Traverse Northern Michigan's Magazine, March 2022

Traverse + CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN FAT BIKING p.22

MAPLE MADNESS

RED HOT BEST: A RETROSPECTIVE

p.34

p.38

TentCraft's Handmade Clothing: Startups Fly Dynamic Culture With 20Fathoms One Designer's Journey

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NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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meet Noah Marshall-Rashid, the next generation of American Spoon. p. 28

Made in

NORTHERN MICHIGAN CELEBRATING OUR RESILIENT, CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURS

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Traverse 3.22 INSIDE

F E AT U R E S

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SHE’S SEW NORTH Abby Foster saw a problem—the young actor and dancer needed clothing she could move around in when not on stage. So, she made some herself. What she didn’t expect? Garnering a cult following online that led her to open a boutique shop in Suttons Bay.

BY KIM SCHNEIDER PHOTOS BY COURTNEY KENT

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

22 GIMME SHELTER!

Matt Bulloch, founder of TentCraft in Traverse City, has weathered the pandemic with a remarkable “switcheroo,” while maintaining the company’s work-life balance and his promise to keep things … just a little weird.

BY ALLISON JARRELL

28 A FORAGE FOR THE AGES

Forty years after Justin Rashid and Kate Marshall started American Spoon and became pioneers in the North’s artisan food industry, their son, Noah, is leading them into the future with a clear eye to the past.

B Y K AT E B A S S E T T PHOTOS BY EE BERGER

34 TAKING FLIGHT

Can Northern Michigan become one of the country’s rural tech hubs?

20Fathoms, a Traverse City incubator, thinks so and has the graduates to support that optimism.

BY CARA MCDONALD

photo by Courtney Kent

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL POEHLMAN

NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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Thank you for another record breaking year!

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7 | EDITOR'S NOTE 402 E Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49686

11 | UP NORTH

What does it take to be a Red Hot Best winner? As we kick off the next decade of MyNorth’s annual celebration of all things Northern Michigan, hear from winners speaking to what sets them apart.

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15| MARCH EVENTS

Elizabeth Blair FinePearls Elizabeth Blair

Welcome spring at the inaugural Michigan Outdoor Summit, plus plenty of concerts, art exhibits and theatrical productions.

FinePearls

17| TRAVEL

Turn your vacation into an artist’s retreat and leave with a souvenir you made yourself at these four local art studios.

49

45 | THE CULINARY NORTH

Three siblings from Bellaire return home to open Terrain—the restaurant they’ve always dreamed of in the place they’ve always loved.

49 | ON THE TABLE

On St. Patrick’s Day—or any day— this comforting soup bridges the gap between winter and spring.

51 | LAST CALL

Let the good times roll with Vieux Carré, a rye whiskey classic.

52 | LOVE OF THE LAND

Home to forested trails and a secluded beach, Maple Bay Natural Area is a gem worth exploring year-round.

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18 | UP IN MICHIGAN

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(top to bottom) photos by Dave Weidner and Ben Law

A painter finds inspiration in the North’s unbridled wilderness.

21 | OUTDOORS

The backwoods trails at Crystal Mountain are calling your name— get out there with your fat tire bike before the snow melts!

Follow Us On Social Media facebook.com/mynorthmedia instagram.com/mynorthmedia

ON THE COVER

pinterest.com/mynorthmedia

Noah Marshall-Rashid, the next generation of American Spoon.

PHOTO BY EE BERGER

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Traverse NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

A MyNorth Media Publication PRESIDENT/EDITOR IN CHIEF CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

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Vol. 41 | No. 10

Elizabeth Aseritis Caroline Dahlquist

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editor's note

I

don’t know that i ever really thought I’d And this issue salutes that courage and spirit in all its forms. write a column announcing I was no longer I did not intend to go into business when I started at 24 the owner of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s and I chose a hard one; people told me for decades that the Magazine and MyNorth Media. I fought magazine couldn’t make it. But when you are in small busifor it with every bone in my body, enviness, so intimately responsible for people’s lives, you can’t sioned times when it might have to close, fail. I started in 1981, during a recession, unbeknownst to but never quite pictured it landing safely in me, which should tell you something. We survived and rose someone else’s hands. above everything that followed: from 9/11 to the Great ReI’m truly happy to tell you that the comcession, through snow in May and rain in January, through pany has been sold to Heritage Broadcasting, headed up by Covid-19 to now soaring paper prices that have caused our Pete Iacobelli, a person I’ve known for years and valued for costs to rise to new levels. I’ve made many, many mistakes. his perspective on the region, the media business and more. But I’m proud that in the face of such challenges, I fostered I would only entrust both our people and products to a an environment of independence for creative, ambitious company that shares the same commitment to this place we people, paid salaries in the mid to higher national industry all love, and one that wants to represent it with integrity range, offered—and paid the lion’s share of—healthcare and quality. Heritage, a family-owned company, has that from the early ‘90s, had a cafeteria plan, matched 401K commitment and is well-suited and excontributions until the Great Recescited to carry our mission forward. sion—all on revenue that comes from I’m also excited to share that Traverse advertising rates our small businesses veteran Cara McDonald will be taking could afford. That was my very personal over the editor chair, starting with next mission, and, as a result, I got to see emmonth’s issue. Cara began her magazine ployees go from single to married, have career with us when she was in her 20s, kids, buy houses, pursue dreams and

by DEBORAH WYATT FELLOWS honing her writing and editing skills even become grandparents. over several years before taking top-level MyNorth has an incredibly bright editorial positions at Indianapolis Monthly and 5280 in Denfuture ahead with Heritage because of mission and people, ver. Now, she is coming home to Michigan with two sons in a shared refrain you will read over and over in this month’s tow, bringing her significant talent and her heart back to a issue. region she dearly loves. I was recently reminded that I gave The company exists thanks to the smart, creative, dediCara a pair of ruby shoes at her going away party so she’d cated staff members who have chosen to work every day one day find her way back. Welcome home, Cara. with me, picking up the company’s mission as their own When I hired Michael Wnek to be COO a few years and putting their own indelible, critical stamps on each ago, and through a random series of events, I’ve gotten to product. At no time, ever, did the staff not rise to meet each focus these last couple of years on what I thought I’d be challenge and each opportunity. Why? They love this redoing when I started the company; editing, crafting maga- gion, love the unending challenge of capturing it in words zines, endlessly striving to capture the essence of this place. and photos, and they believe deeply that what we produce We work a year ahead in editorial and art, so I know what brings joy to people, helps them to heal, celebrate, reunite wonderful stories and photos are coming your way, created and more. The staff at MyNorth has always understood how by a fantastic team. I’ve been on the front lines of launching fragile the things we all cherish about this region are, and next month’s Tastemakers awards, honoring six outstanding how it is our mission to give voice to the people who do the members of our food and drink community, an effort led by work of preserving our land, keeping our water clean, supour culinary columnist, Stacey Brugeman. And I’ve gotten porting those in need and maintaining the vitality of our to build the new MyNorth.com, shaping a vision and peramazing small towns. In 2008, when I told the staff I didn’t sonally filling the pages in a way that truly reflects our misknow what lay ahead, but we wouldn’t just be a magazine sion. I’ve long wanted a site that can be a true companion to publishing company anymore, that team helped create four our print products. I believe, now, we have one. more magazines (two of which are in this issue of Traverse), I’m finding it a sweet twist of fate that the last column I MyNorth.com, ShopMyNorth and MyNorthTickets. We write is one that features our new March focus—Made in literally created our way out—together.

