Happy Father’s Day by Terry Zweering
Wishing all of the dads out there a Happy Father’s Day!
Terry took this on Pyramid Point overlooking Lake Michigan back in 2013. See more in her Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park gallery on Flickr!
The Coves Sunset by Footsore Fotography
I shared this photo 13 years ago, but it really felt like I needed to return here this morning, if only for a virtual moment.
Gary has been a part of Michigan in Pictures for years now, bringing photos from across Michigan, but especially Grand Marais & the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. View & purchase his work at Footsore Photography & for sure follow Gary on Facebook! The first two below are from The Coves along with a collection including Lower Mosquito Falls in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore & the last is from the upcoming Grand Marais Fly-in!
Giant Sequoia in Detroit’s Circle Forest by Andrew McFarlane
-Andrew “Birch” Kemp, Executive Director, Arboretum Detroit
The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive & Arboretum Detroit have partnered on a truly incredible effort that is planting giant sequoia in Detroit! Bridge Detroit shares that these colossal conifers can live for more than 3,000 years and reach heights in excess of 300′ tall with a circumference greater than 30′ at the base.
The sequoias will eventually provide a full canopy that protects everything beneath, he said. “It may be sad to call these .5- and 1-acre treescapes forests,” Kemp said. “We are expanding on this and shading our neighborhood in the only way possible, planting lots of trees.”
Giant sequoias are resilient against disease and insects, and are usually well-adapted to fire. Thick bark protects their trunks and their canopies tend to be too high for flames to reach. But climate change is making the big trees more vulnerable to wildfires out West, Kemp said. “The fires are getting so hot that its even threatening them,” he said.
You can read lots more in Bridge and at the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, which I encourage you to support with your donations & by spreading the word about their amazing work!
Here are some pics I took yesterday afternoon along with some pics from the Archangel Facebook page. The big tree is the Stagg giant sequoia tree in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains – fifth largest tree in the world – and the shot of the guys in the tree shows Archangel’s Jake Milarch & Aaron Johns actually inside the 3000+ year old tree! The one of the burned tree shows the 3,000 year old “Waterfall Tree” Giant Sequoia before and after the 2020 Castle Fire.
Continued (apparently) in Big Questions about Giant Sequoia on Michigan in Pictures!
Today is the 55th Earth Day, and this holiday that is celebrated across the planet was born right here in Michigan! I hope that you are able to take a little time today or this week to think about how you and your family, friends & neighbors can help create a future where humans live in harmony with the world around us because it really is the only one we’ve got. 🌏✌️💙
Paul took these at the Reid Lake Foot Travel Area near Harrison in the Huron-Manistee National Forest in the northeast Lower Peninsula. The US Forest Service says the 3000-acre area includes 13 miles of gently rolling trail around Reid and Little Trout Lakes, the shoreline of Big Marsh, and views of Fanny’s Marsh and Mossy Bog. There are also 9 designated first-come first-serve campsites available. Check out his photos from last Earth Day & many more in his Reid Lake gallery and for sure follow him on Flickr for more!
Many more Earth Day photos on Michigan in Pictures!
The sun’s brush paints the day’s end with strokes of flowing orange and opalescent coral. Sleeping Bear Dunes, guardian of the coast, stand silhouetted against the celestial masterpiece. As the sun descends, the waters of North Bar Lake become a mirror, reflecting the heavens in all their fiery glory. A ribbon of liquid cuts through the sand, mirroring the sky’s vibrant hues. The wet sand, kissed by the setting sun, flows with ethereal light, a testament to the sun’s final performance. The air, still and hushed, is filled with the gentle lapping of waves against the shore, a soothing melody that accompanies the visual symphony.
Mark Lindsay from The Soul of Sleeping Bear
Leelanau.com shares that photographer Mark Lindsay (whose work you may have seen on Michigan in Pictures) has released his first book, The Soul of Sleeping Bear. It’s a beautiful, coffee table book that blends Mark’s gorgeous photography of the Sleeping Bear with writings on what these vistas can spark in your heart.
winter, upper tahquamenon falls, michigan by twurdemann
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.“
-Charles Dickens
…and it is also winter in the UP! While rains are expected to wash much of the snow from Michigan today, mLive Chief Meteorologist Mark Torregrossa shares that the National Weather Service is predicting 10-15″ of snow for areas of the Upper Peninsula including as much as TWO FEET of snow for the western UP!
twurdemann shares that this incredible winter wonderland is created by freezing spray/mist from the waterfall at Michigan’s Tahquamenon Falls State Park & the brown tannins in the water. Check out more in their Winter gallery on Flickr that includes some KNOCKOUT ice cave photos from the Canadian shore of Lake Superior!
Mackinac Island by Mark Swanson
Most remember that President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law establishing that Yellowstone as America’s first national park on March 1, 1872, but not that many are aware of the 2nd national park that Congress created just three years later on March 3, 1875. The National Parks Traveler has a great feature on America’s “forgotten” national park which existed from 1875 to 1895 when it became Mackinac Island State Park, the nation’s first state park which is now Mackinac State Historic Parks.
Mark has shared a ton of Mackinac Island pics on Flickr and in our Absolute Michigan group. Here are some of my faves. See more in his Mackinac, Michigan gallery on Flickr!!
