Straits of Mackinac, photo by GLASman1
A gorgeous view of a beautiful bridge. Definitely check it out bigger and see more in Mark’s slideshow.
Much more about the Mackinac Bridge on Michigan in Pictures!
Big Sable Point from 2,000 feet
Big Sable Point from 2,000 feet, photo by Innerspacealien
The Detroit Free Press recently had a fun article by Ziati Meyer titled Michigan Lighthouse Trivia that related:
LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS: The deaths of 48 people in one year prompted the building of the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. The stretch of water between Big Sable Point and Ludington saw 12 shipwrecks in 1855, so Congress was asked to send money to help. The result — after a Civil War delay — was a $35,000 lighthouse to help ships navigate that area of Lake Michigan
Read on for more fun facts and definitely check out Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light and our Michigan in Pictures archive for more info and photos of this iconic light north of Ludington.
Check this out background bigtacular and see some more aerial views of the area in Craig’s slideshow.
More great aerial photos on Michigan in Pictures.
Wanna Swim There???
Wanna Swim There???, photo by John Burzynski Photography
John snapped this on the shore in Manistee – I guess ambitions run high there! See it bigger and see more in John’s Beaches, Lighthouses slideshow.
PS: Because I know someone out there is wondering: Yes, people have swum across Lake Michigan:
Vicki Keith from Kingston, Ontario, Canada swam across Lake Michigan during the summer of 1988 as part of an event that saw her become the first person to swim across all five Great Lakes. She completed this task in a 2 month period and raised $548,000 to help kids with disabilities.
To date, Vicki hold’s 16 world records in marathon swimming, and has raised over $1,000,000 to help develop programs for kids with physical disabilities.
A number of other people have swum across Lake Michigan, including a fellow Canadian Paula Stephanson, and American Jim Dreyer. Jim Dreyer is from Byron Center, MI. He crossed Lake Michigan in 1991, from Two Rivers to Ludington, and raised money for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America mentoring program. He got involved with the program when he was in his 20s.
Jim Dreyer followed triathlon rules as opposed to marathon swimming rules and therefore wore a wet suit for his crossing.
More beaches on Michigan in Pictures!
Manitou Stormcloud and the Earth Science Picture of the Day
Manitou Stormcloud, photo by ShaneWyatt
One of my favorite photoblogs is the Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD), and sometimes you’ll see photos from Michigan in Pictures there and vice versa. The EPOD is produced by the NASA Earth Sciences Division, and every day their stalwart blogger Jim Foster works with photographers all over the planet to highlight amazing things. In June the EPOD posted a cool photo of a roll cloud over Calgary, explaining:
Roll clouds are a type of arcus cloud often associated with turbulent weather. As is the case here, they sometimes look like a horizontal tornado. Although these cylindrically shaped clouds look quite fierce and may be observed to roll about their horizontal axis, they don’t usually generate dangerous winds. Roll clouds are typically found behind outflow boundaries but unlike shelf clouds are detached from any close-by cumulonimbus cloud.
I know that I featured a photo from Shane last Thursday, but this one was just too cool to hold back! Check his photo out bigger and see more in Shane’s slideshow.
More wild Michigan weather on Michigan in Pictures!
Grace Dickinson & Leelanau County’s Female Photographers
Steamer “Missouri” docked in Leland in 1919, photo by unknown, hand colored by Dickinson Photography
This week’s Glen Arbor Sun has a terrific feature by my friend Kathleen Stocking on Six Leelanau County Women Photographers. She profiles Barbara Nowinski, Kathleen (Dodge) Buhler, Meggen Watt Peterson, Ashmir McCarthy, Marty Schilling and Grace Dickinson. Here’s Grace:
Grace Dickinson has a photo studio across the road from the place her grandparents first came to on the south shore of Little Glen Lake in the summer of 1912. Her grandparents traveled to the Leelanau Peninsula by steamer, from the Navy Pier in Chicago up Lake Michigan to Glen Haven. In 1942 her parents met and fell in love while her mother was a writer/editor at the Leelanau Enterprise and soon after became year-round residents. Grace’s father, Fred, a broker who worked from home, spent his free time photographing the dunes and the islands. One unusual photo shows a cloud the exact size of one of the Manitou Islands, above the island, a rare phenomenon caused by condensation when the temperature of the island is colder than that of the surrounding waters of Lake Michigan.