Northern Michigan: A celebration of our region’s resilient Without our advertisers, a group of dreamers themselves, and creative entrepreneurs. (Our annual Food & Drink issue we wouldn’t have gotten past the first issue, much less be has moved to April.) I never wanted to be in business—it looking at a shining future. I am so grateful to the small was a half-decade before I admitted to myself that I was an businesses who put their trust in us to share their message entrepreneur, and another before I wore the mantle with with our audience. Each ad in our products represents pride. I’m pleased this issue celebrates our region of dream- someone’s dream. We get to know them face-to-face and ers, people who follow their passions and have the courage learn not only about their goals, but also their love of this to “hang a sign” and start. That is who we have always been. region. Talk to Realtor Wally Kidd for five minutes, to

FOREVER AN HONOR

NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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editor's note whom we owe such gratitude, and you will feel his passion for Walloon Lake, passed down through generations. We are honored to connect our small businesses with our audience who passionately wants to support them. And we never forget, it is those dreamers who keep our small towns intact and vital, and our creative, entrepreneurial spirit alive.

“Shop Local” isn’t a slogan to us. It is our mission.

And then, our audience. And what an audience. Our readers in print and online are kindred spirits. As I always say, you don’t join our audience unless you truly want to connect with the best of who we are as a region, and so many of our readers participate in supporting and protecting that. If you live in Northern Michigan, I hope we give you a reason to let the laundry wait and take a few hours to follow our lead on a great hike and finding a good lunch after. For people who can’t be here all the time, I hope we transport you each month and fill your head and heart with all that you love about Up North until you can come back. I’ve gotten so many letters over the years from readers: One reading simply, “Thank you. I need to know places like Northern Michigan still exist,” and I think we all know what he meant. So many of you, near and far, have written to me that you, too, have marveled at the winter stars, opened the cottage, found morels, built bonfires, plunged into Lake Michigan, raised your kids and loved and lost against the backdrop that is this place of our hearts. Thank you for allowing us to share our passion with you—and for sharing yours back.

There are people without whom I would not have survived and thrived. Wayne O’Connell, my wise, dear friend and valued print rep, was the first person to take me seriously. Wayne had my back through thick and thin, bought me lunches when I had no money, and went to bat for me over and over. Mark Vittert has shared his publishing and business instincts with me in his ever-humble way for 40 years, always over breakfast and wrapped in his love of this region, joy in family and implacable integrity. Carol Cameron walked through the door when our oldest, Ben, was 11 months old and my husband, Neal, was in Grand Rapids, and she never left us through three more kids and three more dogs. The magazine would not have made it if I had not been able to go back to work full-time in 2008, knowing that Carol, my dear friend and “life partner,” was there.

Jeff Smith started with me as a freelancer, helped the magazine take shape as managing editor over the first four years and returned from Minneapolis to work another couple of amazing decades as editor. On the morning Jeff returned, I heard his voice from the stairway and sat down and cried because I knew all was well; Jeff knew this mission in his bones and he was back. And without Kurt Luedtke, I would have quit in 1985 when four of the five people I’d started with all moved on to new adventures. He was just finishing his Oscar-winning “Out of Africa” at his home in Glen Arbor: He certainly didn’t need to talk to me. Kurt was the smartest mind I’ve ever known, as quick with praise as a knockback. I’m a striver, always trying to do the very best work we can, always trying to do better for people. Kurt didn’t see that as exhausting—and I can be truly exhausting for many—he loved it. He made the challenging times bearable, teared up over the moments I shone and loved stories 8

of my kids. I don’t know that I would have stuck it out without him, and he is forever in my heart and soul.

And, especially, thank you to my husband, Neal, and our kids, who are always, unflaggingly, my beacon. Boy, have I been lucky. Some of you have been readers since it was only me and my dog, Sara, wandering the hills and valleys together. Many of you have been with me since I met Neal, my ocean boy, whose joy in building our lives in this freshwater paradise has made every day better. Some of you have seen our four towheads grow in this column: traveling to Russia to bring Olivia home; first solo fishing expeditions; laughing through winter games of Clue; trips for the mail down our dirt road with all its adventures along the way; and on and on. And now you’ve seen our oldest married. Neal and the kids have been very patient as I’ve shared snapshots of our lives lived in this space. I’m sure, at times, it has seemed idyllic, and so often it was. I didn’t write about the arguments, the whining, the teenage missteps—life anywhere is not perfect. But I’ve always felt that when you raise, or expose, kids to celebrating the woods, the water, a sense of community, you give them something to call upon when life goes wrong.

As so many of us know, Northern Michigan offers a way back. This region has given me such joy with the people I love and such poignant moments. That’s what I wanted to share. For you, for them, for me.

People have often said to me, “The magazine is your baby.” There is truth in that. It was sheer wonder when it was born, wobbly through the early years as it got its feet under it, then struggling and soaring as the world kept asking it to grow, change, adapt. I have agonized over missteps, miscalculations, miscommunications. But I have known moments of brilliance, meaning, joy and heart-soaring pride. And now, like empty nesters watching in wonder at the lives of our grown children, I will be, only, its greatest cheerleader.

There have been times I've worried about the future of our region. Downtowns across the state were boarded up in the face of malls and big boxes. Our local leaders, retailers, restaurants and movie theaters never gave up, gifting us the vital spaces we enjoy today. It seemed housing was popping up on every ridge in the North and farmland was disappearing. Smart solutions were found that have seen farms stay in families, young farmers starting up and vineyards breathe a new life into our critical agricultural economy. It has been an honor to know and write about the creative and passionate people working tirelessly on our region’s behalf.

Now, my contributions will be to family, friends and as a volunteer. I will walk the woods and climb my favorite hills more often, marvel at the sunrise and linger in the sunset.

I’ll do it all in peace, having fought the good fight for people, product and place, and now, seeing the mission in new hands. And I’ll do it all with immeasurable gratitude, for this quest, and all of you, forever locked in my heart.

Founder/Editor-In-Chief debfellows1989@gmail.com

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Up North.

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

RED HOT RETROSPECTIVE

by CARLY SIMPSON

Kicking off the next decade of Red Hot Best, MyNorth’s annual celebration of all things Northern Michigan.

IN 2011, Traverse Magazine launched its first annual readervoted Red Hot Best awards, recognizing people, places and products of the North. More than a million votes later, and as we turn to the next decade, we’re enjoying this opportunity to chat with a few winners, asking what it takes to run a Red Hot Best business, and for moments of pride over these last 10 years.

Find instructions below on how to vote in this year’s competition and watch for the 2022 winners in the June issue.

9 WINS // Grandpa Shorter’s, Petoskey grandpashorters.com Jennifer Shorter Third-Generation Proprietor of Grandpa Shorter’s

You celebrated a major anniversary in 2021—75 years!

“My grandparents started this business in 1946, in this same spot, and my parents, William and Marietta Shorter, took it over in 1983. I remember walking to the store after school and being so proud that my mom trusted me to take out the trash and vacuum. I made $2 an hour and was thrilled!

Then I learned how to mark products and sell on the floor. I was hooked.

Now, I am teaching my daughter the retail trade and hope that someday she’ll want to take over—we are truly a small family business.”

HOW TO NOMINATE & VOTE:

JAN. 31– FEB. 21

Nominate local people, places and businesses FEB. 28 – MARCH 14

Vote for the top winners

photo by Rachel Haggerty

MYNORTH.COM/RHB2022

What goes into running a Red Hot Best business?

