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DISCOVER MORE ABOUT UP NORTH PEOPLE, PLACES, FOOD AND EVENTS.

42

A IS FOR AUTUMN AND ANTIQUES Looking for an out-and-about fall afternoon packed with delights?

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OH MY HEART

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GRIST FOR THE MILL

When Turner Booth pondered buying the rundown Glen Arbor Mill, little did he know how much its past would shape its future—and his.

BY LISSA EDWARDS / PHOTOS BY ANDY WAKEMAN

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LET THERE BE LIGHT

A renowned painter looks back on a career that was ignited in the amber glow of the Northern Michigan countryside.

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ON THE COVER The Mill Glen Arbor photo by Andy Wakeman

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Traverse

NORTHERN

MICHIGAN A MyNorth Media Publication

Vol. 43 | No. 4

PRESIDENT

Michael Wnek Cara McDonald

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

SENIOR EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR DIGITAL CONTENT & SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST CULINARY COLUMNIST

Elizabeth Edwards Carly Simpson Allison Jarrell

Elizabeth Aseritis Caroline Dahlquist

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

Kandace Chapple Kim Schneider Lynda Wheatley

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Rachel Watson

DIRECTOR OF SALES

Julie Parker

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Mike Alfaro Ann Gatrell Julie James Meg Lau

MARKETING DIRECTOR

Erin Lutke Ashlyn Korienek Nichole Earle

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

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editor's note

THE LETTING GO

by CARA MCDONALD

L

ast year, i had to orchestrate a crosscountry move. I planned to leave a lot of furnishings behind, which was the norm in our resort-community real estate market. But what was already poised to be a “Hunger Games”– style reaping became even more fraught when the movers showed up with just two U-Pack storage units instead of three. “Based on your questionnaire, we thought you’d fit in two and we’d save you some money,” they said.

Cue an instant, white-hot panic.

I had to re-evaluate on the spot and immediately let things go. The threadbare Persian rug my parents had passed along for under the dining room table. The three-story rodent habitat (we were down to one rat, anyway). The Roland electric piano with seven silent keys. The dresser I had rehabbed with black paint and leather drawer pulls.

Some things were easy inclusions: My Mission rocking chair, the first piece of furniture I ever bought. Legos and model trains, beloved toys and stuffies. Framed travel posters. A Joellyn Duesberry monotype, the only real piece of art I own. Photo albums, Christmas ornaments, every magazine I’ve ever worked on. A papier-mâché sculpture my 12-year-old made of our dog, Haley, leaping skyward with turquoise dragon wings. The Nespresso machine. Skis and bikes. Ice skates.

Some baffling things made the cut. Useful: The dog’s giant Tupperware food dispenser, even with the hole chewed in it by its previous owner. Sentimental: The toasting glasses from my wedding. You-should-use-this-more: A Nambe wine chiller that’s been boxed since 2009, my Trek Madone (also mostly retired since 2009). What-was-I-thinking: A plastic bin full of fake cobwebs, candy-corn lights, a brass jack-o’ -lantern and a giant furry spider.

Then there’s the limbo stuff, cardboard boxes that are half unpacked, still moving from laundry room to garage to basement, holding things like a bridesmaid/cocktail dress, my epic collection of sports-specific gloves and mittens, my grandfather’s childhood encyclopedia set, outdated photos in Target frames. Things too difficult to sort, face or part with, but not necessary for my daily happiness.

It’s a struggle between wanting to burn it all and adopting a Japanese futon-on-the-floor minimalism, or stuffing the corners with shelves and books and ceramic owls and leggy plants.

If I were to default to my factory settings, I suppose I’d be collecting. I am sentimental about things because I’m a sentimental person, a story person. On some level, objects are where the stories live, and seeing them keeps those memories and stories close to the surface of my mental pond.

Making the cut: Real Haley posing with Flying Haley in front of the Joellyn Duesberry.

But I’m also a person who flirts with the dangerous edge of stories, too—reliving, repeating, refining, for better or worse. They can be sweet or they can be stultifying, preventing us from moving forward and creating space for what’s next.

This month’s issue could be subtitled “Something Old.” Antiques, an artist’s retrospective, the renovation of Glen Arbor’s beautiful mill, a new chapter born from a brush with mortality and the loss of a beloved local diner.

At the core of these stories’ goodness is the potential for reimagining. The Mill is a hospitality destination now, still processing wheat for bread, but also welcoming diners and overnight guests to immerse in a magical space. The antiques? Found on a road-trip challenge, for which each editor was charged with unearthing and championing just one perfect discovery to bring back to life. And writer Ellen Airgood’s new life creates a space for baking, community and love, without the crushing work and uncertainty of the diner she and her husband ran for years.

The loss and uncertainty co-exist with the nudge to leap and reinvent; it occurs to me that each of these old things has a clean slate baked into them. The best old things do.

Cara McDonald Executive Editor cara@mynorth.com SEPTEMBER 2023

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Up North.

PEOPLE | NATURE | ARTS | NOSTALGIA | BUZZ | WISDOM | CURIOSITIES

THE CO-OP THAT COULD

by LYNDA TWARDOWSKI WHEATLEY

photo courtesy of Oryana

How a whole lotta heart (and a little bit of hacky sack) created a hub for healthy foods.

T

o look at oryana community co-op today is to witness an astonishingly well-oiled (ethically sourced, cold-pressed, whole kernel, certified-organic extra-virgin coconut) machine. Which might be more than can be said about most of us turning 50 this year.

Oryana on Front Street 1978.

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Born of the counterculture movement, Oryana began in 1973 with a group of free-thinking, healthconscious locals who, disenchanted with the highly processed factory-made and pesticide-laden Big Ag–grown foods that dominated markets at the time, pooled their money to buy bulk loads of healthy foods in Ann Arbor and bring them north to Traverse City.

Then they had a better idea.

As General Manager Steve Nance tells it, “They thought, ‘We’ve got these buying clubs, but we really should get together and open a store.

They wanted to have control over the food system—or part of it. They wanted healthier options. And they wanted to have something that would be fair to the [store] owners, the shoppers and the community.”

Eschewing the traditional business model, which Nance describes as “profit over everything,” the founders created a volunteer-run co-op and

“They wanted to have control over the food system—or part of it. They wanted healthier options.” governing board. They selected a name, Oryana, a reference to the South American goddess of harvest and abundance, featured in a thenpopular book, Chariots of the Gods.

And they nabbed their first location: the back of a small house on 16th Street—a veterans clinic by day, 3rd Level Crisis Center at night— where 50-pound bags of beans, grains

photo courtesy of Oryana

— STEVE NANCE

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photo courtesy of Oryana

Oryana’s current 10th Street location

and other foods could be quickly sorted and sold, and fiery debate about whether or not to use paper towels for cleanup might take three weeks.

All owners took turns working. Sometimes they slacked—once leaving the store unattended until befuddled customers eventually found the staff outside playing hacky sack. One night, the cash bag, which held the bulk of the co-op’s working capital and was hidden inside a sack of dried beans between deposit runs to the bank, was stolen— a loss made less monumental by many loyal customers who, during the ensuing panic, paid $10 for $5 worth of food.

And before Dave Poinsett—the first paid staff member, at $1 per hour—sent the IRS a letter of apology, along with payment on what he estimated Oryana owed and a promise to do better, no one thought to pay federal taxes.

Despite its freewheeling underpinnings, the co-op grew and moved to bigger and better locations: next to Ace Hardware on West Front; above Top Shoppe resale shop; inside the building that houses Bay Bread Company; and at the dead end of 10th Street, wedged between a neighborhood and some empty, overgrown property behind McGough’s Farm & Lawn Supply—a move Nance looks back on with wonder.

“You don’t go to buy straw and horse feed, and then go, ‘I think I’ll try that trippy little grocery store.’ There was no drive-by traffic. Plus, the building was terrible. We almost didn’t make it after that move,” he says.

But, with big renovations and dozens of still heart-led but increasingly strategic changes, they did—so well, in fact, that by 2004 Oryana was the biggest co-op in Michigan and one of the busiest per square foot in the country.

During the pandemic, Oryana managed another feat: eking out a deal to buy the failed Lucky’s Market on US-31, reaching a longtime goal of a second location while preserving the jobs of 62 Lucky’s employees.

What’s to come next? “Instead of some boring, long-term strategy document, we have what we call Oryana Imagine 2030,” Nance says. “It’s a story of what success looks like. We lay out the picture of success, then we try to figure out how to get there.”

Stories can change, of course, but for now, Nance says this one imagines a third location, perhaps an outpost in Elk Rapids or Frankfort, or smaller deployments that could both cut the carbon footprint of customers driving into Traverse City and offer fresh, local, organic options to the region’s “food deserts.” More owners, increased support of Oryana staff and becoming a more model workplace might be a part of the story, too.

The plot point Nance hopes won’t be a part of Oryana’s next chapter? A belated response to those free-wheeling early days, before the fledgling co-op kept books or paid taxes. “I keep waiting for a visit from the IRS,” he says with a laugh. “They have never shown up.”

Read about other reasons to celebrate the big 50 online at oryana.coop.

SEPTEMBER 2023

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Up North Buzz

T

awny Elizabeth Cox’s Tiny Traveling Boutique—a petite and chic Boho-artisan fashion shop housed inside a refurbed 1989 camper—captured our hearts and Instagram feeds when it began rolling ’round the North in 2018.

Now TTB is filling our closets and drawers nearer to bursting, thanks to Cox’s opening of a sister storefront in Elk Rapids. Bigger, brighter but delightfully still jam-packed with the kind of women’s goods we covet (read: a mix of unique and on-trend clothing,

B

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INE

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NEW UP NORTH

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HIG handbags, jewelry, candles, skin care), the storefront boutique TIN retains Cox’s commitment to TRAV Y affordability, ever-changing E BOU LING pieces and as many womenT 703 A I Q U E ME made products as she can fit.

E L K RA S ST., P ID S Rest assured, the OG TTB isn’t permanently parked—local pop-up shops in locations farther afield remain a possibility—but for now, the camper is hanging outside the new store, fabulously stocked with more merch.

And although it’s worth the road trip, you don’t have to trek to the Ames Street store or even wait for the camper to roll to you; all of TTB’s goods are also available online. Don’t say we didn’t warn you—or your closet. tinytravelingboutique.net -L.T.W. Cool finds, community updates and sweet new businesses.

IN THE WORKS …

ORE DOCK BREWING CO. EXPANSION

NEW DIGS …

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Jennifer Anderson, a graduate jeweler and gemologist, has moved her shop— and her bespoke jewelry—from Traverse City to Suttons Bay. Anderson has been working on the bench for more than 19 years, creating a range of pieces, from clean-lined and simple to highly intricate. facebook.com/goldandjaye

This European-style winery chateau founded by Bob and Nadine Begin and now helmed by their daughter, MarieChantal Dalese, has outdoor seating with expansive bay views, decadent six-course wine dinners and a 12-room B&B for a wine weekend escape. chateauchantal.com

Ore Dock Real Estate, LLC plans to construct and rehabilitate a mixed-use development located in downtown Marquette. When completed, the project will include four residential units, commercial space, a restaurant and an outdoor beer garden. oredockbrewing.com

Know of a business that just opened or have a fun community update? Let us know at editorial@traversemagazine.com.

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Up North Events

SAVORING SUMMER’S END

by ALLISON JARRELL

September is for sips and trips.