From an early age, Grace followed in her father’s footsteps, quite literally, accompanying him and sometimes photographing the same scenes. Grace left her studies at Northwestern Michigan College to go on a year-long sailing adventure in the Bahamas, and followed this with a two-decade-sojourn out in Montana where she married a rancher and finished college. Grace returned to the Leelanau Peninsula in the late 1980s and became a mapmaker for the Leelanau County Planning Commission. She began taking photos of the Leelanau Peninsula and opened her own studio out of which she sold her own and her father’s photos and maps. In the mid-1990s she revived the 1930s art of photographic hand-coloring, laboriously hand-tinting her father’s black and white photos of earlier years, photos which evoke the shadows and starkness of some of the photos of Diane Arbus, but as applied to nature, not people. In the medium of hand-coloring Grace discovered a way to keep her father’s legacy alive and express her own love of Leelanau. Her photo studio is on Glenmere (M-22) west of the bridge over the Glen Lake Narrows.
Head over to the Glen Arbor Sun for more! The photo above is labeled as having been taken in Glen Arbor in 1909, but former Leelanau Historical Museum Director Laura Quackenbush identified it as Leland’s dock. The photo was hand-colored by Grace from an old negative on glass found in the Leelanau Enterprise office during the time her parents (briefly) owned it.
If you’re interested in more work bu Grace and her father, head over to Dickinson Photography. I’ve also featured several photos from Fred Dickinson on Michigan in Pictures, and you can click that link to read a little about the coloring process.
Great Lakes Waves offer beauty, power & danger
Untitled, photo by Scott Glenn
“These are not lakes, these are the world’s eighth seas, and her bottom is littered with the wreckage of over six thousand ships.”
~The Three Sisters, Song of the Lakes
This gorgeous shot of the St. Joseph Pier Lighthouses demonstrates the incredible power of Great Lakes waves. I live in Traverse City, and this summer it feels like Lake Michigan has claimed the lives of more people than normal. Whether or not that’s true (it’s not), I thought this photo offered the perfect opportunity to share some tips and tools for staying safe on Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior and Lake Erie!
- Thinking of any of the Great Lakes as anything like any lake you’re familiar with is a mistake. They are freshwater seas that can pack incredible power. They are stronger than you and can end your life in an instant if you don’t respect them.
- The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project is a nonprofit dedicated to drowning prevention that keeps track of drowning statistics: 74 in 2010, 87 in 2011, 101 in 2012 and 39 so far in 2013. (you can also keep up with them on Facebook)
- Life jackets can save your life. U.S. Coast Guard statistics show that 90% of the people who drown in a boating or water accidents would survive with a life jacket.
- Cold kills! Hypothermia is a danger all year round on the Great Lakes. Click that link for tips on how to stay alive if you do end up in the water.
- Rip Currents (sometimes called “undertow” or “rip tide”) are a big danger on Michigan beaches accounting for the majority of drownings. Michigan is 4th in rip current related fatalities behind Florida, California, and North Carolina – we have “ocean force” rip currents. Learn how to beat them in this video.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offers comprehensive Great Lakes marine forecasts.
- The MyBeachCast smarthphone app can predict waves and warn you of hazardous conditions.
- Do you have more tips? Share them in the comments!
Check it out bigger and see more in Scott’s Lighthouses slideshow and also check out a winter view of the pier that Scott shot.
Catch a Michigan wave on Michigan in Pictures!
Swimming the Straits of Mackinac
Mackinac Dusk, photo by ShelNf
The Traverse City Record-Eagle reports that Cathy Nagler will be attempting to swim across the Straits of Mackinac tomorrow (Wednesday, July 24):
Worry isn’t a word Nagler uses to talk about the upcoming distance swim, which is expected to take place Wednesday between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, on the west side of the mighty Mackinac Bridge. But she does have legitimate concerns, chiefly hypothermia from the cold water.
“That’s the hard one,” she said. “I went in Lake Michigan on June 12 and the water temperature was 58 degrees.”
Nagler will wear a lightweight wetsuit, of the sort tri-athletes wear, to combat that problem. Combined with dive boots, it should keep her warm enough.
“The heavier wetsuits, like water skiers wear, make me too buoyant in the water,” she said.
Nagler, who summered at her family’s cabin in Northport as a child, has been a life-long swimmer. She has several distance swims to her credit, both in the United States and England. But her goal to swim across Lake Michigan has the most meaning for her.
You can read on for more and also check out Nagler’s crosslakemi.org where she discusses the preparation for the swim.