EDITOR’S NOTE ON THE EDITOR’S NOTE: I am the editor of Leelanau.com. I wrote the Editor’s Note below and fully endorse the position of the letter writer. Honestly, if you don’t I really wonder why you follow this blog and for sure don’t care if you go away for good.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first message that I am going to share from a National Forest Service employee who is neck deep in the horrors being perpetrated against the National Park Service and the National Forest Service. Sadly, I don’t think it will be the last. Also, at the end, the author says mean things about the Department of Government Efficiency aka DOGE aka the unelected & unaccountable organization taking a wrecking ball to the federal government which I fully endorse. This is an ill-fated & poorly planned action that will cause untold & in some cases irreparable damage to public resources that you and I own. We should not allow this.
I am also going to encourage you to read this letter to the Glen Arbor Sun about the issue by seasonal Park worker Jess Piskor. OK here’s the letter
I have things to say.
1. I still have a job, meaning I somehow cleared level one. RIF (reduction in force) is the Boss Level, and that’s still a ways off (days? Weeks? We don’t know). I am not in any way hopeful that I will still be employed with the National Forests in four months, or that there will be National Forests in four years.
2. People at work are packing, printing our performance docs, waiting for the call. Some of us (like me) have targets on our backs, but nobody is safe. Nobody sleeps. A co-worker thought he was having a heart attack. We compare what meds we’re taking for anxiety. The wait is torture. I had to process termination paperwork for a very close friend who kicks ass at her job. It sucks every day. And work used to be my happy place.
3. The termination letters site performance issues. THIS IS A LIE and they know it. That’s why they fired (and were forced by a federal judge to rehire) the head of the Merit Systems Protection Board, a board whose main job is to say, “Whoa whoa wait a sec. You can’t fire federal employees without just cause!” This is why people are signing termination docs “signed under duress.” My friend has excellent performance evaluations. Most of the fired people do. Because…
4. Probation does NOT mean we did something wrong. It means we just got hired (or promoted) and it came with a probationary period. These are recent graduates who went to school for natural resource management, wildlife conservation, forestry, and did so with the SOLE INTENT of protecting our public lands. These are the MOST devoted, passionate, educated, efficient people. With the least pay. We don’t work public lands for the pay; it is so much less than private sector wages, you guys. Look up the federal pay scale. It’s public information. Compare GS level jobs to what they’d make at a private company. In NPS we joked that we got paid in sunsets. We join because we believe in preserving public land for future generations. But it’s starting to look like our public lands will be cannibalized for parts. So
5. Please! If you go to public lands this summer, or in the next four years, know that we are doing the best we can with the staff and budget we’ve been given. There’s a district north of Yellowstone of over a million acres that has been left with THREE employees. Recreation and Trails departments across the nation have been gutted. There are NO PEOPLE LEFT ON THE GROUND TO CLEAN YOUR SHIT. If you have a complaint about your lands this summer, do NOT get hostile with the federal workers on the ground. Take that complaint, dip it in hot tar, and shove it as far up the DOGEs ass as you can reach.
Thoughts? Head over the the Leelanau.com Facebook to share them.
FYI, I took the photo above. You can click the Patreon to support me & Michigan in Pictures and stay tuned for more!
In honor of this brutally cold morning with single digit temperatures covering the state, so I couldn’t resist re-sharing probably the toastiest photo ever to grace Michigan in Pictures. Take a stroll through pics from pkHyperfocal’s Metro Parks gallery & for sure check out all their galleries on Flickr.
Stay warm!!!
There’s been some honestly crazy talk about Canada becoming our 51st state in the news. Leaving aside the fact that Canada is actually bigger than the US, only 13% of Canadians actually want this. David Olive of the Toronto Star thinks it’s funny because many Canadians think of Michigan as Canada’s 11th province. He makes some humorous points but concludes with some compelling facts:
Canada is Michigan’s biggest trading partner, accounting for about 41 per cent of Michigan’s exports, or approximately $40 billion per year. And so, at its own expense Canada is nearing completion on a $6.4-billion second bridge across the Detroit River, named for Red Wings legend Gordie Howe.
Thousands of people commute each day from their homes in Michigan to their work in Canada and vice versa. Let’s join Michigan to Canada so that those nurses, engineers, municipal workers and computer programmers can more easily travel within the same country. The pandemic played havoc with those commuters, when the international crossing was closed.
Let’s scrap that border before the next pandemic.
As someone who has regularly visited Canada all my life; vacationing on Sugar Island & St Joseph Island, skiing in Searchmont, enjoying music in Toronto, and zipping across to Windsor with just my enhanced Michigan license whenever the mood strikes me, I’m giving that a big amen!
James shared the photo of the Ambassador Bridge back in February of 2018 writing: Fog covers the cities of Windsor, ONT and Detroit, MI. The Ambassador Bridge connects the two cities. 5 shot panorama stitched in Lightroom. Shot from Detroit Riverside Park.
There’s more pics in his Detroit gallery on Flickr including the photo of the two nations looking downriver.
Overall, the report found 82% of Canadians do not want to become the 51st state with only 13% saying they would.
Michigan in Pictures 