“Lots of love, sweat and tears! There have been a lot of tears the last couple of years, but that’s across the board. Actually, it’s a combination of awesome employees, guests who love us and making sure we keep a nod to the past while looking toward the future. I think the big thing is to remain flexible in all things, but stand firm in our commitment to give excellent experiences and customer service to every guest.”

NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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This European-style bistro has won several Red Hot Best awards over the last 10 years, including Best New Restaurant in 2011—the first year of the competition and the restaurant’s one-year anniversary. Most recently, Cafe Santé was voted as Best Place to Get Global Food in the Charlevoix & Chain of Lakes Region in 2021. We caught up with General Manager/Chef Kyle Marshall, who has worked for the restaurant group Magnum Hospitality for more than 20 years.

What to order: “We continue to keep our ‘holy grail’ menu items available daily—duck French onion soup, pappardelle Bolognese, boeuf bourguignon and whitefish meunière. We serve an amazing breakfast daily including our house-made bacon on our eggs Benedict and our addictive Vienna pancakes. Dining al fresco on the open porch or patio in the summer and fall offers tremendous views of Lake Charlevoix and the sunset.”

Moment of pride: “Magnum Hospitality [the restaurant group that includes Cafe Santé] has raised more than $209,000 over the past 14 years for our Help Everyone Eat program. It’s important to us to help out in the communities we operate our stores in, and what better way for a hospitality group to be part of the community than to feed those in need. The first Thursday of every month we donate a percentage of sales to the local food pantries in our communities.”

What goes into running a Red Hot Best business?

“I am lucky to work with the best team of dedicated professionals in Northern Michigan. It takes all of us to create the dining experience that is Cafe Santé. We love what we do, add to that a little bit of hard work, a couple of long days and good fun and I guess people notice!”

2021 Marvin Lumber and Cedar Co., LLC.

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2021 Marvin Lumber and Cedar Co., LLC.

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7 WINS // The Accidentals, Traverse City theaccidentalsmusic.com

This talented trio has had a busy decade—from releasing their debut album in 2012 to signing a deal with Sony Music Masterworks label in 2017. This month, on March 1, the band is releasing “Time Out - Session 2” and beginning their national Time Out Tour the following day.

The EP is co-written by The Accidentals, in collaboration with several artists who first inspired them to become songwriters. They’re planning several shows in Michigan this spring and summer (check online for dates).

Read the full interview at: link.mynorth.com/accidentals

36 WINS // Apache Trout Grill, Traverse City apachetroutgrill.com Restaurant with a View, Outdoor Dining, Brunch Spot, Whitefish Dish—with 36 awards, Apache Trout Grill is one of the most winningest restaurants ever.

Carri Crozier, General Manager of Apache Trout Grille Brunch update: We are serving brunch again! We have award-winning chef Alan Thompson on our team now and he has really stepped up our brunch status. Each week we are featuring new items on the buffet.

What goes into running a Red Hot Best business?

Our staff is what keeps us moving forward against all odds. We have been extremely lucky to have such a dedicated team and family.

46 WINS // Black Star Farms, Suttons Bay blackstarfarms.com

Black Star Farms has won a whopping 46 Red Hot Best awards over the last 10 years for categories ranging from Local Red Wine and Local White Wine to Romantic Hotel and Place for a Wedding. We raise our glass to their talented team!

photo courtesy of The Accidentals

Sherri Campbell Fenton, Managing Owner of Black Star Farms What does it take to run a Red Hot Best Business: “That’s a huge question, but to answer it in a nutshell, I would say it definitely is having the right team in place. It takes the right people in every position who are guest-centric and team players, whether they are behind the scenes or managing a business unit. Our team is our strongest asset.”

1 WIN // Assistant Principal Ben Berger, Traverse City tcaps.net

We’d be remiss if we didn’t include educators in our celebration of the North. Ben Berger was the very first Red Hot Best teacher in 2011—his very first year of teaching.

Biggest lesson you’ve learned: “The best thing that I can do for my students is to consistently show up and meet them wherever they may be.

Everyone brings baggage with them when they come to school—some good, some bad. It is this baggage that makes each student who they are. It’s my job to be a consistent presence in their life. If they make a mistake, I have their back through accountability; if something great happens, I am there for them as a cheerleader. So much of this job is being present for each student.”

Teachers are heroes: “It is an extremely selfless calling to serve your community through teaching. Each teacher gives up some of themselves to their craft and profession. This is a sacrifice to their family and personal life but they do it because their work matters to them on an extremely deep level.”

9 WINS // Paul Maurer General Contracting, Traverse City paulmaurer.com

Ben Maurer, President & Owner of Paul Maurer General Contracting You could build homes anywhere in the world, but you choose Northern Michigan: “It goes without saying that Northern Michigan is a special place—all of the natural resources allow us to play where we work: boating, skiing, hiking, golfing, building bonfires. You feel a sense of peace here and I think most, if not all, of our clients choose this spot for that exact reason. Northern Michigan creates memories that money just cannot buy.”

What goes into running a Red Hot Best business?

“It starts and ends with good people. Good people, coupled with the Northern Michigan economic environment, allows us to be the best.”

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Your ring reflects you and your love.

801 N Mitchell St, Cadillac, MI 231-775-1289

www.wexfordjewelers.com

photo by Frank Solle

TRILLIUM

TRILLIUMSHORE.com Custom Homes Custom Homes www.trilliumshore.com

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TIX Watch for the MyNorthTix symbol and get your tickets at MyNorthTickets.com.

March edited b y LIBBY STALLMAN

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Land of Outsiders hosts the inaugural Michigan Outdoor Summit in Traverse City, a twoday gathering for all sectors of the outdoor industry to connect, learn, grow and build together with a vision for the future, health and vitality of Michigan’s outdoors. facebook.com/landofoutsiders Enjoy an intimate three-course dining experience at the Inn at Black Star Farms in Suttons Bay. For the Weekend Dinner Series, the estate chef creates a special prix fixe menu to accompany Black Star wines. With an open kitchen, you can enjoy the sights and smells as your food is prepared.

MyNorthTickets.com

photo by Frank Solle

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Catch a spring musical at Manistee Middle High School March 11-13.

Roald Dahl’s “Willy Wonka Jr.” follows the enigmatic candy manufacturer as he stages a contest by hiding golden tickets in five of his scrumptious candy bars. chipslead.org

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The Little Waves Children’s Music Program is designed to introduce young children to music in an entertaining setting.

Today’s theme: Horns. Offered by the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra and hosted each month

by Charlevoix Public Library and Petoskey District Library. Free and open to the public. petoskeychamber.com

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Enjoy a play reading of “Everybody” with Parallel 45 Theatre at Historic Barns Park in Traverse City. A finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, “Everybody” is a modern adaptation of the 15th-century morality play, “The Summoning of Everyman.”

MyNorthTickets.com

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Daylight Saving Time begins.

Spring forward one hour.

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Cheers to a fun-filled St. Patrick’s weekend in Thompsonville, with plenty of activities for everyone at Crystal Mountain’s Celts & Kilts event. crystalmountain.com

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Gopherwood Concerts at the Cadillac Elks Lodge presents Drew Nelson & Highway 2.

Michigan-born Navy veteran Drew Nelson is a storytelling songwriter and multiinstrumentalist. A fly fisherman and world traveler, he mixes Americana and roots-rock with traditional folk styles.