Paddle Antrim Festival

FRI / 1 The Minnehaha Brewhaha Music Festival returns with two days of music, brews and food. Camping available at Arcadia Marine. music-moves-me.org

photo by Kelly Rewa

SUN / 3 The 6th annual B3 Festival (Beer, Blues & Barbecue) takes place on the slopes of scenic Treetops Resort in Gaylord. This year’s event features a tribute to Bob Seger with headliner Forever Seger: The Silver Bullet Experience. Attendees can also enjoy a large variety of Michigan craft brews and a pig roast. Tickets are $35.

MyNorthTickets.com SAT / 9 The U.P. Fall Beer Festival in Marquette offers a selection of 600 craft beers from 80 Michigan breweries, plus an array of tasty local eats and a talented lineup of musicians. travelmarquette.com

THURS / 14 The annual Paddle Antrim Festival celebrates the amazing waterways of Northern Michigan with a two-day paddle event along the Chain of Lakes Water Trail.

This choose-your-own-adventure paddle allows you to decide how far you want to travel. paddleantrim.com SUN / 17 Frankfort once again hosts Ironman 70.3 along the shores of Lake Michigan. ironman.com

WED / 20 Savor a romantic Dinner in the Vines at 45 North Vineyard & Winery in Lake Leelanau, featuring four courses expertly paired with the vineyard’s wines. $110 per person. MyNorthTickets.com FRI / 22 Harbor Spring’s Festival of the Book is a multi-day gathering with 30-plus nationally known authors and illustrators. The festival highlights all things books during keynotes, luncheons and readings. Sept. 22–24. hsfotb.org

SUN / 24 Head to the Pine Performance Center in Curtis to soak in The Magic of the Night Sky in Upper Michigan—an immersive ultra-HD visual presentation by astrophotographer Shawn Malone.

He’ll share memorable experiences in the field and photos and videos curated from 25 years of avid night sky watching including magnificent aurora events, Milky Way landscapes, eclipses, comets, meteor showers and the ever-elusive S.T.E.V.E. Tickets are $12–$15. MyNorthTickets.com WED / 27 2023 marks the 10th year of the Up North Pride celebration, with a continued mission of making the region a more diverse, inclusive and safe place for everyone. Northern Michigan’s official 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride Celebration returns to Traverse City Sept. 27–Oct. 1. upnorthpride.com

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travel

BACK TO SCHOOL

by ANNA FALLER

Nestled in the heart of downtown Boyne City, the recently renovated Boyne Schoolhouse Lofts are a one-of-a-kind Northern Michigan retreat.

photo by Dave Weidner

A

sophisticated top-to-bottom renovation has given new life to an old school—and boy, are we glad that class is back in session.

Constructed in 1912, the building began as a six-room schoolhouse and served as an organ-manufacturing facility in the ’60s before transitioning to private ownership.

By the time it was purchased in 2021 by Boyne City transplants Eddie and Lesa Louch (also of Crooked Tree Nursery and Landscaping), it had been sitting vacant for several years. “I’d always been fascinated with the property,” says Eddie Louch. “It was a fun challenge to bring it to life and turn it into something that people would want to follow.”

Along with a team of 40 skilled staff, the pair joined partners Dave and Carolyn Hendricks to strip the building down to its studs, reimagining the former classroom spaces as modern and elevated vacation rentals (think exposed brick

walls, granite countertops and crisp white trim to offset the high ceilings). Each flat is equipped with a full kitchen and stainless-steel appliances, while updated living spaces boast warm-industrial decor, a gas fireplace and flat-screen TVs. On summer evenings, private patios beckon; or collapse into cozy, queen-size beds after a busy day of exploring.

The garden level holds the building’s two smallest units, which are about 1,000 square feet each. One offers accessible accommodations, complete with its own entry ramp, and both are equipped with a bedroom and ensuite bath.

Up the staircase, the first floor houses another two units with one or two bedrooms. At the top of the complex sit the penthouse suites (with views of Lake Charlevoix), which have an added second-level loft with a sleeper sofa and a third bathroom, making them ideal for larger families or groups.

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The endlessly charming Horton Bay General Store, established in 1876, is a go-to for ice cream, espresso, wine and gifts. Another must-visit is nearby Lavender Hill Farm, home to workshops, kids’ events and tours—not to mention 30 varieties of the fragrant flowers. For the outdoor adventurer, Louch suggests Avalanche Mountain Preserve and its 300 acres of hiking and mountain biking trails, or let Boyne Watersports set you up with a pontoon rental for a day on the water.

His favorite rec for guests? Day trips to Charlevoix and Walloon Lake. “They’re the old goodies, and have such a unique environment,” Louch says. “You really can’t beat this setting.” Find the Boyne Schoolhouse Lofts at 411 North East St., Boyne City. boyneschoolhouselofts.com

top photo courtesy of Boyne Schoolhouse Lofts // bottom photo by Dave Weidner

Anna Faller is a Traverse City-based freelance writer and interviewer with a passion for good books, great food and Michigan travel. annacfaller@gmail.com

Outside, guests relax on three acres of expertly designed greenery with a fire pit and grill perfect for s’mores and locally made brats (get the goods at Grain Train Natural Foods Market).

THINGS TO DO NEARBY

Of all the Boyne Schoolhouse Loft’s amenities, proximity to downtown tops the list. At just a few blocks from Boyne City’s center, it sits within easy walking distance of the marina, family-friendly parks and a sturdy list of places to eat. “You can walk to these places, have a good evening and come back to catch a sunset right off your patio deck,” Louch says.

To make the most of your getaway, he recommends grabbing a bite at European-inspired Café Santé or Sommerset Pointe Yacht Club’s The Pointe Fish & Grill, which overlooks Lake Charlevoix. Cap off your night with a cocktail at Provisions Lounge.

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outdoors

TRAILBLAZING EXPLORE CADILLAC BY BIKE

by ALLISON JARRELL

For those starting or ending their ride in Cadillac, don't miss out on the large local trail system, which links up with the White Pine, including seven scenic miles around Lake Cadillac.

Lagerwey recommends heading to the Rotary Performing Arts Pavilion, while Griffith enjoys stopping at Clam Lake Beer Co. for lunch with his Silver Spokes cycling group. Also worth noting: Einstein Cycles, 303 N. Mitchell St., has you covered for bike rentals and repairs. Beyond the White Pine Trailhead, Cadillac Commons is home to:

From riverside picnics to leaf-peeping tours, this bikeable rail-trail offers some divine scenery.

The Market An open-air, covered market between the Cadillac movie theater and After 26 Depot, home to the Cadillac Area Farmers Market and Cadillac After Hours Market. (Tip: Head to After 26 Depot for their sweet potato breakfast scramble, and support a family-owned business dedicated to employing adults with developmental disabilities. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.)

City Park Home of the Shay Locomotive—a permanent display of Cadillac’s logging history—and the memorial water fountain. Cadillac’s largest community festivals and events happen here with Lake Cadillac as a backdrop. Great for a picnic or a scenic walk or ride.

Rotary Pavilion Cadillac Rotary Performing Arts Pavilion has been a focal point on Cadillac’s lakeshore for decades, boasting a state-of-the-art sound system and a green seating area with sun shades. Enjoy concerts overlooking Lake Cadillac.

The Plaza A multi-use, multi-seasonal space for public events and gatherings. Amenities include a children’s splash pad, art-inspired benches and shaded seating for summer, along with an outdoor gas fireplace and ice skating rink during cold-weather months.

photo by Dave Weidner

DON’T MISS: THE WHITE PINE RIDE

Lagerwey coordinates the Rotary Club’s White Pine Ride, which falls on Sept. 16 this year. The fifth annual ride starts at the north end of the White Pine Trail and is suitable for all riding levels, offering various mileage distances—from 12- to 83-mile roundtrip routes. For more info, visit whitepineride.com.

W

hen september’s lingering summer starts stretching into cooler, colorful autumn days, you’ve hit the sweet spot for biking the panoramic White Pine Rail Trail. This 92-mile pathway connects Cadillac to Comstock Park, just north of Grand Rapids, and treats cyclists to dynamic vistas—think tree tunnels, lilied ponds, snaking streams and lush wetlands. You’ll ride beside trillium and other ephemeral wildflowers in the spring, and beneath canopies of red and gold in the fall.

For Cadillac Rotarian Mark Lagerwey, the section of trail from E. 44 Road to Tustin is not to be missed—it crosses “beautiful lowlands and wooded areas, dropping down just south of Tustin over a wetland at the headwaters of the Pine River.”

“For much of the trail, you feel like you are biking or hiking in the middle of a forest, and then all of a sudden, you are riding through forty acres of corn,” adds Paul Griffith, chair of the northern chapter of the Friends of the White Pine Trail. “The hundreds of streams, rivers and creeks add a unique dimension to each ride, regardless of where you bike.”

The White Pine has many claims to fame: it’s one of Michigan’s first rail trail state parks (established in 1995), the second longest in the state and it passes through five counties and 15 towns, each with their own singular charm. In September 2022, the White Pine trailhead in Cadillac was added to that list—a $500,000 improvement project that extends the trail from South and Lake streets to the corner of Cass and Lake streets. The new trailhead, nestled within the Cadillac Commons, features a parking area, benches, bike racks, a bicycle repair station and map kiosks.

And more good news ahead for trailgoers: by the end of the year, the last 21-mile stretch of unpaved path, from Howard City to Big Rapids, will finally be paved, improving conditions and accessibility for all.

For more info on the White Pine Rail Trail, visit cadillacmichigan.com.

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H OM B Y ELLEN AIRGOOD

PHOTOS B Y KATE HEADLEY

A 1974 AIRSTREAM IN NEED OF

SOME LOVE AND CRUMB-TOPPED BLUEBERRY MUFFINS OFFER A NEW CHAPTER OF HOPE.

Y

HEART SEPTEMBER 2023

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This place needs me here to start.

This place is the beat of my heart.

–“Oh My Heart,” –R.E.M

3A.M. that last summer at the diner, and I’d wake and stare at the ceiling, my mind churning in the mud of my bafflement and grief.

4 a.m., and I’d shuffle to the couch, where I’d gaze for a while into the dark. By 5, I’d be slumped into the cushions surfing the internet, thinking I should stop, but not stopping. I’d visit eBay. Trailers.com. Vintagetrailers.com. Vintagefoodtrucks.com. Page after page, I’d click through, considering Airstreams, Arrows and Alohas, Scottys, Shastas and Spartans.

Invisibly, hours would pass. Suddenly it would be time to wake Rick up and get ourselves and the dog into the truck and head to Grand Marais and open the diner. Our diner, our Paramount Road King diner built in New Jersey in 1949, our diner we had restored in 1997 and run together ever since.

Our diner, which we had now decided to sell.

Processing that idea was like trying to understand how far away the sun is or picturing what a billion donuts laid end to end would look like. It was like considering hacking off my own arm or ripping a lung from my chest and putting it up on the open market.

Nonetheless, we were doing it. We had run headlong into cancer the summer before, a cancer we had not expected Rick to survive. We had seen, along with the abyss of death, which

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yawns around all of us all the time towering in the sinks, the chugging I HAD A PROJECT, but usually wears a cloak of invisicompressors, the heat. Oh, the heat in A PLAN, A CHALLENGE. the summer in that little steel diner. bility, that we needed to change our ways. We could not risk leaving And in the winter, the bitter, intracI HAD AT LEAST A me alone at the restaurant where table, fierce, uncompromising cold he had cooked every meal that until the fire was blazing. You would FRAGMENT OF A came off the grill during all our think I’d have been glad to see the FUTURE. IT WAS years there, the restaurant where he last of it in my rearview mirror. had built the fires and split the But no. A billion times no, a shout UNKNOWABLE LIKE kindling and lugged the firewood from my marrow, no.

