(photo removed by photographer)
Jack and Kelly sent me some photos and a link to a video of their first ice boat outing of the season last weekend on Bass Lake.
This photo is one of several from April of 2007 on Elk Lake. You can keep up with them at their Iceboat Michigan and J14 Iceboats web site.
Michigan has a Salem Township in Washtenaw county and another in Allegan County. Based on Bryan’s other photos I’m guessing Washtenaw.
Happy weekend, people!
what do YOU value?, photo by artsy_T.
Tina writes:
was driving home from work yesterday. the sun was shining (it rarely does that anymore here). so i spotted this, which i drive past everday. it looked different to me. so i shot it. and of course, immediately started thinking of all the things in my life i value. there are LOTS. how ’bout you?
So … what do YOU value?
She also has a spiffy new web site (complete with a happy song).
Sometimes when I’m not sure what Michigan in Pictures will be about, I look at my Michigan events calendar for inspiration. There were no events, but the calendar also shows hunting information. I saw that on Monday, Bobcat Trapping Season opened in northern Michigan. That jarred me enough to go looking for stuff about bobcats in Michigan.
In this closer view of the cat, BJ says that she photographed this bobcat the Blandford Nature Center in Grand Rapids, that he was taken in from Tennessee as an injured animal and that his name is BOB.
The very excellent University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web has information & photos about bobcat (Lynx rufus). You can find a lot more in the Wikipedia entry for Bobcat, which says that these cats are phenomenal climbers that are crepuscular (most active at twilight and dawn) and found all over North America. As to their size:
The adult male Bobcat is 28 to 47 inches long, averaging 36 inches; this includes a stubby 4 to 7 inch (10–18 cm) tail, which has a “bobbed” appearance and gives the species its name. An adult stands about 14 or 15 inches (36–38 cm) at the shoulders. Adult males usually range from 16 to 30 pounds (7–14 kg); females average about 20 pounds (9 kg). The Bobcat is muscular, and its hind legs are longer than its front legs, giving it a bobbing gait. At birth it weighs 0.6 to 0.75 pounds (280–340 g) and is about 10 inches (25 cm) in length. By its first year it will reach about 10 pounds (4.5 kg)
Don Harrison has several photos of a bobcat by the side of the road and also old postcards of a bobcat crossing the Military Rd near Stateline, MI and a bobcat at Lake Baldwin. Here’s a video of a bobcat crossing a bridge that gives you an idea of how these animals move.
Finally, any of you who were hoping for bobcat trapping are out of luck as the season is (permanently?) closed south of the bridge according to the DNR’s bobcat trapping page. Here’s the link to report bobcat, cougar and lynx to the Michigan DNR.
Newaygo Mill, photo by evanfarinosi.
Evan started the Newaygo County group on Flickr and he’d love it if you’d share your photos on the area there.
The City of Newaygo’s history page says:
The City of Newaygo is the oldest community in Newaygo County. The Penoyer and Brooks families were among the first settlers to Newaygo. They founded Newaygo’s first saw mill known as the “Big Red Mill” … The proximity of the Muskegon River was the driving force of Newaygo’s early economy, with mills, lumbering, and recreation developing near by.
I also found a cool gallery of historical photos of logging in Newaygo County in the Newaygo County Historical Archives.
Since I don’t know when we’ll pass this way again, I should say that Wikipedia’s entry on Newaygo says that the population was 1,670 at the 2000 census. I also added Newaygo, MI to the Absolute Michigan map of Michigan.
Where the Buffalo Roam, photo by DaddyNewt.
DaddyNewt says that this buffalo roams at the Detroit Zoo
When I saw it, I asked him if it had been extensively photoshopped. He replied:
I don’t have photoshop but I did manipulate it digitally, then I printed it on regular copy paper. Then I stained it , spattered it, crumpled it, broiled it, smeared it with dirt, ironed it and then scanned it back in and manipulated it some more. Sometimes I get kind of obsessed.
He’s uploaded it huge size and yes, it makes a ridiculously cool computer background!
dunns 6th calumet, photo by Ztef
I usually try to make Michigan in Pictures a happy place to be because there’s enough unhappy things out there. Every so often, however, I think there are stories that warrant a look and rememberance if only to say: “Let’s make darn sure this never, ever happens again.”