MyNorthTickets.com

THU

The Glen Arbor Arts Center looks to the east for inspiration for the 2022 Clothesline Exhibit. This year’s theme is prayer flags. M ​​ akers of all skill levels are invited to create up to two prayer flags in any material media, with submissions due between now and May 13. glenarborart.org/artists

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Please note, as these dates approach, some events may be modified, postponed or canceled. Check online or call ahead to confirm. Throughout the year, visit MyNorth.com/ Northern-Michigan-Events for fun community happenings.

FIND MORE AT MYNORTH.COM > EVENTS

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EN TER TO W I N A TRIP FOR TWO TO MARQUETTE FROM MICHIGAN’S UPPER PENINSULA! LINK.MYNORTH.COM/MARQ22

THE ADVENTURE INCLUDES: 3 Night Stay at Landmark Inn Dinner at Elizabeth’s Chophouse Lunch or Dinner at the Vierling Lunch or Dinner at Lagniappe Cajun Creole Eatery $100 Gift Card to Get’z Clothier $50 Gift Card to Donckers Artisan Candy & Restaurant $100 Northern Michigan University Collegiate Apparel Marquette Harbor Lighthouse Guided Tour & Maritime Museum Historical Guided Walking Tour with the Marquette Regional History Center Paddle Board or Kayak Lesson & Rental E-Bikes, Tandems, or Traditional Bike Rental (Choice of half or full day) Guided Waterfall Tour Customized Trip Planning

A $2,000+ value!

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travel Glazing at Leelanau Pottery Company

BUBBLE GLAZE POTTERY

/ SUTTONS BAY

The trademark of Stephanie Starner-Greiner’s pottery is the bubbles that create circular patterns in her pieces glazed with blues and greens reminiscent of Northern Michigan’s waters—all inspired by the way that wave bubbles meet the beach on her favorite rock-hunting strolls. And she doesn’t keep her secrets to herself. Take a scheduled class at Leelanau Pottery Company, or gather a small group for a private one, and you can paint or glaze bisque-fired pieces, or blow bubbles into the glaze on a shared piece and capture the literal breath of everyone in the group. Be inspired: Stroll Van’s Beach in Leland, on a hunt for bubbles, Leland blues and spectacular sunsets. facebook.com/leelanaupotteryco BUILD STUNNING PHOTOS

DIY SOUVENIRS!

by KIM SCHNEIDER

Tired of dime-a-dozen tourist trinkets? Here are some places where you can be the maker.

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f you’ve ever glanced at a piece of art and said, “I could make that,” chances are you were … wrong.

But there’s still beauty in creating art at any level, especially under the tutelage of some of Northern Michigan’s best artists. Here are a few places where you can turn your vacation into an artist’s retreat and leave with a souvenir you made yourself.

photo courtesy of Leelanau Pottery Company

BLOW GLASS

/ EAST JORDAN

With as little as 24-hour notice (though best to book as far in advance as possible), take a private glass-blowing class at Jordan Valley Glassworks. Your 30-minute session covers the history and techniques of glass blowing, all while seasoned artists supervise your creation, from the selection of glass colors to melting them in a fiery furnace. Prices range from $70 to $125 depending on your project—choose from paperweights, oil diffusers, hummingbird feeders and more.

Be inspired: Compare the movement of the Jordan River to the swirls in your glass as you walk along the new boardwalk located at Sportsman’s Park (81 Bridge St.) that meanders through the watershed. jordanvalleyglassworks.com

/ LUDINGTON

The nature photography trio of Brad and Todd Reed and Rachel Gaudette don’t take photos, they build them, creating images that allow viewers to feel like they’re experiencing the scene for themselves. Students can learn this same technique in the photo workshops hosted by the three professionals. Book the beginner Picture Perfect Weekend along with a stay at Ludington’s Lamplighter Bed and Breakfast next October, or take their online video instruction series as background for booking any of the three advanced workshops—one takes students to the Porcupine Mountains for a class on building your own photo book.

They offer private lessons, too. Be inspired: Hike to Big Sable Point Lighthouse, a popular photo subject of the Reeds, especially during evenings’ magic light. toddandbradreed.com CREATE WITH KIDS (OR ADULTS)

/ TRAVERSE CITY

At Handz on Art, a paint-your-own pottery studio in downtown’s Warehouse MRKT, kids and adults choose a ceramic piece—from coffee mugs and platters to ornaments, gnomes, piggy banks and more—then have fun personalizing it.

Check out the Idea Center for books, stencils, stamps and sponges, then hit up the Color Center to pick your paints.

Most pottery will be fired and ready for pickup within four to seven days (shipping is available if you’re from out of town). Walk-ins are welcome, but reservations are recommended for large groups (birthdays, bridal showers, bachelorette parties). Be inspired: A walk downtown provides endless inspo for a TC-themed piece. You can’t go wrong painting a Petoskey stone-patterned platter, a beachy bowl or a “We Call Michigan Gnome.” tchandzonart.com Kim Schneider is a long-time travel writer specializing in Michigan adventures, food and wine. The Midwest Travel Journalist Association has named her Mark Twain Travel Writer of the Year, and she’s the author of “100 Things to Do in Traverse City Before You Die.” NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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Top: “The Overture” captures spring fern fronds, ramps and trillium.

Bottom: Rebecca Deneau in her studio.

up in michigan

SPRING’S INSPIRATION

by REBECCA DENEAU

A Traverse City painter and the evocative Northern vistas that inspire her.

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photo by Scott Wilson/Vada Color

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a place to indulge in our picnic dinner before a family hike. My spouse, who loves to explore new places, pulled into a muddy parking lot near some unknown trails. I slowly turned to him and said, “Ok, we can eat here, but I don’t really want to hike here.”

The trillium had started their yearly show, and I wanted a trail with a good view. I had heard tales of glorious trillium about 30 minutes farther north and I felt determined to find them.

Just like morels and ramps, you have to search for trillium. They grow along woodland trails and hillsides and love rich, acidic soil.

Thankfully, being mostly white, they stand out and are much easier to discover than morels.

After our picnic, Dave decided to check out the path next to said muddy parking lot that led up the side of a hill. Stubbornly holding out for a more inviting trail, I stayed near the car and waited for him to return. As he reached the top, he began waving his arms, exuberantly signaling for us to join him. I sighed, gathered my boys and reluctantly began hiking up the trail. photo courtesy of Ben Law

here is a melodic beauty and mystery to the woodland understory as it awakens each spring. Wild leeks push through last year’s fallen leaves. Fern fronds quietly unfold. And the revered trillium stops us in our tracks as we pause to admire her. Breaking free from winter, they emerge together and stretch out toward the day, quietly singing the melody they came to sing.

This time every March, I start my annual countdown to the blooming of the trillium. I set my sights on mid-May, when the forest floor comes alive again. I look forward to it each year with the same enthusiasm my boys share for Christmas, because the blooming of the trillium signals a true end to winter. No more surprise snowfalls. Puffy parkas are shed. The trillium usher in a season of growth, and with the blooms, the hope of a delightful summer ahead.

This anticipation helps me get through the days when I still need my snow boots and ice scraper. It encourages me to notice the daylight waiting around a little longer each evening as we head toward summer solstice. The lakes are beginning to thaw, and the hope of spring tantalizes us with warmer temperatures and sunshine.

To stir my anticipation even further, I spend my days in the studio painting trillium while I daydream about their arrival. Recently, as I was sifting through my photos looking for painting references, I recalled one particularly warm Saturday we had in spring.