FUTURES ALWAYS and plowed the snow, the restauThe diner was often frustrating and rant where he’d filled the pop much too demanding. But it was also ARE. BUT IT WAS cooler with the pallets of soda he’d everything. It was the source of protaken off a semi and stacked case found friendships with our customers SOMETHING. IT by case, the restaurant where he’d and crews. It fostered deep learning WAS SOMETHING TO mopped and scrubbed and and indescribable satisfaction in my degreased and painted, the restauwork. It expanded my family, increased CLING TO. rant 20 miles of rough road distant my patience and urged humility. It was from our home, a road we traversed early and late in all kinds of weather in an aging Ford with loose steering and a habit of grinding down its calipers and bursting its brake lines.

“We have to do this,” I said over and over that last summer, frowning, my brow furrowed.

“Yes,” Rick would answer, his expression grave. “We do.”

“I can’t do this,” I said just as often. “I just don’t know how I can.”

Rick would answer that by gazing into the distance, looking pensive, or frustrated, or heartbroken or determined, depending on the day.

But traveling to work in the truck those last few months, we didn’t talk. It was too loud. The nubby tires would rumble over the gravel, the miles would pass, and I would stare out at the route I’d traveled for so long. Thousands of times, I had stared at these pines, these patches of sky, these ravens, these water holes, these long views of Lake Superior. Thousands of times, the truck had bounced across the dirt, cruised onto the pavement near the edge of town and eased into the back parking lot. Rick would shut off the engine, and we’d climb out, unlock the diner door, plug in the coffee pot and start: heat the grill, warm the oven, a gigantic work of living art that gave me purpose, meaning write the specials, turn the sign from Closed to Open, and go. and direction.

Go into our jobs, our vocation, our albatross, our delight.

Running it after we’d decided to sell and agreed with a buyer to sell and had told each other over and over that we How miserable I often was there. How resentful, worn out must go through with it was like attending my own funeral and dragged down by the drudgery, the stress, the weariness, every day. It was like watching a terrible—or maybe an exthe hours. Oh, the avalanches of hours we worked. Uncount- cellent though unenjoyable—movie about somebody else’s able hours, really. Or hours it was wisest not to count because life. It was like having nails pounded into me. Pounded into that way lay madness. And the stress that pulsed through me my eyes, which had gazed out the front windows at Lake so much of the time: orders stacking up on the wheel, cus- Superior every day for decades. Into my hands, which had tomers lining up at the door, dishes piling up in the sinks, laid the tile floors and scrubbed them ten thousand times, deadlines tick-tick-ticking away, things to remember and to which had turned on the dish sink faucets and pulled the do speeding through my head, elbowing each other, tram- oven doors open a hundred thousand times, at least. Into my pling each other. And the toil of it, day after day. The aching feet, which had walked and trudged and trotted the floors feet and backs and hands, the stumbling, slow-witted ex- for untold miles. Into my heart. haustion, the chaos and mess, the greasy pots and pans Oh, my heart.

Ellen Airgood and Esther, the 1974 Argosy trailer; The diner in Grand Marais, now called Archie’s West Bay under new ownership, is a must-visit for its retro charm.

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A SMILE CREPT THROUGH MY WHOLE BEING. I WAS 8 YEARS OLD IN 1974, AND IT ALL RUSHED BACK TO ME: PLAYING IN THE FAMILY CAMPER, BEING FULL OF HOPE AND PURPOSE. BEING SO HAPPY.

Get a slice of coffee cake: The Uglyfish Baking Co.’s official hours are “Open to Close, vacation days as needed.” This summer, that generally means 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ellen expects to be open until early November, depending on the U.P.’s unpredictable weather. When Esther’s renovation is finished, Ellen and Rick will add coffee and espresso. Check Facebook for daily menu updates.

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The place was my life, you know. I had long known it, but I realized it more every day as the hour to leave grew closer.

My cells and the cells of the walls and floors and ceiling and stairs, the tables and chairs, the pots and pans, the equipment—the oven, my oven!—were comingled, indistinguishable. When I breathed, the building breathed.

When I wept, it wept; when I laughed, it laughed with me.

Letting it go, admitting we were getting older and more brittle, that we might even die one day, wrenched my soul into surreal angles. The future without the diner was a blur, a blank. I was being cast into deep space, where it was cold and lonely and scary.

But those old trailers I spent my mornings looking at somehow soothed me.

As a kid, I played endlessly in my parents’ camper. Inside were bench seats upholstered in a pale red nubbly upholstery at a Formica table. There were curved, birch-paneled walls and gas lights. There was a narrow bunk where I loved to lie, reading and daydreaming. I’d crank the tiny windows at either end open and closed, pretending I was traveling on a train or a ship. The way I remember it, I was always happy in that little camper. I puttered inside, pretending one thing and another, planning my summer days and my life.

Living forward was as easy as turning cartwheels, then. But how would I live forward now?

I stopped short at an eBay listing for an Airstream one bright October morning. The trailer was a 1974 Argosy, and from the photos, it looked in the perfect condition for us: solid but in need of gutting. Big but not enormous. Cute but maybe also practical. Best of all, it was parked less than a hundred miles from us, just past Munising and Au Train.

I could hardly wait for Rick to get up. Once he did, I could hardly wait for him to be awake enough to talk to.

For decades my secret escape from the stress of the diner had been to imagine myself living an easier, more peaceful life at home on Muskallonge Lake, writing and selling some small, unspecified thing in some small, unspecified way. Now I had an idea. Maybe we could take one of my favorite parts of the diner, of the work and my identity there, along with us when we went. We could have—or I could have, in case Rick’s cancer roared back or his health never recovered—a cookie camper. I could bake and sell treats out of a trailer set on the corner of our property.

My eBay listing in hand, I discussed it with Rick. “Is it a good idea? Is it doable?”

He walked out to the road with me to inspect the part of our property I envisioned for the enterprise. We squinted into the morning sun and swatted flies away. I turned to him. “How hard would it be to pull off ?”

He waved a hand. “Easy. Just have to back the camper onto the corner. No big deal.”

I studied him appraisingly. We had a history of him saying that very difficult projects would be easy. Nonetheless, we rustled our friend Gary out of his cabin and drove west to see

the Argosy that afternoon. The cheerful woman who owned it had named it Esther. “That’s perfect,” I cried as we strode across the field beside her house, and she beamed at me.

I climbed inside, minding her warning to take care on the rusty stair and to step over the rotting subfloor, and was transported back to 1974. My gaze skimmed over an 8-track cassette player, a brown gas fridge, green shag carpeting and orange and maize daisies glued to the tub floor. A smile crept through my whole being. I was 8 years old in 1974, and it all rushed back to me: playing in the family camper, being full of hope and purpose. Being so happy.

Within an hour, we were writing Amy a check and promising to return as soon as possible. Back in Grand Marais, the arrangements to sell trudged forward, dragging my broken heart along. But now I had my cookie camper to think about, too. I had a project, a plan, a challenge. I had at least a fragment of a future. It was unknowable like futures always are.

But it was something. It was something to cling to.

Renovating Esther has turned out to be more complicated than Rick’s prediction of easy. Rather than wait until she was ready, last June, Rick washed a tiny camper we already owned, a 1965 Arrow Little Chief we call Junior, and hauled it out to the road. I scrubbed down the interior, and it became the “farmstand” for our cottage-industry bakery, The Uglyfish Baking Co. I read somewhere decades ago that “Muskallonge” means “ugly fish” in Ojibwe, and we have been calling things here at the lake “Uglyfish” this and that ever since.

In 15 minutes, I’ll stand at its short stretch of white Formica counter, preparing to set out the day’s display on its table, which would fold into a bed if it wasn’t covered by baked goods. Blueberry muffins. Cinnamon rolls. Espresso brownies. Lemon oatmeal cookies with a tart lemon glaze.

I’ll fuss with the labels on the plates and pedestals, put Tshirts and mugs out on display unless it starts to rain and prop the metal welcome sign up over the window. Then I’ll carry my warping chalkboard easel that says OPEN on both sides out to the road and plunk it down beside a basket of petunias, and consider myself ready for another day.

A while after that, Rick will appear and start moving railroad ties with a two-wheeled hand cart to outline our parking lot, busy as always. And we will both consider ourselves to be doing the best thing we know to do, living forward.

Ellen Airgood writes from Muskallonge Lake, where she runs The Uglyfish Baking Co. with her husband, Rick. She is the author of Tin Camp Road and South of Superior, both Michigan Notable Books, as well as the middle-grade novels The Education of Ivy Blake and Prairie Evers.

Kate Headley is an accomplished photographer living in Harbor Springs. Follow her work at @kateheadley and @headleyinharbor.

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GRIST FOR THE MILL

WHEN TURNER BOOTH PONDERED BUYING THE RUNDOWN GLEN ARBOR MILL, LITTLE DID HE KNOW HOW MUCH ITS PAST WOULD SHAPE ITS FUTURE—AND HIS. by Elizabeth Edwards

F

ive years ago, Turner Booth, a young real estate attorney who’d been working in New York City, took a career breather and relocated to Glen Arbor where he’d summered since he was a child. Initially, he stayed in his parents’ home at The Homestead resort just north of town. His route to and from the small downtown took him past the old mill.

With its broken windowpanes and peeling white paint, the massive, three-story building set on a small peninsula looped by the sandy-bottomed Crystal River was hauntingly handsome.

Like most folks who live or vacation in Glen Arbor, Booth wondered what was going to become of the old structure—neither the mill nor the sweet Queen Anne–style miller’s house that sits next to it looked like they could withstand many more Northern Michigan winters without some serious triage. At the time, both buildings were owned by a local resort, whose owner had purchased them in the 1980s to use as headquarters for a golf course he’d wanted to build along the river. The golf course never materialized, so the mill was used for storage.

Not long after he’d moved to Glen Arbor, Booth ran into the mill’s owner and asked him what his plans were for it. “He said, ‘Why, do you want to buy it?’ And that made me think maybe I do,” Booth recalls.

Booth toured the building in photos by Andy Wakeman the late summer of 2018—a season when the Crystal River is at its zenith with huge salmon finning in from the depths of Lake Michigan to spawn under banks tangled with water lilies, wild blueberries, deep-green ferns and red cardinal flowers. By contrast, the mill was a gloomy mess—packed as it was nearly top to bottom with golf carts, snowmobiles, old furniture and “boxes stacked on top of boxes,” Booth says. Some shoving, moving and nosing around, however, revealed much more: the mill’s ancient equipment was all intact—73 years after the last Glen Arbor miller, August Brammer, locked the door and shuttered his business in 1945.

In the cavernous great room with its pine paneling, oak trusses, posts and beams, Booth uncovered four milling machines: The two oldest—at least one dating back to the 1860s—were grist mills, their old stones

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encased in half barrels, their hoppers perched funnel-side down on a lovely little base with turned legs. Across the room were twin roller mills, squat, funky machines whose steel rollers were the technological jump that produced the finer, whiter flour that Americans became used to in the early part of the last century. Even the math penciled across a post in the great room by a long-ago miller was still legible.

