February 2024

We’re going to continue on our tour of the Great Lakes, moving from Lake Huron to its partner, Lake Michigan. As I’ve shared before, Huron and Michigan are really one body of water, joined at the Straits of Mackinac. 

Southwest from the Straits lie a chain of islands. The two most prominent islands are North and South Manitou. The islands are part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and can be seen from the mainland – two distinct humps rising out of the water in close proximity to each other. 

There is a ferry from Leland that will take visitors to both islands. South Manitou is the smaller island (8 square miles) and attracts day visitors with a small museum, lighthouse, and old Coast Guard station, and a wagon tour out to the site of a shipwreck. North Manitou is much larger (22 square miles) and, other than a small village where the ferry docks, is managed as a wilderness area. Visitors come for solitude, hiking and camping. Neither island has food or medical services. 

On our visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes in 2019 I bought a children’s book at the National Park Service Visitor’s Center called The Legend of Sleeping Bear by Kathy-jo Wargin, illustrated by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen. It has a subtitle “Michigan’s Official Children’s Book”. Given this designation, I was underprepared for the story told but probably should have been tipped off by the dedication: For all mothers, whose love and dedication will be rewarded.

A synopsis of the legend, an Anishinaabe story of a sacred place: Long ago, across the inland sea that is now Lake Michigan, in the forests of what is now Wisconsin, lived Mother Bear and her two cubs. They lived happily along a stream. Sometimes Mother Bear would take her cubs to the shores of the lake and gaze out on its endless horizon.

One day there was a thunderstorm and lightning struck a tree and started a forest fire. Mother Bear and her cubs ran to the lakeshore. They had no choice but to leap into the lake and start a swim across to the other side. The cubs promised Mother Bear they would swim with all their might all through the night. Mother Bear kept checking to make sure her cubs were not far behind her. But by morning, as she saw the sun coming up, she no longer saw her cubs. Mother Bear made it to the sandy shores of the lake, surrounded by dunes. She was exhausted. But she paced up and down the shoreline, calling to her cubs. Eventually she climbed to the top of the highest dune and sat, watching and waiting for her cubs.

She waited as the seasons changed. She waited through the winter. Eventually Mother Bear fell into a deep slumber of sorrow, blanketed by sand. The great spirit of the land felt her sadness, her dedication, and her love. And so the spirit raised the cubs from the water and made them two islands, close together and within view of Mother Bear. They are North and South Manitou Islands, resting eternally near their mother.

Welp. Oh man. You can be sure I was wiping away tears when I read the book. But this story of a mother’s love is deeply touching and adds further life and meaning to this special region on Lake Michigan. The bears’ resting place brings awe, joy and peace to visitors year after year. 

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We’re going to pause from our Great Lakes tour for a post or two. Right after the new year, a number of you sent me this article from the Washington Post – or others on the same topic. The Great Lakes were in the news.

person wearing orange jacket

January 1st, 2024 recorded the smallest amount of ice cover over the Great Lakes in the past 50 years. Only 0.35% of the lakes’ surface area was under ice. The lakes average 9% for New Year’s Day. There is clear evidence of a downward trend likely due to climate change. Between 1973 and 2017, the lakes recorded as many as 46 fewer days per season frozen, which is defined as days when at least 5% of the lakes’ surface had ice cover.

There is variability year to year – 2019 was one of the highest ice coverage years on record (81% coverage at one point!), and things can also change through a season. Highest ice coverage is usually seen in February and early March.  

Why does this matter? The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) has provided a helpful answer.

There are several challenges to note. Thick ice protects the shoreline from erosion and flooding during winter storms. Animal patterns are disrupted, including those of fish who use ice for protection during their spawning season. Some areas of the Great Lakes have developed winter recreational seasons for things like ice fishing that depend on ice coverage.

But one of the main impacts of this shift for those living in the region is an increase in the well-known lake effect snow phenomenon. Lake effect snow occurs when cold air, often a front from Canada, sweeps across the relatively warmer waters of the Great Lakes. As it moves, warmth and moisture from the lake water rises into the lowest portion of the atmosphere. Because it is warmer and less dense than the cold air, it rises and creates clouds and snow.

Unfrozen lake is a prerequisite for lake effect snow. So, with less ice coverage at the start of January, the region was ripe for the impacts of lake effect snow, and we saw it in the middle of the month when a frigid front came through and we saw substantial snowfall.

For those of us living in the region, there is high variability with how lake effect snow is experienced. It can sometimes bring a light, innocuous, low density snow. But it can also bring strong bands of dense snow that can appear quickly, at times causing dangerous conditions for driving. Climate change and warmer temperatures will likely exacerbate the extremes causing punishing snows like those Buffalo experienced in the closing days of 2022 when between 50 and 77 inches of snow fell around the region.

In sum, climate change is driving a deep irony for the Great Lakes region. Warmer temperatures are moderating the climate overall, but increasing some of the most extreme winter weather that drives stereotypes and boastful declarations about the superior liveability of places like Florida and the Sunbelt. I encourage you to think critically about this sentiment though. Winters here can have some extremes but summers there have some extremes – and in some places dwindling access to freshwater. There is nowhere to escape our warming planet. We all have burdens to bear in the short and long-term. 

And, as I shared in one of my earliest posts about retreating from life on Lake Erie in the winter of 2021, the snow and ice can be mighty beautiful.   

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