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As I rounded the corner near the top, the sun hovered just above the horizon and streamed through the trees, lighting up the forest floor. And that’s when I noticed them—trillium, by the hundreds, creating a fresh ephemeral blanket on the crest and spilling down the entire hillside.

Perfectly illuminated by the evening sun, they were radiant white, freshly unfurled into their full triune beauty. A soft breeze swept through like fingers, fluffing out their opalescent petals. It was magnificent. That evening we continued down the winding path through the forest, happily enjoying our front row tickets to the spring show that proved to be so much more than even I hoped for.

Days like that deeply inspire my work. When I paint, I try to capture not only a place, but also the way a place makes me feel. I use brushstrokes and colors to express the joy I experience when stumbling upon a hillside of trillium or biking along trails near orchards and dunes. I use my senses to ground me and help me become fully present to the moment—to the way the light falls, all the shades of white that make up a trillium and the feeling of sand, water and air on my skin.

Because the truth is, these are more than places to us. These forests and lakes are home to our collective memories—of family hikes along familiar paths, of sweet summer days spent with friends on the beach. These shores have become the background to our lives, making them even more beautiful.

And really, the long winter we experience up here in the north just serves to increase our anticipation for summer.

We appreciate our warmer days so much more because we have to wait for them.

So, let’s start the countdown together. The trillium are coming soon to usher in all the goodness of new life. The sight of them spilling over hillsides and sprinkled along paths will signal the end of a long winter nap—a woodland garden party to kick off the start to summer. Beautiful things are ahead, my friends. May we have eyes to see them.

Rebecca Deneau is a fine art oil painter, poet and ponderer based in Traverse City.

When she's not painting, you can find her in the woods or on the lake shore exploring with her family. rebeccadeneau.com

When Northern Michigan is at your door,

bring it in!

TOUR OUR BUILDING & DESIGN CENTERS

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PICTURED ROCKS THE UPPER PENINSULA MICHIGAN

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outdoors

FAT BIKING CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN

by KANDACE CHAPPLE

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A “family of fatties” makes their way to Thompsonville for a day of fun, wintry biking.

e waited almost too late in the season to go—and we were left wanting more, which made it all the sweeter. It was the first weekend in March before we ventured out to Crystal Mountain in Thompsonville to try their fat bike trails. Late, but not too late!

I took my own fat bike and my husband and two sons, ages 16 and 18, rode rentals. It was noon on a Sunday and the sun was out. The snow was melting, making its final rather icy exit off the backwoods trails, while the downhill ski trails still flourished in the distance.

“We should have come sooner!” I said about a hundred times. The boys ignored me, content regardless of the conditions. Or should I say, fearless regardless of the conditions.

We headed out, I made lots of noise about being careful, and they popped wheelies on the stretch of paved road running through the resort as we made our way to the trails.

saw it. Naturally, I tried to go corner on some ice and quickly (but beautifully) laid the bike on its side.

After that, I got at the front of our family of fatties and slowed the pace to a creep, worried they were all going to biff it like I did. The next icy corner, I hiked (literally), smarting from my earlier blowout. The boys didn’t say much, totally comfortable and having fun.

Overall, we spent an afternoon in the March sun, I got all my guys out together, and I embarrassed them only once.

Mom heart? Check, check, check! And, as usual, every teen outing involves food: We finished up with a pepperoni pizza and a large order of mozzarella breadsticks at A. Papano's Pizza just up the road in T-ville.

photos by Kandace Chapple

THE TRAILS

There are three fat bike trails at Crystal, all aptly named: Fat Loop, Fat Chance and Fat Tire. They are all short, and when put together, offer about 4–5 miles of riding. The beauty for families is that you can tackle them one at a time, with the option to add on or head for pizza as needed.

The Fat Chance is a part of Crystal’s “Otter” loop—a multiuse trail also shared by snowshoers, hikers and crosscountry skiers. This is not necessarily my first choice, because the high traffic leaves divots in the trail (unless you happen to hit it right after a groom). We skipped it and headed for the other two trails.

The Fat Loop trail was our favorite. The short loop is set down in the woods, across County Road 602—its own little world of flowy, snowy, rolly fun. The day we rode it, the shade from the trees had kept it alive longer than all the others.

Tim, the gentleman who outfitted the guys with their rentals, said it was the best late-season trail they had. He was right.

I might as well note that this was my fave because it’s also the trail I didn’t biff it on.

We tackled the Fat Tire trail next. This straight trail takes you through Crystal Mountain’s property and connects you to the Betsie River Pathway, which has an additional 6 miles of groomed fat bike trail. The day we went, the trail had fallen victim to a late-February thaw and had icy patches on it. Tim warned us to slow up and hike around the ice if we

if you go Crystal Mountain has several fat bikes available for rent, or you can buy a trail pass if you bring your own. When we went, it was first-come, first-served on rentals. You can find trail reports online (scroll down below the downhill ski report).

crystalmountain.com

Kandace Chapple is a freelance writer and founder of the Michigan Girl Bike Club (which is a Snowshoe Club in the winter!). She can be reached at kandacechapple.com.

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Made in NORTHERN

MICHIGAN

text and photos

by Allison Jarrell

Gimme Shelter!

Traverse City’s TentCraft is redefining work-life balance while keeping things (just a little) weird.

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It only took a couple of years on Wall Street for Matt Bulloch to realize he wanted something more than absurdly long hours, low office morale and a mediocre apartment in New York City. The young Credit Suisse analyst longed for satisfying work in a place that would inspire him to grow.

Serendipitously, New York City is also where Bulloch met the stepson of Paul Britten in the early aughts. Britten, a Traverse City businessman, started a one-man shop in 1985 that has since grown into one of the country’s leading creators of grand-scale banners, signs, displays and creative services powered by more than 330 employees.

While visiting New York, Britten took his stepson, Bulloch and their friends out for drinks and asked Bulloch how he liked Wall Street.

“I said, ‘I hate it,’” Bulloch recalls. “‘I’m working my butt off. My apartment stinks.

I don’t see myself in New York long term.’

And Paul said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ I told him, ‘I’d love to do something entrepreneurial.’

“I had some ideas that, in retrospect, were just terrible,” Bulloch says with a grin.

“But Paul called me a few weeks later and said, ‘Listen, there’s a great product—it’s a tent system. It’s been a page in my catalog for three years, and I’ve tried two other people that didn’t work out. I think it’s a good idea. But at this point, my VP of sales says it’s a waste of time, and my VP of manufacturing says it’s a waste of time. So, if you want to do it, it’ll be your company. I’ll bankroll it, and let’s see what we can do.’”

And so, without knowing a soul in town, Bulloch moved to Traverse City in January 2007 to start TentCraft; manufacturing custom-branded tents for outdoor events and promotions (i.e. the large tents you see at music festivals, farmers markets and fundraisers).

It didn’t take long for the company to grow into a team of salespeople, production crew members and fellow visionaries like Rob Hanel, TentCraft’s Director of People and Space and “a great cultural ambassador,” Bulloch adds.

In 2015, Bulloch bought out Britten’s majority stake in the rapidly growing custom tent business. Tent printing was moved in-house from Britten, Inc. to accommodate a wider array of materials, and TentCraft expanded its line to include frame tents and different sizes of pop-up tents.

“Michigan is a great place to manufacture,” Bulloch says. “There’s a lot of engineering talent and there’s a lot of the skilled trades. It’s really great for a company like ours, where there’s a creative element and you need savvy, worldly salespeople and marketers, but then you also need

TentCraft President Matt Bulloch commissioned a large, colorful mural on the outside of the Traverse City headquarters— a fitting representation of the creativity and passion inside the manufacturing plant’s walls.