There was more: the wooden chute where the grist was conveyed up to the second floor was still in place, and the second floor held two huge bolters, machines that were used to sift the grist—the grain that will become flour. The newest of the two, from 1906, still had its directions tacked to the post next to it. “I saw everything that was in there—how intact the building was,” Booth says. “I felt like we—the community—we can’t let this thing just fall over. We can’t let the roofs fall in. It’s too beautiful. There are too many cool things inside this building to be shared.”

Several months later, Booth purchased the building and adjacent miller’s house and from the get-go knew he wanted to do his best to preserve its rich history through some sort of adaptive reuse that the public could enjoy.

The question was: How, exactly?

FELT LIKE WE–THE Conventional corporate-style branding (install a modern eatery, throw COMMUNITY–WE history a bone by naming a burger CAN’T LET THIS THING The Old Mill) never appealed to him. Booth mulled ideas with family JUST FALL OVER. WE and friends—a coffee shop/wellness CAN’T LET THE ROOFS FALL IN. studio/small museum of mill artifacts were all maybes. But the vision didn’t IT’S TOO BEAUTIFUL. THERE gel until he met Kelsey Duda and her ARE TOO MANY COOL THINGS company Fernhaus Hospitality Group. Duda has won national acINSIDE THIS BUILDING TO claim for an Airbnb she designed, BE SHARED.” –Turner Booth built and then furnished with carefully curated vintage elements in Elk Rapids. “Whenever I’m designing a brand or concept, I start with the history of the place and land as a source of inspiration,” she told Domino magazine in a 2021 interview. After she saw the mill for the first time, Duda says, “I just fell in love with it. It’s one of those projects I knew I’d have to be a part of no matter what.”

Booth and Duda tossed ideas around, discussed each one down to its very kernel, then went back and kneaded them some more. “For the last two years we’ve either been working together or on the phone together—seven and eight hours a day—talking about what this could be,” Booth says.

Along the way, the pair gleaned the mill’s history from the few old-timers who still remembered it in operation, and chatted with local contractor Don Lewis who, with his friend Fred Ball, had turned the mill into a recording studio in the 1970s. Local historians helped flesh out the mill’s past, too, among them the executive director of the Leelanau Historical Society, Kim Kelderhouse, whose great-great-grandfather Thomas Kelderhouse built the mill in 1879.

Through research, nuggets of the past emerged to paint a picture of life at the mill and its importance to the community. In the early winter of 1880, for instance, the dam on the mill pond broke. “It is quite a loss to the One of the two grist mills that have sat in the corner of the big whole community around for many families were out of flour …” the local room for almost 150 years. The newspaper reported. Another recollection recounted how the wife of one of 19th-century poem stenciled on the millers poured coffee and served doughnuts to farmers waiting in line the wall by Heather Spooner of for their mill to be ground. And then there was 9-year-old Maude KelderAmpersand Lettering Lab was a surprise for Booth from his staff. house’s letter to the Grand Traverse Herald in 1885, where she wrote about

“I “I

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living at the Glen Arbor grist mill where her father was miller: “I help mamma sew carpet rags and do a great many other things for her. I have a pet chicken and his name is Ned,” she wrote.

Stand in front of the little white mill keeper’s house nowadays and it isn’t hard to imagine Maude skipping off the stoop, Ned the chicken clucking and scurrying to catch up with her, to greet the farmers pulling into the mill with their wagons loaded with grain. Most of the mills’ customers were subsistence farmers who worked the poor sandy soil of Port Oneida—an isolated hamlet (now a rural historic district owned by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore) several miles north of the mill. Milling day was a chance to socialize for whole families, and the banks of the quiet river would come to life with children playing and adults chattering about the latest news.

When the miller opened the dam, river water rushed to turn the horizontal waterwheels located under the building, which powered the shaft that turned the stones (or rollers) that ground the wheat into flour for toasty loaves of bread and warm pies that filled bellies in drafty farmhouses.

As their vision for the mill took shape, Booth and Duda sifted all they’d learned down to the fundamental ingredients that could bring their entire business plan into a cohesive, one-of-a-kind hospitality experience. One ingredient stood out above all the rest: flour. Simple, wholesome, old-fashioned flour. “If we are serving baked goods at a mill, we have to have good flour,” Booth says.

At 8 a.m. on a warm morning this summer, The Mill Glen Arbor, as it is now known, was powering into its daily routine—a routine that quickly established itself after a muted soft opening on a gray, drizzly day in March. They might not have been fully conscious of it, but the customers walking lazily up to the big white building and through its oak doors were stepping into a timeless setting—one that hovers between the homely simplicity of 19th-century rural America and the elements that contemporary sensibilities say are good for our bodies and souls: whole grains, local produce, fine coffee and libations, community.

There’s often a small awestruck stutter from newcomers entering the great room where the hand-hewn beams and posts still wear their dark varnish and the walls are still clad in pine slats. New windows mimic the originals. The miller’s scrawled math remains legible on that big central post.

Both pairs of mills, the stone and the roller, are still where they have always been, on a platform at the side of the room. Duda has outfitted the room in tasteful, comfortable furniture that welcomes gathering—or finding a place to work alone on your laptop. “It’s supposed to feel like Midwest hospitality—like you’re walking into a family room with friends,” Booth says.

The coffee shop, located in a newer wing added during the music studio era, is to the right, past a wall that exhibits the beginning of Booth’s collection of historical mill memorabilia. The baked goods case is stuffed with cardamom-molasses cookies, hearty whole-wheat loaves, hand-pies fat with local cherries, and voluptuous sourdough boules made from sourdough starter that has traveled with baker Miriam Geenen for years. When Geenen (who last baked at renowned Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor) heard the philosophy behind the mill and set eyes on it, she knew she was in.

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Clockwise: Keeper of the mill, Turner Booth; comfortable couches, tables and chairs aside, the big room is as authentic as the day the last miller locked the door behind him; the coffee shop is home to a shiny new stainless mill that sits behind the windows and turns grist into flour.

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Clockwise: Part of an old shaft; the original directions for the bolter (pictured below) purchased in 1906 are still tacked to the wall beside it; math scrawled on a beam by a former miller in the great room. Opposite: Chef Bobby Thoits works in the open kitchen in the downstairs restaurant.

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Below: Friends gather in a corner of the big room, in front of the two roller mills that have been there since 1906; three suites in the farmhouse where young Maude (and Ned the chicken) once lived can be rented at themillglenarbor.com. Opposite: Once again, kids can visit the mill and dangle their feet in the shallow Crystal River.

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ILLING DAY WAS A CHANCE TO SOCIALIZE FOR WHOLE FAMILIES, AND THE BANKS OF THE QUIET RIVER WOULD COME TO LIFE WITH CHILDREN PLAYING. “It’s really hard to walk away from this,” she says.

In the bright little shop, guests order coffee and baked goods, plus homemade sandwiches and a tasteful selection of wine and beer and take it all into the great room or out onto the deck overlooking the Crystal River. As they do, they might notice a shiny stainless-steel machine behind glass. It’s a stone mill made in Elmore, Vermont. As innocuous as it may look, the new mill is “the heart of this place,” says Booth. Early mornings, Geenen flips the on switch and mills heritage grains sourced as locally as possible for the 50-some loaves of bread she will bake that day.

There is still more to come at The Mill Glen Arbor. A casual 30-seat bistro downstairs with an open kitchen and views of minnows darting in the river is scheduled to open at this summer’s end. And next summer, Booth says, his face breaking into an old-fashioned grin, the mill will grind its

own grain—grown by a soon-tobe-hired farmer on a hundred acres located just a few miles north of Port Oneida, and then transported to Glen Arbor to be milled in that new stainless stone mill.

Although Booth has barely paused to breathe since he closed on the mammoth old structure—a massive renovation project, a marriage, a new baby, and now a new business—he is more certain than ever that saving the old building was worth it.

Once again, the mill will gather community, knitting together farm and baker, hearth and hospitality, a testament to sturdy old beams and good bones and the love of a place that runs deeper than the river that turns the stones.

Elizabeth (Lissa) Edwards is senior editor of Traverse Northern Michigan. She has been writing about the region’s history, outdoors and lifestyle for over 30 years.

Andy Wakeman, an editorial and commercial photographer, was born and raised in Northern Michigan. He enjoys exploring beaches, meeting interesting folks and braving Northern Michigan snowstorms, camera in hand. andywakemanphoto.com SEPTEMBER 2023

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is for Autumn and Antiques

ii Looking for an out-and-about fall afternoon packed with delights? These four road-trip destinations are filled with untold treasures.

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By Allison Jarrell, Cara McDonald, Carly Simpson & Lissa Edwards Photos by Allison Jarrell

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D E S T I NAT I O N

Elk Rapids Antiques Elk Rapids

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Set right on US-31 just south of downtown Elk Rapids (and its restaurants, shops and sandy beaches) is a white home surrounded by maple trees. A hydrangea bush anchors the front porch that’s heavy with lush hanging ferns. Inside the 3,000-square-foot antique boutique, each room holds a surprise—a refurbished Elgin National Coffee Mill grinder from the late 1800s, chicken-shaped ice cream molds, hutches that’ll make you weak in the knees. Go upstairs for more.

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This roadside gem bustles in late summer and fall; call ahead to confirm fall hours.

Fun finds: Larger home pieces—furniture, lighting, art, architectural elements—abound.

Don’t miss: Margot the Shop, a tiny stone cottage out back with thoughtfully curated delights. Walk through the bright red front door to find timeworn vintage pieces, home goods from world travels and stellar widebrimmed hats.

Stop for: A quick jaunt down Elk Lake Road will land you at The Granary at Seven Gables.

The Michigan Centennial Farm has a gift shop bursting with goodies (we left with a jar of locally made red raspberry jam).

A robin’s-egg-blue–trimmed outbuilding called Grandma’s Garage is brimming with antiques and collectibles—wooden snowshoes, cowboy boots, cast iron cookware (scored a skillet for making apple crisp). An honor-system roadside farm stand has cinnamon-roasted almonds, juicy Honeycrisp apples, fuzzy peaches and the season’s last tomatoes.

We fell in love with: Carly was smitten with a ceramic pretzel-shaped flask, complete with chunky flakes of salt, which was tucked away in a locked glass case. Cara doted on a rocking horse whose ears, mane and tail had been completely loved off.

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D E S T I NAT I O N

Walt and Susan’s Old Barn Antiques Old Mission Peninsula

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This husband-and-wife pair has run the out of-the-way antique biz for more than 50 years—a passion project that began when they acquired a circa 1910 barn and its contents, which they attempted to clean out and sell. But instead of making way for space in the barn, it sparked a love of antiques and collectibles that resulted in growing their stash into a business, with Susan becoming an appraiser and Walt creating a separate offshoot to house his automotive antiques in “Walt’s Garage” just up the hill.

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Peninsula Cellars is one of 10 tasting rooms on the Old Mission Peninsula Wine Trail.

Pro tip: Check out the Michigan Brewvine Passport for deals at local wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries.

Fun finds: Look for Victorian and Gatsby-era hats, dresses and shoes in the barn attic, as well as vintage tools, kitchenware, textiles and terrific local postcards.

Don’t miss: Walt’s Garage. Just up the hill from the old barn is Walt’s collection, a near museumlevel homage to all things automotive. Car buffs will swoon over the antique gas pumps and globes, as well as the huge stash of vintage leather Michigan license plates.

Stop for: September on Old Mission Peninsula means the air is awash in the scent of ripening grapes and fresh apples, and a host of wineries and cideries beg to be explored. With an eye for the vintage vibe, head to Peninsula Cellar’s one-room-schoolhouse tasting room and kick back with a hard-cider sampler before committing to a pint of your fave—the maple bourbon is subtle, dry and delicious on a bluebird day.

