important. To this end, the Portage River Canal was cut through a tamarack swamp at its western end in 1860, creating a channel 10 feet deep and 80 feet wide, opening full Portage River navigation for the largest vessels of the day from western Lake Superior.
In 1874, to assist in safely guiding ships into this cut, a large gabled two-story brick dwelling with attached square 33 foot high brick tower was constructed on the west bank at the entrance to the canal. With increasing use of the canal, silting became a major problem, and tolls were levied for its use in order to cover the continuing expenses for repairs and dredging.
For reasons as yet undetermined, the original lighthouse was replaced with the existing fifty foot square steel Art Deco style tower at the end of the breakwater in 1950.
View Bobby’s photo background bigtacular and view & purchase more of his photos including this one at palosaariphotography.com.
Summer Solstice … 2013, photo by Ken Scott
Today at 6:34 PM EDT, the summer solstice officially ushers in summer. EarthSky shares that the full Strawberry moon tonight for the solstice is the first full moon to fall on the summer solstice since June of 1967 and the Summer of Love.
Back in 2001, NASA’s Earth Science Picture of the Day (<–my favorite photo blog – subscribe!) shared the tale of Eratosthenes, the Solstice and the Size of the Earth:
It was near the summer solstice of 240 BC that Eratosthenes, curator of the famed Library of Alexandria and renowned mathematician and geographer, performed his famous experiment in Egypt to calculate the diameter of the Earth. The bottom of a deep well in the city of Syene, Egypt (near the present day Aswan Dam and very near the Tropic of Cancer) was known to be illuminated by the sun directly at mid-day on the longest day of the year (the solstice). But on the same day, a vertical pole in Alexandria, some 800 km to the north, cast a distinct shadow. By measuring the shadow and applying the geometry of a sphere, Eratosthenes calculated the Earth’s diameter with remarkable accuracy. Sadly, the concept of a spherical Earth was lost from common thought for over a thousand years until Christopher Columbus and others proved the fact by sailing west to go east. The background reference image of Egypt and the Nile River is provided by the NASA MODIS instrument.
Sep 5, 2006 – Donald Etz notes: “From reading Jeffrey Burton Russell’s book, Inventing the Flat Earth (1991), I was persuaded that most educated Europeans of Columbus’ time believed the earth is round. The main debate seems to have been over its dimensions. Columbus ventured on his voyage because he believed the earth was much smaller than it is.” -ed
View Ken’s photo of the sunrise on the 2013 summer solstice bigger, see more in his Boat(s) slideshow, and definitely check out kenscottphotography.com to view and purchase his work.
More science on Michigan in Pictures.
Fishermen, photo by Noah Sorenson
Noah took this on Crystal Lake a month ago. Back when it was Spring and not Winter II.
View his photo background bigtacular and see more in his slideshow.
More spring wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
Waabi-Maang, photo by Mark Smith
Here’s a shot from last week in my hometown of Leland by Mark Smith who writes:
The tribal fishing boat Waabi-Maang (White Loon) fires up for another fishing season in Leland, Michigan. I have been fooling around with a vintage lens here .. quite a trip! (if you look closely you can almost see the storm coming – 8 inches of snow tonight. Thanks, Spring.)
View Mark’s photo background big and see more in his slideshow.
PS: The lens is a Contax Sonnar 2890 – here’s another photo “Branches to Branches” that Mark took with it.
charles m. beeghly, poe lock, sault ste. marie, michigan, photo by twurdemann
via today’s Five Things you need to know about Michigan on Absolute Michigan comes a Detroit Free Press report on the potentially dire consequences for the US & Michigan if the Soo Locks fail:
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security report indicates a 6-month shutdown of the Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie, if one occurred, would plunge the nation into recession, closing factories and mines, halting auto and appliance production in the U.S. for most of a year and result in the loss of some 11 million jobs across the nation.
The report, obtained by the Free Press through the Freedom of Information Act, paints a grim picture of the outcome of any long-term shutdown of the Poe, the only one of the so-called Soo Locks able to handle the 1,000-foot-long vessels that each year move millions of tons of iron ore from mines in Minnesota and northern Michigan to steel mills dotting the lower Great Lakes and beyond.
….But what is also clear from the Homeland Security report is that while a longer-term shutdown would be catastrophic, even a shorter one could have a much wider impact than previously thought: If such a closure occurred at the Poe during the March 25-Jan. 15 shipping season, for instance, as much as 75% of the nation’s steel output could be halted within two to six weeks.
Read on for more, including a video of a ship going into the locks.
View twurdemann’s photo from Engineer’s Day (every June) bigger and see more in his Great Lakes Shipping slideshow.
More Soo Locks on Michigan in Pictures!
Emergency Ark, photo by Michael
The Celestial Ship of the North (Emergency Ark), aka the Barnboat, is a site-specific installation and permanent sculpture in Port Austin, Michigan created by Scott Hocking. He wrote to me:
I was asked by Detroiter Jim Boyle, whose family is still in Port Austin, if I’d ever had any ideas of working with old barns. He’s been trying to get a Detroit / Port Austin connection going by bringing artists up there to do projects. I basically told him I’d had some fleeting thoughts about how much certain barns look like overturned ship hulls, and that if I had an old barn to work with, I’d probably turn it into a boat.
So, that was the beginning.
Like all of my work, I try to let the materials and site dictate what I make, and as I worked on the barnboat the shape became what it is now – mostly influenced by the intense winds of Michigan’s thumb. It took about 3 months total, but I’m not quite done yet: I’m still planning to fill in the base with mounded sand this spring for a little extra stability, and so that it can once again overgrow like that ivy covered barn it was made from.
Awesome. Check out lots more of Scott’s engaging work on his website.
Enjoy Michael’s photo background bigtacular on Flickr and see more in his slideshow.
More art and more winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
Michigan in Pictures 