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people who know how to run [machinery] or how to sew.”

An experiential marketing manufacturer that produces and assembles everything in-house, TentCraft is a serious player in the industry. From custom tents and event structures to custom fabrication, they make it all, and Bulloch says they’re the only company manufacturing these types of products in the U.S. But beyond manufacturing, Bulloch knew, as an entrepreneur, he wanted to cultivate a vibrant, forward-thinking company culture—to give people a workplace they could be proud of. He and Hanel set out to do just that, and today, TentCraft is renowned locally and nationally for progressive benefits like their “Infants in the Workplace” program and outdoor equipment rentals for employees.

“I just fundamentally don’t believe that work has to be soulcrushing and brutal,” Bulloch says. “I think one of my primary jobs as CEO is to focus on the company culture. And a big part of that is to establish, create and maintain a place where people actually want to work.”

Fun … and a little weirdness So how exactly does a young entrepreneur who’s new to Northern Michigan do that?

By prioritizing communication and morning huddles, for starters.

Bulloch says daily meetings are “the heartbeat” of the 77-person company, and the morning is a great time to take the pulse. Each morning consists of walk-in music chosen by that day’s presenter, followed by department updates, kudos to team members, “Make It Better” videos created by employees and TentCraft’s signature “Make It Better” clap to close out the huddle. (“Make It Better,” the company motto, is all about the continuous improvement of people, processes and products.)

On a recent morning at the Cass Street headquarters (home to TentCraft’s offices and manufacturing plant), some employees are missing as they work remotely due to Covid-19, but smiling faces still spread out into the main lobby area as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” summons everyone together. The room is adorned with a large cityscape mural, a wall of snowshoes waiting to be rented out, a lounge (complete with books to peruse), a café area built by employees and a hard-to-miss open-top spiral slide that runs from the upper level to the lobby. Bulloch notes with a smile that while no one used it today, the slide is, in fact, a popular mode of transportation.

Beyond the fact that they manufacture high-quality custom products in-house, Bulloch believes TentCraft has succeeded because the company is rooted in humility, fun … and a little weirdness. The weirdness, actually, is one of TentCraft’s guiding principles, along with respect, trust, 24

excellence, communication and teamwork. All of it, Bulloch says, contributes to a “work hard, play hard” culture.

“My favorite definition of culture that I’ve heard is that culture is the sum of everyone’s actions—how people behave, how people talk to each other, how people trust each other and respect each other,” Bulloch says. “Company culture is a dynamic, living, breathing, malleable thing, and it’s totally dependent on all of us participating and investing in it. People support a world that they help create.”

The pandemic ‘switcheroo’ Understandably, it’s hard to sustain that kind of work culture during a pandemic, but even more so when a major pivot is needed. Bulloch knew events—the company’s bread and butter—would take a hit and was scouring news, like all of us, to try to understand Covid and its implications.

“I remember as I was following it, I saw drive-thru testing centers in South Korea. And I thought that was so

smart,” he recalls. “I was watching CNN, and instead of bringing someone into the doctor’s office that might be sick, they were keeping them in their car and doing the nasal swab testing. I had never seen anything like that.

“I saw videos of plain white tents in parking lots, and it looked pretty disorganized,” Bulloch continues. “Cars were all over the place. And I thought man, we can print tents that say ‘Enter here’ or a regional hospital name or ‘Covid testing’ or ‘Medical providers only.’ We could offer tents to these health care workers. Our wheels started turning.”

On March 14, 2020, Bulloch emailed his staff (an email they would later frame and give to him as a thank you for his leadership during the pandemic). He had watched event after event canceled—South by Southwest, the NCAA basketball tournament, a mountain biking show. All gone.

“I said, ‘This is going to affect all of us. It’s going to affect our company,’” Bulloch says. ‘“Fun events that use our

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pop-up tents are all going to stop, as people won’t want to mingle with strangers. The event business may never come back. We’re going to completely retool the company to focus on supporting health and medical applications. Our products are going to be in demand and will save lives.’

“The message was, we set priorities in December, but if what you’re doing doesn’t pertain to medical, I don’t want to hear about it,” Bulloch says. “We’re not developing a new dome for glamping applications. We have to do medical 100 percent.”

TentCraft immediately pivoted to offering hospital, vaccination and medical screening tents. “We had websites up and products made and ready to sell, I think, earlier than other people,” Bulloch says. “We were able to keep everyone on the team and avoid layoffs. That was really important.”

Success from the switch even resulted in their biggest sale on record last year—an almost $2 million order from the State of Kansas. After officials received their stimulus funding, they

“I just fundamentally don’t believe that work has to be soul-crushing and brutal.

I think one of my primary jobs as CEO is to focus on the company culture. And a big part of that is to establish, create and maintain

a place that people actually want to

work.”

–MATT BULLOCH

Opposite: TentCraft employees always have the option to slide into morning huddles.

Top to bottom: Members of the product manufacturing team: Caleb Ockert, final inspection coordinator; Sean Pataky, metal fab assembly; and Bailey Kivell, sewing specialist.

ordered one of TentCraft’s largest tents to distribute to each county health organization across the state.

Just … don’t call it a pivot.

“I’ve been calling it a ‘switcheroo,’ because I think pivot is one of those words that is getting so overused. Like ‘synergy,’” Bulloch laughs.

Supporting families While the pandemic has certainly changed the face of office life at TentCraft, employees can still reap the benefits of the company’s progressive programs. During the peaks of NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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Left and below: TentCraft’s products range from this purple dome for Soccer.com, set up here at the LA Coliseum for a Premier League event, to the Kaiser Permanente drive-thru screening setup seen below.

Opposite: Outside Salesman Steve Damman answers a call with the help of his son, Jackson; Inside Sales Rep Nicole Falkiewicz and her boyfriend Cameron enjoy some rented snowshoes courtesy of TentCraft Outdoors.

Covid, the Infants in the Workplace program has been on and Company culture off, but that doesn’t lessen its popularity among employees. , living, is a Starting in 2017, new breathing, parents have had the opthing, and it’s totally tion to return after maternity or paternity leave to on all of a four-day workweek us with the opportunity to bring their child in and investing in it. with them—a huge help for new moms and dads, especially with a significant lack of daycare available in the Traverse City area. The program also offers extra paid –MATT BULLOCH maternity/paternity leave for TentCraft’s production employees who aren’t able to bring their kids into a manufacturing environment. TentCraft’s Infants in the Workplace even inspired the City of Traverse City’s infants’ program, which was adopted two years later in 2019.

“The goal with the program was to create another component to our focus on people, and to be able to broadcast that so people know that we’re serious about our work-life balance,” says Rob Hanel. “And, of course, to offer more baby bonding time for mothers and fathers and a more flexible return to work plan.”

Hanel says more than 20 parents have utilized the program since its inception (including both him and Bulloch), and there are guidelines of course—no changing diapers at

dynamic malleable

dependent participating

this spread: photos courtesy of TentCraft

People support a world that they help create.”

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your desk (bathrooms are equipped with changing stations, with an additional room for mothers to breastfeed or pump) and no leaving your child at the office to run an errand.

But new parents can enjoy having their babies at their desk and even taking them into meetings (or having a coworker watch an unruly or sleepy baby). The feedback? Overwhelmingly positive.

Outside Salesman Steve Damman loved bringing his son Jackson to the office, finding it especially helpful on the days when his daycare was closed.