We fell in love with: Fur mittens. Rabbit? Bear? Coyote? Fox? Who knows? Lissa knows they will keep her mitts (wrists and elbows!) toasty warm on a winter walk.

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D E S T I NAT I O N

Rolling Hills Antiques Traverse City

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An 1870 dairy barn turned antique shop is hidden away on Barney Road. You’ll find it down a tree-lined driveway (it is indeed on a rolling hill). Owners Glen and Diane Lundin specialize in American antique furniture, art, oriental rugs and accessories from the early 1700s to mid-1900s. When we visited, there was an 1835 solid cherry desk that had been owned by Oprah Winfrey until she sold it at an auction in 2013 to raise money for her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Talk about a conversation starter.

Fun finds: If you’re on the hunt for gorgeous oriental rugs, this is the spot.

Don’t miss: The barn’s loft, complete with a creaky wooden floor and soaring ceiling, is full of little treasures—tea sets, jewelry boxes, lamps.

The market at Farm Club is stocked daily with fresh bread, produce and canned beer along with gorgeous cookbooks, pottery and those gourmet salts that are so fun to sprinkle. Prepare to be tempted.

Stop for: Farm Club. Yes, it is a working farm, but it’s also a destination market, restaurant and brewery with a large, family-friendly lawn and plenty of outdoor seating. The menu changes throughout the year—gemelli pasta with celery root crème and garlicky breadcrumbs, saskatoon shortcake, a blackened zucchini sandwich with basil mayo and mozzarella. (The onion rings, made with a sweet onion variety called Ailsa Craig, are legendary, and you must order them if you visit while they’re in season.)

We fell in love with: A magnificent hanging stained glass with a vibrant floral design.

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Behold, the mustache cup— adorned with floral accents and a simple request: “Remember me.”

D E S T I NAT I O N

Black Horse Antiques Beulah

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When Jill Rineer was deciding what to name her antique shop, just three blocks north of charming downtown Beulah, she landed on a combination of her maiden name and her favorite animal (which makes her collection of Black Horse pub signs and figurines throughout the shop even more whimsically wonderful). Jill’s vibrant vintage patio furniture will catch your eye outside, but step inside for a well-curated collection of glassware, kitchen décor and gorgeous pieces like a mid-century modern Heywood-Wakefield drop-leaf table, or a primitive pine cupboard.

Fun finds: Jill’s assortment of glassware is impressive—a rainbow of cups from the ’60s and ’70s covered in prints of fruits and flowers.

While browsing, we came across a teacup with an odd semicircular ledge inside, and a half-moon shaped opening. The label— “mustache cup”—piqued Allison’s interest, and a quick Google search later, she found that it was invented in the 1870s by a British potter, designed for men to, of course, keep their whiskers dry while sipping.

Having no such need herself, she left the mustache guard behind.

Don’t miss: The refurbished patio chairs and deck furniture, which come in almost any design and color you can imagine. A seafoam green chair. A pastel blue bench. A neon yellow rocker. You’ll feel like a kid in a candy shop.

Stop for: The giant Bavarian pretzel and craft beer cheese at Five Shores Brewing. Pair it with a Local Legend lager or a Te Quiero amber.

We fell in love with: Allison was drawn to a periwinkle blue ceramic Lipton teapot.

Collectors say these vintage pots were made by the Hall China Company in East Liverpool, Ohio, for Lipton Tea. SEPTEMBER 2023

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Overlooking Traverse Bay, 2013, oil on board, 12 x 18” Opposite: Self, 2016, oil on board, 18 x 24”

A renowned painter looks back on a career that was ignited in the amber glow of the Northern Michigan countryside.

by Patty LaNoue Stearns

Let There Be 50 T R A V E R S E N O R T H E R N M I C H I G A N

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W

hen you are born an artist, with a way of seeing, a way of experiencing the world in color and light, you know. Way back in the fourth grade, Stephen Duren knew that he was meant to be a painter.

He grew up without a father in Northern California, spending precious time outdoors with his grandfather and comforted by the amber light of the big sky and treetops of the Sacramento Valley. Duren’s 60year career as a painter began there, at his grandfather’s ranch in Vacaville.

Light

He kept drawing during a stint on a Navy destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War, later as staff artist for the American Forces Radio & TV station in Guantanamo, and during his final military stint, in Italy, where he says a Van Gogh exhibit “was a religious experience.”

Duren returned to Northern California as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute and then received his masters at Sacramento State University; he developed a love of 19th-century European painting, with his early SEPTEMBER 2023

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Opening spread, left to right: “This is one of my favorite paintings overlooking Grand Traverse Bay, possibly because it mimics the bittersweet light of my childhood stomping grounds in northern California.”

“This is a double portrait of our dog, Sophie, and myself. If you look closely, you will see Sophie through my studio window.” –Stephen Duren

Leelanau Peninsula Orchard, 2012, oil on board, 12 x 18” Above: “I created two paintings of this Leelanau Peninsula orchard.

I lost track of the second painting, which included a small dog. I never met a dog I did not want to pet.

Opposite: “During inclement weather, I sometimes painted from inside my van as I did for this view looking east across Lake Leelanau.

“Long-time friends and collectors Jim and Marie Preston enjoy this view from their cottage. Their generosity afforded me the same opportunity so many times that I’ve come to call it my cottage.” –Stephen Duren

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That stay in Leelanau County was life-changing. “I was converted,” Duren says.

Pyramid Point , 2002, oil on board, 12 x 18”; Top: Lake Leelanau, 2014, oil on board, 8.5 x 18”

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Clockwise: Harbor Ridge Fall, 2001, oil on board, 12 x 18”; Harbor Ridge Winter, 2002, oil on board, 12 x 18”; Dufek Road Vineyard, 2015, oil on board, 12 x 18”

studies echoing the everyday scenes and bold form and colors of Intimist painters like Pierre Bonnard. To help pay his college tuition, Duren hustled sketches of local sites to tourists as one of the city’s first licensed street artists. Each sold for only $10.

After his studies, Duren landed as an art teacher in West Michigan in 1978—a culture shock from psychedelic San Fran’s counter-cultural environment. He taught for six years before dedicating himself to his art full time, often painting en plein air and finishing his pieces back in his studio.

These landscapes caught the eye of collectors; Duren credits Jim Preston, who owns a home on the Leelanau Peninsula with his wife, Marie, for igniting his career in the mid-1980s. Preston had seen a show of Duren’s California landscapes at Grand Rapids’ Urban Institute for Contemporary Art and fell in love with his semi-abstract style and the similarity to the scenery of Leelanau. He wondered if Duren could create a number of paintings there.

“The deal we made,” Preston says, “was to allow Stephen and his wife, Victoria, to use our home, and that Marie and I had first choice of the paintings. He painted twenty-five, and we ultimately bought twenty-one.” They’ve been dear friends ever since.

That stay in Leelanau County was life-changing. “I was converted,” Duren says. “It very much took me back to [my time in] California. It’s one of a few places in Michigan that is not a grid.”

He also notes that the Leelanau Peninsula is at the same latitude as Northern California, and the two regions share that amber, bittersweet light.

“My creative side only happens for an hour and a half at a time,” says Duren, now 75, whose studio is in an aged barn in Caledonia near Grand Rapids.

“I have one rule when I paint: I allow the painting to have a say in what I do.”

His remarkable career is being honored this year at two Michigan shows featuring different aspects of Duren’s work: Grand Valley State University’s Allendale Campus, Aug. 28 through Nov. 3, and Traverse City’s Dennos Museum Center, Sept. 17 through Jan. 7, 2024.

“I have one rule when I paint: I allow the painting to have a say in what I do.”

Patty LaNoue Stearns is a longtime Michigan journalist, editor and author. pattywrites.com 54 T R A V E R S E N O R T H E R N M I C H I G A N

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Top ( 1-2 ): “A private collector commissioned composer Nico Muhly and me to respond creatively to this area overlooking Little Traverse Lake. We met with the collectors four times in one year. Nico was a precocious kid at the time working with Philip Glass.

He went on, of course, to become the celebrated American contemporary composer he is today.”

Bottom: “I have done several paintings from East Dufek Road, reflecting the peninsula’s transition from orchards to vineyards.” –Stephen Duren

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a seat at the table Neighbors in Leelanau County are finding the link between cultures and generations can be as elemental as sharing a meal.

by EMILY TYRA photos by ALLISON JARRELL

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onight’s community potluck starts on a high note: a buoyant student group gives a preview to the Suttons Bay High School musical, segueing to the jubilant instrumentals of Leelanau County–based North Bay Celtic Band.

The jigs are the potluck soundtrack as volunteers make space on a long table draped in a black-and-white gingham tablecloth for one more dish— deviled eggs in fact—to be dropped off by a late-arriving guest.

The feel-good meal hosted by The Friendship Community Center in Suttons Bay is extra satisfying thanks to tonight’s theme: Home Sweet Home.

For some gathered at the long tables that means sharing a taste of their heritage.

On good intel, two teens dash over to snag a sliver of homemade boterkoek, a Dutch almond butter cake. The other hit is mov kua dlis, a silken, savory rice and chicken porridge.

The community center space itself (historically a funeral home turned furniture store turned Grange Hall) has been at home in the village of Suttons Bay since 1853.

Parents with wee ones, teen pals, newcomers to the region and active retirees are all here in the historic space to share a smorgasbord of salads and dill pickle rollups, pigs-in-a-blanket, family-recipe empanadas, crumb-topped mac and cheese and two kinds of chicken and dumplings. Bekah TenBrink, executive director of The Friendship Community Center (The Center for short) once dreamed of teens and seniors sitting together at these potlucks. It has truly become an all-ages show—by design.

The beloved community potlucks—always the first Wednesday of the month—are a tradition at The Center, whose mission in part is to create opportunities for developing an intergenerational legacy between youth and adults in the Leelanau area.

When the potlucks made their initial comeback post-pandemic, teens served guests, often creating a natural ice breaker to talk to elders in their community. “It gave them a script, in a way,” shares Audrey Sharp, The Center’s associate director.

The Center also added a twist: representing a different theme or culture each month. It’s a conversation starter.

This November, for instance, The Center is collaborating with Native American community members to provide a variety of traditional dishes.

All are welcome to join the meal honoring Indigenous culture and to bring a side, dessert or beverage to share. The Center is encouraging attendees to try out recipes from online collections such as “Healthy Cooking the Anishinaabek Way” created by the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan, “Native American Recipes: 25 of Our All-Time Favorites” on powwows.com or “Chippewa Native American Food Recipes” curated by Amber Case on Pinterest.

It’s a pressure-free potluck, and “some are just traditionally ‘the roll person,’ ” Sharp shares, “but this is also an exploration of different cultures that are especially represented in our local population. And that’s a really cool way to get to know that culture, to be able to prepare or try the cuisine.”

TenBrink adds that at a past potluck, one local teen shared their traditional Native American fancy shawl dance.

“Gathering and sharing meals as a collective community offers us the chance to meet our neighbor, form friendships and learn about one another.”

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Corrie Jo Piersma, Emily Worden, Claire Palmer, Bekah Tenbrink, Darlene Garland and Sue Boss.

RECIPE FOR A CAREFREE COMMUNITY POTLUCK Yep, it takes more than a little luck (and amazing volunteers) to gather neighbors around a communal table, but The Center’s potlucks follow a surprisingly straightforward formula.