I thought I would try and figure out how many people have swum the 4.1 mile distance across the Straits of Mackinac, but it appears that the answer is “a lot.” This feature in the St. Ignace News about a group of 5 who swam the Straits in 2011 has some great information about swimming the Straits, and notes that the Coast Guard receives about 10 special marine requests specifically for swimming the Straits.
View ShelNf’s photo bigger and see more from the Straits in their slideshow.
Fighting for Michigan’s Environment
“Bridge to Nowhere” Foggy Mackinac Bridge – Mackinaw City , Michigan, photo by Michigan Nut
“Unless we move without delay to halt the deterioration of our land, our water and our air, our own children may see the last traces of earth’s beauty crushed beneath the weight of man’s waste and ruin.”
~Governor William Milliken to the Michigan legislature, January 1970
While “environmentalism” has become a polarizing term, it seems to me to be a concept that’s at the core of loving & caring for the Great Lakes State. One of my personal heros, Michigan Governor Bill Milliken, recognized this and he and his wife Helen fought strongly throughout their careers to enshrine protection of the natural bounty that they loved into the fabric of Michigan’s laws. It’s no surprise that every year the Michigan Environmental Council recognizes an individual for outstanding leadership, enduring commitment and extraordinary public service in protecting natural resources at the local, state and national levels with the Helen & William Milliken Distinguished Service Award.
The 2013 recipient has been announced, Dave Dempsey. Dempsey is the author of numerous books, a former member of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, environmental policy adviser to former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, and member of the state’s Natural Resources Trust Fund Board.
“Dave Dempsey is the rare leader who is able to move effortlessly from talking about the arcane technical details of some issue, to explaining in vivid and powerful terms why that issue is so critical to the quality of life for the generations that come after us,” Chris Kolb, MEC president, said in a press release Monday.
“Dave’s contributions to a better Michigan through his public policy advocacy alone deserve our recognition and gratitude. However, when you add in his authoritative chronicling of Michigan’s environmental history through his books, it’s clear he has made a special, positive, and lasting impact on our state.”
There’s no doubt that Dempsey has been a champion of the Great Lakes, and this Sunday (July 14) you have a chance to do some championing of your own as dedicated groups from all over the state host Oil & Water Don’t Mix: A Rally for the Great Lakes to raise awareness about climate change and the dangers posed by an oil pipeline that runs through the Mackinac Straits. Enbridge Energy – the company responsible for the devastating July 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill and over 800 other spills since 1999 – has been pumping oil through the Straits for 60 years. They are seeking to pump even more oil through the aging Mackinac pipeline – possibly including tar sands, the most toxic and hard to clean up if spilled.
The rally this Sunday, July 14 at noon at Bridge View Park in St. Ignace (just across the bridge) and there are numerous busses heading there from Kalamazoo, Lansing, Traverse City and other locations. Click for details or view the event on Facebook!
Check John’s photo out bigger and see more in his Bridges / Covered Bridges slideshow.
On Vacation!
cruising into the sunset, photo by suesue2
Michigan in Pictures will be taking a break this week – see you again on July 1st!
Sue caught the last ferry of the night as it headed to Mackinac Island. Check it out bigger and see more in her Up North slideshow.
Safety is always in style on Michigan’s beaches
Formal Day at the Beach 2012, photo by flambedude
Staying safe at the beach? There’s an app for that. The Great Lakes Echo recently reported on myBeachCast, a smartphone app that gives you beach information:
Although drownings appear to be on track to fall from a record high in 2012, the overall trend from the past several years have seen consistent increase, according to the Great Lakes Surf Commission. The hazard warnings on the app informs users when and where there is a potential for dangerous rip currents.
In addition to the hazard warnings, the app will continue to feature lake temperature, beach locations and other components.
“The app is GPS enabled to allow a user to discover local Great Lakes beaches based on their location, save favorite beaches and view real-time information [on conditions],” said Christine Manninen, communications director of the Great Lakes Commission.
The app will hopefully reduce drownings, she said.
“Having the information at their fingertips gives people a better chance of making smarter decisions to protect their own health and safety and their family’s.”
Jonathan writes that this photo was taken at Formal Day at the Beach, a yearly event in Grand Haven where people dress up and get into Lake Michigan and swim around looking fabulous. If anyone knows when this is in 2013 please post it in the comments! Jonathan just let me know that Formal Day at the Beach takes place this year on Sunday, July 28th at 2pm.
Check his photo out bigger and see more in his Formal slideshow.
Much more about Michigan’s beaches on Michigan in Pictures!
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