island

Auroras in the Mist … and in the Dark

Posted on October 2, 2025October 2, 2025 by farlane

Michigan has been awash in Northern Lights for the last several days, and this morning’s NOAA/NWS Space Weather Alert Email says there’s a good chance much of Michigan can see them tonight as well!

I encourage you to click to subscribe to that email, and also to check out our post about how to see the Northern Lights in Michigan. You will also want to join the Michigan Aurora Chasers group on Facebook where I first saw the photo above from last June at Little Girl’s Point on Lake Superior and where Aubrieta is one of the resident aurora experts. View more of her work on Facebook and on her website. She also shared the photo below yesterday. While I can’t link to it, I wanted to what she wrote as a cautionary tale to remind you to double check your gear before you are go outside in the dark!

On September 30 at 2:00 a.m., I made a once-in-a-lifetime mistake. I set out on a hike to the end of the Hunters Point Trail in Copper Harbor, hoping to shoot the Aurora over Porter’s Island. I was fried from shooting the Aurora three nights in a row, so I packed light: a small camera bag, a headlamp, a flashlight and a fanny pack. Having shot for hours, the battery in the camera and the headlamp were nearly done, but I knew I had a spare camera battery and my Fenix flashlight as backup. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that the battery in my Fenix flashlight was dead. I got exactly one shot of the scene before my camera battery died. This one. I plugged in my spare camera battery but it was dead, too. So, I headed back up the trail in near-darkness with just the stars and Aurora to light my way. Those of you who know about my life-long obsession with flashlights, will think this is a tall tale. But it’s a true story! As is the fact that all my batteries are re-charging now, including the one that operates my brain. How I love these Keweenaw nights!

Aurora over Porter’s Island by Aubrieta Hope

The dream before AI

Posted on August 26, 2024 by farlane

Island Dreams – North Manitou by Mary Westbrook

In her song “The Dream Before” of my favorite musicians, Laurie Anderson, observes that progress is a storm blowing us from Paradise into the future. While I am a big fan of lots of progress, I do not welcome the rise of Artificial Intelligence image generators that are positively overwhelming social media with idealized versions of real scenes. These false images are vexing, but they are only the tip of an iceberg that threatens to sink our ability to share information of any kind.

While many will probably say this picture is an AI creation due to the fancy clouds, Mary shared it four years ago on August 26, 2020. Head over to the Traverse City Camera Club group for more from Mary!

Superior Sunrise

Posted on July 16, 2024July 16, 2024 by farlane

Superior Sunrise by Karl Wertanen

You don’t take a photograph. You make it.
~ Ansel Adams

Great photography is not easy! Karl shares “Laying practically under my tripod and up against a prickly picker bush, I’m narrowly able to cram in this craggily white birch with a few remaining autumn leaves that are just barely hanging. In the crisp and cold October morning air, I caught one of the nicest and richest sunrises I’ve ever experienced over Lake Superior. This was a good morning.“

Follow Karl on Facebook and view & purchase his work on his website.

Isle Royale Rangers … and a Kayak

Posted on June 26, 2024June 26, 2024 by farlane

Julie off Hawk Island by Carl TerHaar

Here’s a sweet article in the Northern Express about the all-women team of park rangers at Isle Royale National Park for you to check out. It has nice profiles of each ranger and begins:

John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt. Everett Townsend and Walter Fry. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Richard Proenneke, and Ansel Adams. Since the inception of the national parks in the late 1800s, the men who carried the banner of wilderness preservation also wrote the history of their movement, often missing the crucial role women played in protecting America’s wilderness from the Industrial Revolution and the raw material extraction that revolution demanded.

At Isle Royale National Park, the lower 48’s least visited but most revisited national park, an all-women team of park rangers reminds us that all it takes to work in nature is a passion for conservation and a love for the outdoors.

“It wasn’t intentional at all,” says Katie Keller, lead ranger at Isle Royale, when we inquired about how the team came to be. “Hiring for the parks is different every year. So we were just as surprised as the visitors when we had all-women rangers two years in a row.”

Karl took this way back in 2011. See lots more in his Isle Royale National Park album and view & purchase his work at Mackinac Scenics.

Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse

Posted on May 14, 2024 by farlane

Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse by Presque Isle Township Museum Society

The Presque Isle Township Museum Society reminds you that it’s never too early to start planning your summer Michigan Lighthouse Tour! The drive from Tawas to Mackinaw City along Heritage Route 23 will let you explore the lighthouses of the Sunrise Side. Click that link for a map & much more!!

Lighthouse historian Terry Pepper is no longer with us, but his words still illuminate the rich history of Michigan lighthouses at Seeing the Light. His entry on the Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse says (in part):

Thunder Bay Island sits just three miles East-northeast of the north point of Thunder Bay, and thirteen miles from the harbor at Alpena. This 215-acre limestone island is the outermost of a group of islands connected to the shore by a shallow rocky shoal. As such, it represented both a significant marker for Northbound vessels making the turn toward the Straits, and stood ready to chew the wooden hulls of vessels unlucky enough to stray too close to its rocky shores.