Associate Director Audrey Sharp shares tips for other communities to replicate: Consistency. People count on the same time/day each month. Stick to the same set-up/format of tables and chairs each time.

Keep an inventory of plates, silverware, napkins, serving utensils, tablecloths and takeout containers.

Slowly accumulate decorations for annually recurring themes.

Pick themes and share them a month in advance. (Facebook events and posts, Instagram posts and stories, in local newspapers’ schedules.)

Inspire home cooks with suggestions for on-theme dishes each month. If being careful about cultural appropriation, we get very specific with recipes. If it’s something a little more general such as summer barbecue, we would suggest a list of classic sides.

Ask teens in the community to help serve. National Honor Society students at local schools sign up for set-up and clean-up each month.

Recruit key members of the community to extend personal invitations to people who have not joined yet.

Pete Farmer and his wife Kate Farmer Sterken of Cedar are typically in attendance with their three kids (who pitched in to bake tonight’s fabulous Dutch almond butter cake).

Farmer says cultivating both multigenerational and multicultural relationships in the Leelanau community is important to them. “We love the place and space to gather with people we live by but may not already know. We also love that it provides an opportunity to celebrate the diversity in our area—we’ve learned about the history of tamales and witnessed Native traditional dancing with our neighbors.”

The Center was founded as a gathering space more than four decades ago, and events like the potlucks have always been a part of its fabric. But their oldfashioned appeal and sheer longevity is not “the sustaining thing,” TenBrink says.

“It’s being truly embedded in the community and finding opportunities to make sure everyone feels welcome and celebrated.

“We personally invite people, saying, ‘Hey, we’re going see you at the potluck, right?’ And they’ll come to one and experience the magic and then next time, they’re bringing somebody.”

Beyond the food and fellowship, the goal is really to see each other as neighboring residents of this peninsula and to keep open to another perspective. “Gathering and sharing meals as a collective community offers us the chance to meet our neighbor, form friendships and learn about one another,” TenBrink shares.

In a big way, she adds, “We need that back and forth of each generation supporting each other.” Happily, that has been a natural outcropping of the potlucks in the form of senior-and-teen pen pal clubs, homework labs and “Tech Tuesdays.”

Leelanau Investing For Teens (LIFT) is The Center’s flagship youth program offering out-of-schooltime programming for 6th through 12th graders. LIFT teens are frequent fliers at the monthly potlucks and are reaping the benefits of the relationships made there.

“At homework lab on Wednesdays, retirees in the community are volunteering to help students with homework,” Sharp explains. “A lot of kids come in and they’ll be kind of stone-faced with us, but that breaks down for someone who’s older and they are willing to accept that help a little better.”

The Center also holds Tech Tuesdays at local libraries. Through ShareCare of Leelanau, seniors can bring their phones or computer and ask tech-savvy teens anything. “The give-and-take here is unbelievable,” TenBrink says.

The remaining dates and themes for this year’s community potlucks are: Sept.

13, Fiesta Latina; Oct. 4, Soups and Chilis; Nov. 1, Native American Heritage.

All potlucks start at 6 p.m. at The Friendship Community Center (201 Broadway St., Suttons Bay.) friendshipcommunitycenter.org Emily Tyra has reported and shared stories for more than two decades in publications such as Taste of Home, Traverse Northern Michigan and Reader’s Digest. She writes from Lake Ann. mynorth.com

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unapologetically tempting Pickleball is the nation’s fastest-growing sport, and your neighbors won’t shut up about it. Here’s why.

by JAMES OBRYAN

mynorth.com

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I

started playing pickleball about a year ago. A visiting friend brought his paddles up to Traverse City. After an hour, I was hooked.

And I’m not alone. In 2022, there were 8.9 million players in the United States, according to a report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, with participation increasing by 159 percent over three years.

Now, I can’t speak for all 8.9 million, but I can tell you why I’m passionate (read: borderline obsessive) about pickleball: • It encourages mindfulness, gentle consistent breathing, competition, cooperation and camaraderie all while being disguised as a game. It’s a source of sustained lowimpact cardio and improves your reflexes. The strategic aspects of pickleball provide mental stimulation, enhancing cognitive functions and concentration.

• You’ll see a 15-year-old playing rec ball with their grandparents. And 36-year-olds getting schooled by 80-year-olds.

• The competition is fierce, from beginners to seasoned players, but when one of the main components of the game is called dinking (YouTube it), you can’t yourself too seriously.

• There are no apologies in pickleball. For a point to be scored, a mistake has to be made, so there’s no need to apologize for a bad shot.

Games are normally played to 11 points, win by two, and no one wants to hear “Ope, I’m sorry” that many times. Even our Midwest politeness has its limits. (We might apologize for a netter, maybe a body shot … but we don’t really mean it.)

• The sport’s team-oriented nature and the sense of belonging it provides proves beneficial for people from all walks of life, including those who have struggled with interpersonal relationships in the past. It’s a creative game where you compete against yourself and collaborate with others, sometimes a complete stranger.

• Game time is always a social hour (… five hours), and I’ve met some incredible people on the courts. I started playing shortly after moving to Traverse City, and I’ve found a home within the pickleball community.

“The Dog Park” at Slabtown Corner is lovingly maintained by the Friendly Pickleball Group and provides a fun, casual atmosphere. The Boardman River Courts, managed by the Traverse Area Pickleball Association, offer a more competitive setting for players looking to reserve courts, challenge themselves and play hard. On Old Mission Peninsula, six new outdoor courts are being built this summer at Bowers Harbor Park, and about 20 minutes south of town, Grace Macdonald Park is tucked away and scenic. The Grand Traverse County Senior Center Network also hosts games and lessons. In the The Friendly Pickleball Group at their July tournament fundraiser.

photo courtesy of The Friendly Pickleball Group

“It’s a creative game where you compete against yourself and collaborate with others, sometimes a complete stranger.”

WHERE TO PLAY

Playing pickleball becomes more accessible each year, with the addition of new courts by dedicated groups and organizations.

Pickleheads.com helps you easily find a court nearby as well as lets you find games, recruit players and sign up to play.

My pickleball home in Traverse City has a host of ops for players of all levels and abilities:

winter, head indoors at the South YMCA where courts can be reserved, open play mixes in and beginners can get tips and learn the rules on Wednesday nights. Pickleball U in Acme, opening soon, will also have indoor courts.

WANT TO COMPETE?

The first-ever National Cherry Festival Pickleball Tournament took place this July with participants in men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles in a round-robin format.

Watch for it again in 2024.

James OBryan is a Traverse Area Pickleball Association board member. Want to talk pickleball?

Email obryanwithawhy@gmail.com. mynorth.com

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LEARN MORE BY CALLING

P: 239.932.9014

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FALLS ARE NOT A NORMAL PART OF AGING As we grow older, it’s natural to experience concerns about falling. However, it’s important to understand that falls are not an inevitable part of aging. At FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers, we specialize in fall prevention and helping older adults stay steady on their feet.

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Estate & Financial Services YOUR NORTHERN MICHIGAN RESOURCE TO A SECURE FINANCIAL FUTURE

“

Retirement is personal and can stir up unexpected emotions. It can bring joy and relief, but also stress and grief. Don’t wing it.

—HOLLY GALLAGHER, HORIZON FINANCIAL FOUNDER & LEAD ADVISOR

mynorth.com

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ARE YOU READY FOR PRE-TIREMENT? How to know when it’s time to work less and play more.

by LISA BLAKE

N

ot quite ready to hang up your career hat? But also really feeling that call to slow down? You may be in the pre-tirement zone.

Pre-tirement is the period between your decision to retire and the actual day your hat hits the hook. Rather than stopping work cold turkey at age 65, the pre-tirement path is a more gradual, nontraditional route that’s becoming an increasingly attractive and viable option for those who want to prolong their retired years, dig into some hobbies and spend more time with family while still enjoying a steady stream of carefully plotted income.

“You know the saying ‘practice makes perfect’?

That’s especially true for something like living out the rest of your life on a fixed income,” says Horizon Financial founder and lead advisor Holly Gallagher.

Retiring gradually on your own terms takes a particular finesse. As you continue to do what you love for work while embracing more “you” time, travel time and family time, it’s important to ask yourself how your next chapter will read.

EXPERT TIP: Dreaming of a pre- or post-retirement beach or mountain home? Rent short-term in your desired destination before considering buying a second home. You may find that it’s not for you after all.

“Retirement is personal and can stir up unexpected emotions. It can bring joy and relief, but also stress and grief. Don’t wing it,” says Gallagher, who has spent 30 years providing comprehensive wealth management and retirement lifestyle planning. She 12

serves clients nearing retirement or retired with a minimum of $1 million in investable assets, standing alongside a client’s CPA, banker, attorney and insurance agent to set and meet financial goals.

EXPERT TIP: Before considering a phased retirement approach, talk to your employer about how reduced hours will affect your pension, health insurance and other employee benefits.

To determine when you can afford to retire and gently ease into that pace of life, you need to consider what you want to do in your golden years.

Gallagher recommends being as realistic as possible when envisioning your retirement lifestyle.

What interests do you want to explore that you may not have had time for while you were working full-time? What additional expenses might you incur? Do you want to travel, relocate or help fund your grandchildren’s education? A clear retirement vision helps financial advisors understand where your accounts should be as you move through your pre and post-retirement years.

It can be helpful to tag team pre-tirement with your partner—while one of you dips a toe into retirement, the other continues to work full-time for another year or two.

“This gives the first spouse time to get acclimated to their new routine,” Gallagher says. “It gives the couple time to adapt to one paycheck and take withdrawals out of accounts they’ve contributed to all their lives.”

Lisa Blake is a freelance travel and lifestyle writer.

inspired life 2023

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CURIOUS ABOUT DABBLING IN PRE-TIREMENT?

Get a handle on your next steps with a five-year plan to make the numbers work for you and your family.

FIVE YEARS TO PRE-TIREMENT • Set your target date.

• Envision your pre-retirement lifestyle.

• Consider purchasing long-term care insurance if you haven’t already.

• Pay off outstanding debt.

ONE YEAR TO PRE-TIREMENT • Record important dates and deadlines.

• Contact the Social Security Administration.

• Contact former employer retirement plans.

• Test-drive your pre-tirement budget.

THREE YEARS TO PRE-TIREMENT • Review your retirement benefits, including social security.

• Review your retirement health care benefits and costs.

• Review and adjust your retirement asset allocation.

• Review your life insurance coverage.

• Formulate a realistic budget.

AT PRE-TIREMENT • Consolidate your retirement accounts.

• Transition your health care coverage.

• Calculate your pre-retirement income paycheck.

• Determine your tax withholding or quarterly tax payment.

• Adjust your budget.

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^Non-deposit investment products and services are offered through CUSO Financial Services, L.P. (”CFS”), a registered broker-dealer (Member FINRA/SIPC) and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Products offered through CFS: are not NCUA/NCUSIF or otherwise federally insured, are not guarentees or obligations of the credit union, and may involve investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Investment Representatives are registered through CFS. TBA Credit Union has contracted with CFS to make non-deposit investment products and services available to credit union members.

Many people support the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy because they know the best way to ensure our region remains vibrant, healthy and beautiful is to protect the critical places we all love—forever.

Planning for a conservation legacy offers the satisfaction of supporting a vital cause, the excitement of knowing your gift will make a positive impact and–in many cases–substantial financial benefits to you and/ or another beneficiary through tax advantages or life income. Many arrange planned gifts to ensure their vision and annual support can last well into the future.