“It was awesome to be able to have him around and relieve that stress of finding reliable care for your kids,” Damman says. “It’s no secret that we’re a fairly young company. There are a lot of families with young kids. So, it’s cool to see the company evolve with its employees and do what it needs to do for us.”

Hanel is also excited about a new child care pilot program TentCraft is participating in as of December 2021: MI Tri-Share. Other companies joining the pilot include

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Cherry Republic, Traverse City Tourism, Munson Healthcare, Skilled Manufacturing Inc. and Interlochen Center for the Arts.

“Many working-class folks don’t have access to basic and essential early childhood services for reasons beyond their control, and cost is one of them,” Hanel says. “[This] pilot program is designed to offset the cost of childcare for certain income earners by 66 percent.”

The premise is that the employer and the State of Michigan split the cost of daycare with the employee (the state pays 33.3 percent, TentCraft pays 33.3 percent and the employee covers the remaining 33.3 percent). So far, two employees have signed on, and Hanel’s excited to see how the program plays out.

“Our company strategy has always revolved around people—if you don’t get the people side of the business right,

you will never get your growth right,” Hanel says. “We know our people could go work anywhere else in Traverse City, but they choose to work at TentCraft, so we have an obligation to be on the forefront of issues that are important to them. Sometimes it’s what styles of beers they enjoy, and sometimes it’s child care.”

Getting outdoors And while Hanel is excited about the company’s child care opportunities, his favorite program is one near and dear to his heart—gear rentals through TentCraft Outdoors.

Inspired by his previous work for Backcountry.com, where employees had access to a gear locker, Hanel saw an opportunity in 2016 to move beyond a run-of-the-mill

health and wellness program and implement something similar at TentCraft. He applied for a grant, which covered almost all of the equipment—kayaks, stand-up paddleboards and snowshoes. Employees can reserve the gear for weekends, and weekdays are first-come, first-served. They also recently added weekly on-site yoga sessions led by a private instructor.

“In Northern Michigan, we have amazing natural resources around us: water, snow, sand.

So, getting people outdoors and getting their families active was the goal,” Hanel says.

“People use stuff all summer long, and in the winter, half of those snowshoes are gone every weekend. There are even little snowshoes for kids—I love to see when those are checked out.”

Bulloch was skeptical, at first. “I just didn’t think people would use it. That’s why you hire people who are smarter than you,” he laughs.

Now, he’s completely on board. If someone finishes their work early for the day, they don’t have to sit at a computer doing nothing at 4 p.m. TentCraft’s philosophy? Grab a kayak and explore a nearby river. It is Northern Michigan, after all.

Looking ahead For Bulloch, the future is uncertain—what will happen after the boom in medical demand dies down?

“I do worry a little bit about next year when medical tails off before events come back,” he says. “But I think the fact that we’ve had two pretty good years and can pay off some of our equipment enables us to be able to ride out what could be some stormy seas.”

There are some build initiatives—developing new markets or products—Bulloch is excited about, like a new company called Century Covers, producing swimming pool covers. TentCraft is also working on building its e-commerce capabilities, so clients have the option to buy directly online rather than talking to a salesperson.

And then there are the expand initiatives, centered around acquiring other companies.

“I do think in 10 years, we will have a little constellation of manufacturing companies,” Bulloch says. They may not tie-in directly with TentCraft’s work, but he sees potential labor-sharing opportunities and other meaningful connections. “I think we can be a $100 million group of manufacturing companies.”

No matter the future, Bulloch plans to always prioritize work-life balance. “When we’re here, let’s work hard,” he says. “But when you’re not here, live your life.”

Allison Jarrell is the managing editor of Traverse Magazine.

You can reach her at allison@mynorth.com.

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a forage for the ages A boy’s love for the Northern woods inspires a generational family business.

BY KATE BASSETT PHOTOS BY EE BERGER

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Made in NORTHERN

MICHIGAN

Opposite: Kate Marshall, Justin Rashid and Noah Marshall-Rashid with a spread of freshly dried morels in the mid-’80s.

Below: Justin, Noah and Kate today at American Spoon headquarters.

long before

the local foods movement had a name or trendy aisle in grocery stores, American Spoon founder Justin Rashid understood how pure, intense flavors could transport a person into the heart of the fruit-lands he loves. Forty years

evidenced in the unassuming gray industrial building on Clarion Avenue in Petoskey, where Northern Michigan’s story is lovingly told, one glass jar at a time. Copper kettles still blend smallbatch favorites. Words like “integrity” are spoken about fruit with reverence.

And local farmers are known by first

later, that passion still defines Ameri-

names. But to appreciate how this leg-

can Spoon as the next generation, Noah

endary purveyor of spoonable pre-

Marshall-Rashid, solidifies the compa-

serves (and now, so much more) became

ny’s place in an ever-growing artisan

the success Noah now stewards, we

food culture. Like his father, Noah be-

first have to go back to his father’s

lieves in slow foods for a high-speed age

childhood. Back to the origin story of a

and putting classic flavors first. This is

boy, who fell in love with a land.

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deep roots It’s a hot summer day in the early 1960s, and a station wagon kicks up dust on a country road near Indian River.

It’s filled to the brim with kids in a quiet haze of happy, lake-drenched exhaustion.

All but one. Picture a mess of brown hair, bright almondshaped eyes and a slight gap-toothed smile. He’s wide awake and pushing his mother’s buttons. So much so that, four miles from his family’s log summer homestead in Wildwood,

As a young adult, however, Justin and his wife, Kate Marshall, took a surprising detour far from the wilderness: New York City.

“It didn’t last long, thankfully,” he says. “We were performing artists. We realized even if we made it, we’d have to live there, and that just wasn’t going to work.”

Before coming back to Michigan, the Marshall-Rashids tried Maine, where they discovered acquiring local status took about 200 years, and Midwestern sensibilities turned out to be more their speed. And so, to Wildwood they returned.

“We were a farm-to-table market before the car screeches to a halt. Wide-eyed siblings watch in part awe, part giddy horror, as their mother sighs and says, “out.”

Moments later, 9-year-old Justin Rashid kicks a pebble and looks around. It doesn’t take long for the air above the road to settle. He watches the meadow grasses hula. Listens to birds he can’t yet identify, but recognizes all the

same. Catches sight of a squirrel, maybe the bushy tail of a fox. Inhaling the fragrance of late summer on the edge of hardwoods and conifers, a feeling hits. It’s one he will hone over years of rambling through Up North forests and fields. One he comes to recognize as the marrow of life.

Freedom. Wonder. Wildness.

“I often took to the woods when I’d worn out my welcome,” Justin, almost 70 now, recalls with the same spark in his eyes.

“We owned 40 acres—including 10 acres of raspberries—that backed up to 30,000 acres of state land. That’s really how my love of foraging started,” he says, before adding with an eye roll and a laugh, “but back then, it was just called walking around in the woods, and getting hungry.”

Justin’s friends soon showed him how to harvest leeks and look for blackberry bushes. He was 13 when he found his first morel mushroom, and “was hooked.” A native Detroiter, Justin spent summer months hunting nature’s delicacies.

“It was, in all honesty, the antidote to my personality,” he notes.

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“We opened up a roadside market,” Justin says. “We sold everything I liked to find, and I’d go around to local friends who grew things. We were a farm-to-table market before farm-to-table was a thing.”

It was—not joking—The Whole Food Store.