…With rapidly increasing maritime traffic through the 1850’s, the Lighthouse Board determined that the combination of inefficient Lewis lamps and the diminutive 40-foot height of the tower provided a less than effective aid to mariners relying on this important station. To rectify the situation, plans were formulated to increase the height of the tower and to install an improved French Fresnel lenses of the type currently being installed throughout the system. Over 1857, the upper 14 feet of the tower was encased in brick and continued above the upper limits of the old structure to a height of 50 feet, effectively increasing the total height of the tower by 10 feet. The entire exterior of the tower was then given a veneer of Cream City brick to provide a smooth, weather-proof surface. At completion of the masonry work, the renewed walls at the base of the tower stood a massive 79 inches thick, and tapered to a thickness of 20 inches at their uppermost.

Atop this renovated tower, a new gallery with a cast iron hand railing was installed, and a ten-sided prefabricated cast iron lantern installed at its center. Within this new lantern, a Fourth Order Fresnel lens manufactured by Sautter of Paris equipped with six bulls-eye flash panels was installed on a cast iron pedestal and equipped with a clockwork rotating mechanism. This new improved illuminating apparatus provided a characteristic fixed white light varied by flashes, and its enhanced focal plane of 59 feet provided an increased range of visibility of 14 miles at sea.

Read on for much more! Also, a very big thank you to the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association who have been sharing some great pics in our Michigan in Pictures group on Facebook! They do so much to preserve Michigan’s lighthouse and maritime legacy!!

You’ve Got Mail (Bois Blanc Edition)

Posted on April 23, 2024 by farlane

You’ve Got Mail by James Korringa

Feels like folks are starting to open up their summer cottages & rentals for the season, so it’s a good time for this picture of mailboxes on Bois Blanc Island. James it shared back on April 23, 2020, and it remains one of my all time favorite pics I’ve shared on Michigan in Pictures. I’ll probably have to have some kind of bracket challenge one of these days to figure out what the audience thinks one of these days 😉

You can check out more great shots in James’s Barns & Countryside gallery and see his latest pics on Flickr.

Happy Birthday, St Helena

Posted on September 20, 2021 by farlane

St Helena Light by Joel Dinda

On September 20th way back in 1873, the beacon of the the St. Helena Island Lighthouse was lit for the first time. CMU’s Clarke Historical Library explains:

Because several ships had been wrecked on the dangerous shoals near the island of St. Helena in 1872, Congress authorized construction of a lighthouse at the southeast tip of the island. Since September 20, 1873, the beacon of the St. Helena Lighthouse has helped guide vessels safely through the Straits of Mackinac.

The light was first automated in 1922 and the modern lighthouse uses solar batteries to power the light.

In 1988, the lighthouse was added to the national Register of Historic Places. Recently restored to excellent condition by the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, the St. Helena Island Lighthouse continues to light up the Straights and provide a glimpse of the golden age of the Great Lakes’ lights.

Definitely check the Clarke Historical Library out – some great Michigan history there for sure!

Joel took this photo back in 2014 on a Lighthouse Cruise with Shepler Ferry / Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association. See more shots in his Lighthouse Cruise 6/16/2014 gallery.

More lighthouses on Michigan in Pictures!

Daybreak at Little Presque Isle

Posted on June 8, 2021 by farlane

Daybreak at Presque Isle by Michigan Nut Photography

Daybreak at Little Presque Isle by Michigan Nut Photography

The Michigan Department of Natural resources says that the Little Presque Isle tract is often called the crown jewel of Lake Superior, with its beautiful sand beaches, rugged shoreline cliffs, heavily timbered forests, and unmatched public views:

The rock comprising the area represents some of the oldest exposed formations of its kind. More than a mile of bedrock lakeshore and cliffs adorns Little Presque Isle, including sandstone cliffs that reach nearly 60 feet high toward the base of Sugar Loaf Mountain. One kind of bedrock, granitic, that occurs here is the least common bedrock type along the Great Lakes shoreline, with less than eight miles occurring in total. This is one of three areas where the public can see these 2.3 billion year old formations in Michigan.

The proposed wilderness area is a local landmark, which has significant historical value. The island was reportedly connected to the mainland sometime prior to the 1930s and was a landing place for early explorers and native inhabitants.

John took this photo last week. See the latest at Michigan Nut Photography on Facebook. View & purchase more of his work at MichiganNutPhotography.com.

More Michigan islands on Michigan in Pictures!

Island Dreams … North Manitou

Posted on August 26, 2020 by farlane

via leelanau.com…

Clouds over North Manitou Island by Mary Westbrook

Here’s a simply stunning shot of North Manitou Island off the Leelanau Peninsula at the beginning of August. Leelanau.com says that North Manitou Island:

…is managed as wilderness with the exception of a 27 acre area around the Village. Visiting the island is a primitive experience emphasizing solitude, a feeling of self-reliance and a sense of exploration. The primary visitor activities are backpacking and camping. Travel in the wilderness area is by foot only. Power on the island is provided by a photovoltaic array located in the Village.

North Manitou Island is 7-3/4 miles long by 4-1/4 miles wide and has 20 miles of shoreline. The topography varies considerably on the island from low, sandy, open dune country on the southeast side grades to the high sand hills and blowout dunes on the southwest side of the island.

I’ll add that it’s a super cool place to visit!

Head over to the Traverse Area Camera Club on Facebook for more photos by Mary from an amazing day on Lake Michigan! More Michigan islands on Michigan in Pictures.