We can work with your financial advisor to design a gift planning option that will meet your personal, financial and charitable goals, all while safeguarding the region’s most special places for future generations.

For more information contact: Barb Heflin, Charitable Giving Specialist p: 231-929-7911 | e: bheflin@gtrlc.org GTRLC.ORG

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At Greenleaf Trust, we are committed to providing exceptional solutions for your one-of-a-kind needs. Our team is exclusively dedicated to providing the highest level of comprehensive wealth management services, trust administration, and retirement plan services. Client relationships begin at $2 million.

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Letting in the L i g h t

A former psychotherapist finds a second path toward healing and enlightenment.

photo by Dave Weidner

by EMILY TYRA

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I

t’s a warm Wednesday evening in Traverse City, and Sally Littleton, Ph.D., is headed to her neighborhood’s clubhouse to welcome a handful of her students ready to share reiki energy with each other.

Littleton, or Dr. Sally as her students call her, is a retired psychotherapist experienced in the processes needed to open emotional blocks, re-pattern thoughts and release trauma. But these days she provides a different kind of energetic support to students and clients: reiki.

Through her Enlightenment Reiki workshops, she teaches classes locally and remotely, including one through Northwestern Michigan College, and shares reiki one-on-one with clients in a limited virtual practice. She views reiki—a Japanese healing technique for the self and others—in practical terms: “Helping people to live more calmly, and to attain and retain our balance in all ways.” Tonight, at her workshop-style meetup, a diverse group from across Northern Michigan refresh themselves on the system of reiki and its self-practice benefits—including health, peace of mind and harmony in relationships.

Becoming a reiki master wasn’t a planned second act for the former therapist, though she was first introduced to it as a client decades ago to help heal injuries she experienced early in life.

Once she awakened to the benefits, her “goal was to share this with as many people as possible,” she says. Here’s her “why:” EMILY TYRA: You had a thriving psychotherapy practice in

Traverse City. What changed?

SALLY LITTLETON: I did long-term intensive psychotherapy.

Consistency was very important when working with people two or three times a week for three to five years. But my health was on the wrong track. I would have these terrible migraines and there were times I just couldn’t go work with patients. I ended up retiring early, which was very, very hard for me.

I loved my work, and I had intended to work into my 80s.

ET: You already knew about reiki at this point; did it help you?

SL: Yes, it helped me accept and deal with the loss. It helped

me to come to terms with my health. As things had gotten worse, I had to really recognize that it wasn’t an indictment of who I am.

ET: When did you make the leap to become a reiki master and teacher?

SL: As soon as I started receiving reiki I wanted to know more.

I studied with an internationally known master in the Western tradition, but I didn’t learn how to teach reiki at that time. Later I discovered the original Japanese reiki and when I did, it was like a light just lit for me. I got training from two renowned masters and started practicing. I started feeling healthier and healthier. I’m not totally healed, but things changed for me.

ET: Why were you drawn to teaching reiki?

SL: My desire has been to help everyone find their true self.

And that’s the expression of reiki, that we become more and more fully who we truly are. And that benefits everyone.

ET: How so?

SL: The more we’re becoming our true self, we are able to be

in balance physically, emotionally and spiritually. As we go through life—as we age—our physical being is diminished, right? And when we’re connected physically, emotionally and spiritually the experience of that is less. Even though it’s still happening, it’s less intense. I think it’s really important to say that reiki is not a religion. There is no dogma. It’s not necessary to believe anything. People can be skeptical of reiki, and most people have some skepticism when they’re first introduced to it. For some it seems like it couldn’t be true. Reiki is not about belief. If we’re open to healing, then the reiki that comes to us assists us in doing that.

ET: When it all boils down, what IS reiki?

SL: The most common definitions are universal life energy,

spiritual energy, mysterious atmosphere and the essence of life. Another way to think of reiki: pure being in the physical dimension.

ET: What is it like to experience?

SL: Reiki is the energy that moves through your body. In fact,

reiki practitioners understand that reiki is the energy that moves through everything. I would say that reiki training teaches us how to raise our vibration by connecting to the energy—or light—to flow reiki more strongly. It’s like a reintroduction: It’s not that we didn’t have the energy before, but the more and more that we practice, the more we’re able to connect and flow at a higher, deeper, more intense level. And when you share reiki with others, it flows through you.

ET: What are reactions of people having a reiki treatment?

SL: They might sense light or colors. They may feel heat in-

tensely. Some people feel cold. A lot of people feel tremendous relief. If it’s a physical issue, they might feel immediate physical relief. I don’t mean that they’re healed, but they feel relief.

ET: Do most of your clients come initially with a physical problem?

SL: Even with physical problems, generally there’s an emotional

or mental component. Reiki brings the scattered mind back into balance. Reiki brings you back into balance. There is commonly a feeling of peace, a feeling of calmness. People will say, ‘I feel lighter.’

ET: Wow. Do you think that the practice of sharing reiki has simul-

taneously continued to heal you?

SL: Oh, absolutely. That is the beauty of it.

Emily Tyra has reported and shared stories for more than two decades in publications such as Taste of Home, Traverse Northern Michigan and Reader’s Digest. She writes from Lake Ann.

mynorth.com

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Hotel Walloon

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Magical Mother-Daughter Getaways When daughters are grown, spending time together as adults is one of parenting’s sweet rewards.

But carving out the one-on-one time isn’t easy. These five perfect Northern Michigan escapes are just right for catching up, checking in and tuning out the rest of the world.

by KANDACE CHAPPLE

mynorth.com

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books & beaches

STAY: HOTEL WALLOON, WALLOON LAKE

photos courtesy of Hotel Walloon

Write your life story here, or at least live a very delicious scene of it. The stately Hotel Walloon is located on the shores of the same lake that inspired Ernest Hemingway. And yes, there’s a self-guided tour. Find the very spot described in “Wedding Day” where Nick Adams and his new bride began their honeymoon by rowing across the lake just as real-life Hemingway and Hadley Richardson did after their wedding.

The property is built for serenity, and little luxuries abound—a heated outdoor spa, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and desserts each evening, an outdoor lakeside fire pit. Book a room that overlooks the water, slow down and soak in lake life (preferably while lounging with a beach book in those plush robes we all dream about). Hungry? Head next door to Barrel Back, named after “Barrel Back” boats found on inland lakes in the 1920s.

The restaurant is known for its wood-fired pizzas, housesmoked brisket with maple bourbon glaze and sunset views over the harbor. hotelwalloon.com

Hotel Walloon’s lakeside fire pit

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yurts & dirt

STAY: PADDLER’S VILLAGE, MUNISING

Not glamping exactly, but a step up from a plain ol’ tent. This camping village, located just minutes from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, offers everything from yurts to cabins to safari tents. You can’t go wrong, every lodging option will leave a little dirt under your nails and a bonding moment over getting that darn campfire started. Try the “deluxe” yurts for a weekend with more comforts of home. These include a mini fridge, microwave and linens already on the bunk beds. Plus, they’ve got bathrooms inside.

Enjoy the shores of Lake Superior here and, of course, book a boat or kayak excursion to see the sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks rising from the water. After all that adventure, head into nearby Marquette to grab the best to-go deli sandwiches in town, from a local favorite named, naturally, Togo’s.

Their submarine sandwiches are massive, so consider splitting one. Let mom pick her half first. paddlingmichigan.com

horses & wine

STAY: HOTEL IROQUOIS, MACKINAC ISLAND

photo by Allison Jarrell

You can’t go wrong stealing away to an island for a weekend, but a stay at this boutique hotel with its endless Victorian gardens and waterfront perch on the Straits of Mackinac is one you won’t want to leave. Hotel Iroquois’ 45 guest suites and rooms offer a variety of stunning views—Round Island Lighthouse, Fort Mackinac, ferries and freighters. The hotel’s cocktail dock is an absolute must.

Tips to make your island getaway unforgettable: • Instead of renting bikes by the hour, rent for 24 hours and forget about the clock. Pedal where you want, when you want.

• Get up 30 minutes before dawn and pedal to the sunrise side of the island to take in the serenity of the arriving day.

Grab coffee afterward at Mission Point Resort’s Boxwood Coffeeshop & Café.

• To see stunning views from the highest point on the island, leave the bikes at the hotel and treat yourselves to a horse carriage taxi ride up to Fort Holmes (around $9 per person), then meander back down on foot. iroquoishotel.com; missionpoint.com

The “Powers of the Air” yurt at Paddler’s Village

moose & rocks

STAY: PLEASANT MOOSE LODGE, NEWBERRY

Get ready to get “lit.” This getaway is all about Yooperlites, a recently discovered glow-in-the-dark rock found prominently along the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula.

Enjoy a stay at the rustic Pleasant Moose Lodge, which is Yooper charm to a tee—fireplaces to warm your toes, friendly staff to warm your soul. (The name fits; a mama and baby moose have been spotted near the lodge.)

Then, book a night experience you’ll never forget: A Yooperlites tour with Erik Rintamaki, the guy who discovered and named this special rock that only glows under UV light. (Yooperlites have even been featured on the Discovery Channel.) These sell out fast, so book well in advance. Tours begin at 6 p.m. with dinner at Pine Stump Junction, a landmark for miles around, as there’s little else to be found this far north in the Yoop. Then take a ride in a side-by-side with your tour guide, Erik, to the lakeshore. You’ll be out past your bedtime—most tours end around midnight—but it’s unlike any kind of rock hunting you’ve ever done. Watch the sunset over Mother Superior, then wander the soulful, beautiful night beach, using special UV flashlights to look for the tell-tale glowing orange-flecked rocks. Let out a whoop with each one you find, and be the mother-daughter team to beat. pleasantmoose.com; yooperlites.com

mynorth.com

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photo courtesy of The Homesead

The Homestead

spa day & dunes

STAY: THE HOMESTEAD, GLEN ARBOR

photo by Tim Hussey

This resort is like a best-of-the-best of Sleeping Bear Dunes; tucked into the lakeshore, its scenery unforgettable. Make your way to the bluff where Spa Amira is perched, and you’ll find a turquoise pool overlooking Lake Michigan, the dunes and the Manitou Islands. Book a duet Nirvana Stress Relief Massage for both of you or a Manitou Foot Utopia treatment, which can be done outdoors (weather permitting) by that dazzling pool.

Later, enjoy lunch at Café Manitou’s deck where the Crystal River meets the Big Lake.

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A day trip to nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes is a must. (You’ll need a park pass; $25 for a private vehicle, valid seven days from date of purchase.) Take a serene cruise on Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, traveling through a charming covered bridge and stopping at scenic turnouts along the way. The crown jewel of this 7-mile loop is the Lake Michigan Overlook with one of the most stunning views in Michigan—actually, the entire Midwest. thehomesteadresort.com Kandace Chapple is a freelance writer and avid Michigan outdoor adventurer. mi-girl.com

inspired life 2023

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T he Cu l i nary North local restaurants . craft drinks . seasonal cuisine

“

This recipe for fried green tomatoes might just make you look forward to fall’s first frost.

photo by Dave Weidner

—CULINARY COLUMNIST STACEY BRUGEMAN

MEET YOUR GROWERS: BLUESTEM FARM P. 58 FARMERS MARKET SPRING ROLLS P. 60 THE BUZZ AROUND TOWN P. 61 SWOONING OVER FRIED GREEN TOMATOES P. 62 SEPTEMBER 2023

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T he Cu l i nary North Served A LANDSCAPE OF ABUNDANCE

by CARLY SIMPSON

First-generation farmers find a home in Northern Michigan.