Ztef captioned the above photo rather sparsely with Copper miners strike outside of Dunn’s bar on 6th Street in Calumet, Michigan – 1913, but he has provided a link to Calumet: The Copper Miner Strike of 1913. This page offers a very detailed and readable account (complete with some great old photos) of the labor troubles in Keweenaw during the early part of 20th Century from the perspective of the Zawada family, Poles who worked in the copper mines for the mining giant Calumet & Hecla. Of this photo it says:
Strikers outside of Dunn’s Bar, a favourite among miners. Just next door to Dunn’s was the No. 203 local WFM office (Western Federation of Miners). The sign on the left reads: “Something just as good Miners ask for bread, Jim [MacNaughton, C&H General Manager] offers lead”. The sign in the middle reads: “One man machine Our Agitator”. The sign on the right reads: “We demand higher wages and better working conditions”. The men in front are holding copies of the Miner’s Bulletin, but the headlines are not clear.
As you can read at the link above, the strike was characterized by escalating violence, calling in of the National Guard and even murder. The chaos culminated with what has been called a Disaster, Tragedy and even Massacre at Calumet’s Italian Hall. Copper Country Reflections’ Italian Hall Tragedy page at Pasty.com explains:
By the end of December, the miner’s strike had been waged for 5 long months, with no end in sight. The mining companies and their supporters were holding firm in their resistance to the WFM, while the union was still somewhat solid in its position.
To temporarily set aside their cares, a group of union members planned a Christmas eve celebration for their children at the Italian Hall on Seventh Street in Calumet. I can only assume that the activities that evening must have been the most fun these children had since the start of the strike. Unfortunately, the excitement turned to tragedy as someone, his identity never learned, cried FIRE. As the children and adults panicked, many worked their way towards the stairwell. The first unlucky souls quickly realized the doors at the bottom would not open. Were they locked? Was somebody holding them closed?
It is hard to comprehend, but 73 men, women and children died in that staircase. Some were crushed, others died from suffocation. Can you imagine the shock of the rescuers when they finally pried open the doors? As they pulled bodies up and out of the staircase?
The page above also includes photos that are definitely not for the faint of heart. If you’d like to explore further, there’s more information and photos at the Italian Hall 1913 Massacre site and you can see a photo of the Michigan historical marker & memorial at the site of Italian Hall in Calumet.
One thing you definitely should do is watch the moving accounts of survivors of the tragedy at the December 2007 update from the 1913 Massacre Film Project. The movie project has been going for several years and it looks like it will be very good.
The Absolute Michigan map of Michigan has the location of Italian Hall in Calumet.
alone in the snow, photo by basha04.
Hope you’re not alone in the snow on this snowy Michigan morning.
Basha put this in her pictures I love set (slideshow) and she has more wintery goodness right here!
mexicantown_safari-12_01_07 (160)_edit1, photo by Ross Sandelius.
Ross is one of the many great photographers in the Exposure.Detroit group on Flickr. Their latest “photo safari” was to Detroit’s Mexicantown last Saturday. You can check out Ross’s Mexicantown Photo Safari Set (slideshow) and be very sure to spend some time with the group’s awesome slideshow from the outing.
Mexicantown is located in Southwest Detroit near Porter and Bagley, just north of the Ambassador Bridge. Model D’s guide to visiting Mexicantown details the restaurants and shops in the area and begins:
Mexicantown is a place where vibrantly colored buildings, decorated with even brighter murals and hand-painted signs, dot the main thoroughfares of Bagley and Vernor Streets. One might guess there are more restaurants per square foot than any other neighborhood in Detroit — but the smell of fresh tortillas and baked goods floating down the street provide the only proof. On any given day, the sounds of salsa or merenge come from Discoteca La Rancherita, and in the summer, people sit outside at restaurants—like the side patio at Los Galanes, where dangling plastic chili peppers and a live musician set a festive mood—sipping the best margaritas the city has to offer.
The Mexicantown Development Authority history page says that the neighborhood began with the first Mexican church in the 1920s.
Sunlit Pine, photo by MSU Ben.
Ben says that this is one of the first shots he took with his Ansco folding 6×6 camera. It’s one of the photos in his Best Shots set. He’s in the Michigan State Photo Club and yes, they have a Flickr group.
Mark O’Brien has a nice ansco camera page and you can see a bunch of photos of Afga/Ansco cameras from the Camera Museum (Camera Museum main page).
Michigan in Pictures 