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Mary and Aaron Brower

photos by Dave Weidner

A

aron and mary brower met in Juneau, Alaska, when they both worked at a trails program for at-risk youth. A few years later (in the frigid depths of February), they moved to a small village three hours northeast of St. Petersburg, Russia, where they got their start in cold-weather farming.

Then there was an organic raw-milk dairy farm in New England. And a chapter spent living on a sailboat in New York City.

In 2012, after a decade spent traveling the world together, the Browers decided it was time to put down roots.

They landed in Michigan, where Aaron had grown up, purchasing 80 acres in East Jordan that had been left fallow for decades. The property was first settled by Czech immigrants in the late 1800s, who had built a home and farmed the land for 60 years.

The family cleared the property of its ironwood, hemlock, beech and maple forest to establish a pasture; some of those massive beams still support the barns the Browers use today.

Over the last decade, Aaron and Mary have transformed the property back into a four-season working farm. The name, Bluestem, is inspired by a grass native to the Midwest that’s known for its deep root system, some reaching down to 8 feet. The duo grows certified organic vegetables—beets, cabbage, chard, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, carrots, tomatoes, the list goes on—and raise chickens and pigs on pasture.

Their vegetable and protein subscriptions (similar to a CSA) are offered in a range of sizes—from an extra small vegetable box for

one-person households to a large pork share that may come with a roast and brats one month or a package of ribs and breakfast sausage the next—and you always get to choose what you want. Or swing by the farm store for meat and veg, along with local goods like maple syrup, handmade soaps and dried bouquets.

The Blue Plate Project: Aaron and Mary have partnered with the Health Department of Northwest Michigan to identify people in the community in need of food. Nurses, social workers and clinicians refer families and individuals to the farm, where they can get free subscriptions. Learn more or donate: blueplate.org Bluestem Farm 4218 M-32, East Jordan bluestemfarm.net SEPTEMBER 2023

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T he Cu l i nary North Bite ROLLING WITH IT

by CARLY SIMPSON

Don’t let farmers market season pass you by without trying Roll Model’s “springies.”

Where to Find Roll Model: Frankfort Farmers Market, Saturdays through October; Northport Farmers Market, Fridays through Sept. 15; Left Foot Charley Winery & Tasting Room, Traverse City. rollmodelfood.com

photo by Allison Jarrell

There’s a whole lot of goodness packed into every spring roll that Dana Falconberry and Jonathan Boyd sell at area farmers markets.

It starts with local produce from Lost Lake Farm in Honor, grown by husband-and-wife team Cornell and Carissa Savage. Sweet, earthy carrots; crisp cucumbers; vibrant beets and oh so much more. Then, a tender kiss of mint or basil. And for the saucy finale, choose between creamy peanut or sweet chili.

Jonathan, who has been working in kitchens since high school, found a renewed passion for food during Dana’s fight with cancer last year.

“He cooked me through the entire process, which thankfully wasn’t very long,” she says.

Now, in addition to the farmers market circuit, Dana and Jonathan do private dinners and shows—offering multi-course menus, live music and even artwork to hang on your walls.

Dana studied songwriting in college and recorded music for more than a decade before leaning into the visual arts, including chainstitching, linoleum block prints and watercolor paintings.

“Sitting down at the end of the day with a home-cooked meal, you can push out the noise.

You’re with your person. You’ve got this plate of food you’re sharing. The whole world kind of melts away,” Jonathan says. “You can learn about cultures through food, you can learn about yourself through food, you can try new things and take risks and screw up and then get it right. It’s limitless.”

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T he Cu l i nary North Sip THE BUZZ AROUND TOWN A taste of the North's craft beverage scene.

DUNE BIRD WINERY’S SUMMER RELEASES The Northport winery’s brand-new pinot noir, with its silky tannins and long, smooth finish, is like “velvet in a glass,” says owner Nichole White. You’ll catch notes of cranberry and spice, and black cherries and oak on the nose. In other news? Dune Bird recently added spritzers to its menu featuring Audacious Elixirs’ non-alcoholic spirits, and offers espresso and small plates (like crispy vegan spring rolls with soy ginger sauce and baked goat cheese with Michigan cherry marmalade). There’s also plenty for kids—snacks, drinks, toy boxes, yard games, a swing set. We suggest taking the crew to Live Music Sundays, continuing through October (3–6 p.m.) dunebirdwinery.com

World Famous Smoked Pork Loin, Bacon, Ham, Hot Dogs, Bratwurst, and Smoked Fish.

Nationwide Shipping Available at Plathsmeats.com 2200 East Mitchell Rd. at the corner of Mitchell & Division Roads PETOSKEY 231-348-8100 116 South 3rd Street ROGERS CITY 989-734-2232

BIÈRE DE MAC BREW WORKS’ NEW FOOD MENU The small but mighty menu at this Mackinaw City brewery gets the job done. And done well. Case in point, the Montrealstyle smoked brisket is cured for seven days with a house brine, given a spicy rubdown, lightly smoked with cherry, apple and beech wood, then braised in beer until forktender. It’s served on housemade rye bread with a spicy stoneground beer mustard.

Another winner? The smoked whitefish spread with a baguette and pickle chips. Take your goods outdoors to the one-acre beer garden (dog friendly), and enjoy live music every weekend. bieredemac.com

DOWNTOWN PETOSKEY

photo by Allison Jarrell

Over 100 Years of Family Tradition Get Your Michigan Brewvine Passport A mobile passport chock full of discounts, deals and specials at your favorite breweries, wineries, cideries and distilleries. mibrewvine.com

Baked Fresh Daily 437 E. Mitchell St. Petoskey, MI 49770 Give us a call: 231-753-2044 www.tilliestafel.com •

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SEPTEMBER 2023

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T he Cu l i nary North On the Table

DINING IN

VINE DINING

by STACEY BRUGEMAN

This recipe for fried green tomatoes might just make you look forward to fall’s first frost.

I

was a college student in virginia the first time I tried a fried green tomato. That crunchy cornmeal coating gave way to a steaming, acidic underbelly and I swooned as I dragged each forkful through a creamy, creole-style rémoulade.

The appeal of this Southern classic was undeniable, but I’ve never been sold on its staunch association with spring. Here on the 45th parallel, where home gardeners can’t leave tomato plants outside until June, I can’t fathom plucking those very first fruits before they reach maturity. Come fall, however, when frost warnings threaten a crop that is finally finding its rhythm, that’s when my family and I delight in fried green tomatoes. On that fateful night when there is little we can do to protect our bounty from the evening weather report, the kids and I bring every tomato inside to the safety of our kitchen window sill.

Some of them finish ripening but, in what has become an annual last supper of sorts, those that remain green always get dredged in cornmeal and sizzled over high heat.

For this recipe, I cement the fried green tomato’s place in autumn’s recipe box by introducing celeriac, the bulb of a celery plant and a vegetable firmly associated with fall cookery. In the mid-1900s, celery farming in Northern Michigan was so prolific that Trapp & Sons Celery Farm

was apparently the largest employer in Benzie County, and the aroma of celery served as a welcome mat for summer resorters. “[When we reached] Beulah-Benzonia, and the celery crops which smelled so delicious ... we knew we were almost there,” penned Barbara Abbott Trublood, a summer resident of East Leland, in a historical essay about her annual journey north. For this dish, we julienne celeriac to make céleri rémoulade, a cousin of the French classic that is more commonly served with fried green tomatoes. Saying goodbye to the summer growing season is one of the most painful gardening chores I know—but hold tight to this recipe that bridges summer and fall, and it might just soften the blow.

Stacey Brugeman is a 20-year food and beverage journalist.

Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, Eater and on Instagram @staceybrugeman.

Dave Weidner is an editorial photographer and videographer based in Northern Michigan. Follow him on Instagram and Facebook @dzwphoto.

Sarah Peschel, @22speschel, is a stylist and photographer with an appreciation for all things local agriculture, food and drink.

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^ Fried Green Tomatoes with Céleri Rémoulade Serves 4 as an appetizer or salad course 1 cup mayonnaise juice from 1 lemon, about 3 Tablespoons 2 Tablespoons dijon mustard 2 Tablespoons heavy cream 1 teaspoon creole seasoning ½ teaspoon salt 1 large celery root bulb, about 2 pounds 2 large green tomatoes, about 1 pound 2 eggs, lightly beaten ½ cup flour 1 cup buttermilk 1 cup ground cornmeal salt to taste fresh ground black pepper to taste ½ cup avocado oil torn parsley leaves for garnish 1. Add the mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, cream, creole seasoning and salt to a large glass bowl, stirring to combine.

2. With a sharp knife, peel the celery root bulb and cut it into quarters.

Use a mandolin, coarse grater or patient knife skills to julienne it into even matchsticks. Fold the strands of celery root into the mayonnaise mixture as you work to prevent them from turning brown. Set the céleri rémoulade aside.

3. Slice tomatoes into generous rounds that are at least ¼-inch thick, creating about 8 slices from each tomato. Onto four rimmed plates, separately place eggs, flour, buttermilk and cornmeal.

photos by Dave Weidner // styling by Sarah Peschel

4. Dredge both sides of each tomato slice into the egg, flour, buttermilk and cornmeal—in that order. Lay the dredged slices flat onto a platter as you go. Shake the plates containing the egg, flour, buttermilk and cornmeal from time to time as you work, to redistribute the ingredients and fully coat all 16 slices. Sprinkle the tomato slices with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.

5. Pour avocado oil into a deep skillet, set over high heat and allow the oil to get hot enough that a pinch of flour sizzles. Working in batches, fry the tomatoes, cooking each side until golden brown, about a minute per side. Line a plate with paper towels and place fried tomatoes on the plate, seasoning with salt and pepper a second time.

6. Working quickly while the tomatoes are still warm, place a finished slice onto each salad plate and top with a generous forkful of céleri rémoulade. Top the rémoulade with another slice and repeat with more rémoulade until all of the tomato slices are used. Reserve any extra rémoulade for another use, top each plate with parsley to garnish and serve. – S.B. SEPTEMBER 2023

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love of the land

WILCOX-PALMER-SHAH NATURE PRESERVE The definition of “secret summer,” this preserve is tucked discretely along East Grand Traverse Bay, just west of Kewadin. A short boardwalk, with steps descending a dune, transports you to turquoise waters lapping up against a stunning stretch of sandy beach—perfect for a day of swimming and beach reading. Access to the boardwalk is off N. Bayshore Drive, but visitors should note that there are no formal trails or parking areas. It’s also important to stick to the shoreline (and keep your pup on a leash!) when wandering, as the preserve is home to a very small population of protected Pitcher’s thistle (only one plant remains) and rare Lake Huron tansy. Birders—keep an eye out for bald eagles and Caspian terns that can sometimes be seen fishing off the shore. -A.J.

photo by Nate Richardson, courtesy of GTRLC

get there

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AWARD-WINNING CARE IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD At McLaren Northern Michigan, you are not just another patient; you are the heart of our mission. Your care is our top priority, evident in our 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, ranking us among the nation’s top 10% of hospitals.

This distinction is earned only through the focused dedication and commitment to patients while creating a safe environment in which to provide high-quality care.

Experience the difference at McLaren Northern Michigan, where your health and happiness are at the core of everything we do.

Visit mclaren.org/Northern

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