Like so much of the American Spoon story, serendipity struck when Justin gave a customer who waited tables in New York a ride to the local airport. She was panicking about forgetting to bring “some sort of wild mushroom” back to a hotshot young chef.

Justin simply replied, “He wants morels. Give me his number, I’ll take care of it.”

The chef, Larry Forgione, did want morels and Justin delivered.

“Larry said they were the best he’d ever had, and asked what else I could send,” Justin says, launching into a story about Forgione flying to Northern Michigan to see a man about some buffalo. The chef marveled at Lake Michigan, and the endless orchards he saw.

“I explained we have the best microclimate for growing fruit in the country,” Justin says, smiling as he remembers Forgione’s next question: “Do you know how to make jam?”

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“We were both 29, and too young to realize what we didn’t know. We were blissfully ignorant of all that went into food processing, and we jumped in with both feet.”

Justin recalls the early days in the basement of Kilwin’s downtown Petoskey candy shop: Forgione would send recipes and Justin rounded up local ingredients, and set to work making magic in copper kettles with wooden stir paddles.

“The smells were what sold people,” he says. “We tripled down on the flavors, and people were drawn in the door.”

That’s exactly what happened when a married couple from Charlevoix who wrote for The New York Times walked by, and a story on this little artisan business soon found its way into the newsprint.

“We got something like 6,000 requests for orders or catalogs, which we didn’t even have at the time,” Justin says, shaking his head at the memory of postcards and letters. “I guess you could say our mail order business grew from there.”

The right concept, at the right time—paper and postage were cheap—but Justin says they never took a single

customer for granted.

“It takes effort to place an order, especially back then when you had to pick up a phone or mail back a piece of paper,” he says. “You’ve got to really want the product. There

Left to right: Rows of cherry trees at Bardenhagen Farms in Suttons Bay; Noah, Justin and Noah’s oldest son, Milo Marshall-Rashid, pick leeks on the family property in Wildwood; April Keller, a 30-year veteran at American Spoon, holds fresh Red Haven peaches; James Kilmer makes preserves in the American Spoon kitchen; well-stocked shelves; the original American Spoon store in Petoskey’s Gaslight District.

the next generation Noah is adamant about carrying on the legacy his parents created. It’s about joy and authenticity. It’s also about meeting customers where they are (and how they shop) so that American Spoon can keep leading the artisan food industry it helped put on the map.

“We currently do about 70 percent of our business online, and the majority of our marketing resources are directed toward growing that channel,” Noah says. “The truth is, more and more people are discovering and buying specialty food online. We see spoon.com as our sixth and largest storefront, with the broadest reach.” (American Spoon has five retail stores—the original location in Petoskey, and

others in Harbor Springs, Charlevoix, Traverse City and Saugatuck.)

Spoon.com was first launched in 1996, though it’s been revamped several times since, most recently last year with an updated shipping program. The website itself feels like a narrative work of art. It combines a vintage vibe with stellar photography, recipes and curated

farm-to-table was a thing.” –Justin Rashid has to be a longing, and we thought about that every day as we stood beside those kettles in the kitchen.”

In 1989, they heeded the grumblings of a back-aching UPS driver named Wally, who was tired of wheeling carts full of boxes through downtown. “We moved into a defunct slaughterhouse just out of town, where we still operate. At the time, we had no idea we were pioneers for this model of direct-to-customer artisan foods with a powerful sense of place. We just wanted to celebrate what we loved.”

gift selections. Even the subscribe section (“Get news from Up North.”) gives warm fuzzies.

The elder Rashid credits his son’s instincts when talking about the way online sales have boosted their bottom line.

This was especially true during the pandemic when cooking became a way to escape the doldrums of staying home.

“I’m the luckiest guy on Earth, to have a son who wanted to carry this forward and has a better head for business than I ever did,” Justin says.

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“It’s old-school marketing. Kind of like the old-school craft of making artisan jam,” Noah explains. “But all the fancy marketing in the world won’t make someone buy something through the mail twice. We have to have a great product. Always.”

The catalogs, like the website and store displays, remain an ode to all things artisan food. But now, in addition to preserves, there are also salsas, grilling sauces, even a signature margarita mix. And these offerings continue to grow: a granola kitchen is in the works; so too are more baking mixes that “pair perfectly with jams, compotes or dessert sauces.”

“We’re also creating partner products, like the new Blueberry Coffee Cake we make with Zingerman’s Bakehouse in Ann Arbor, using a recipe we developed and featuring our favorite Michigan Rubel blueberries,” Noah says, adding that he is happy to collaborate with vendors who meet his high standards for good, real food.

After all, he did grow up in the kitchens of American Spoon. “There were no Kraft Singles in my childhood,” he adds with a laugh.

“Coming back in 2004, I was certainly worried about the future of American Spoon,” Noah remembers. “When September 11 happened, it wiped out the majority of our airline food service business, which was about 35 percent of our revenue at the time. And Michigan was in a recession.

There were real questions about the business, without a clear path forward. But, I also thought I could fix everything in two years, and then go to law school.”

Youthful arrogance quickly lost out to something stronger: love. He met a girl. He grew more and more rooted in the family business. He stayed, learned and started to lead.

“We definitely had to go through the woods for a while to figure things out,” Noah says. “We had to go back to our foundation—no one between us and our customers. Doing so celebrates what makes us really special and unique: artisan-scale food production, direct relationships with farmers, small-town Northern Michigan values and quality of life.”

The ethos stands true today, as American Spoon fruit processors still carry in fresh berries, still use copper pots and still demand a purity of flavor.

“It comes down to the people,” Justin says. “Our staff is incredible. Just good, hardworking, local folks. Some of them have been with us for decades. We have people who are skilled and talented, and every one of them shares the same commitment to quality.”

His son agrees, adding that he loves to share their work with the world. It’s one of the reasons, even with successful retail shops and the strength of their website, nearly two million catalogs a year are put into circulation.

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“I’m the luckiest guy on Earth, to have a son who wanted to carry this forward and has a better head for business than I ever did.”

–Justin Rashid The second generation of the American Spoon family eats just as well as the first, as Noah and his wife keep their house well-stocked with favorites like whole seed mustard paired with sardines—even the kids devour it—and chocolate hazelnut butter which, unsurprisingly, disappears by the spoonful straight from the jar.

“We eat an embarrassing amount of pancakes (à la American Spoon Buckwheat Pancake Mix) in our house,” Noah says as he shakes his head. “Also, an absurd amount of PB&Js.” It’s a simple joy, knowing your family is well-fed and connected to the place their food was grown. But it’s invaluable to someone like Justin, who has watched a lot of contemporaries sell out over the years. “It’s always been more than making a living for us. It was the foundation for our lives,” he says.

And with the next generation taking the reins, Justin gets to relax back into the wilds of Wildwood, often with his son’s children in tow. “We have been, and always will be, connected to fruit and the foraging culture. It’s an endless source of fascination to me, and at almost 70, I still have that same childlike sense of wonder when going into the woods.”

Kate Bassett is news director at the Harbor Light newspaper. Her novel, “Words and Their Meanings,” is available in bookstores and on the web. kate@ncpublish.com

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Clockwise: American Spoon’s Apple & Onion Jam is fab on burgers; the Bloody Mary Mix is popular for a reason; a slab pie made with American Spoon Sour Cherries; Red Raspberry Preserves atop morning waffles—mmmm! Opposite: Noah Marshall-Rashid with two of his kids, Willem and Nina.

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PHOTOS BY MICHAEL POEHLMAN

BY CARA MCDONALD

F L I G H T TAKING HOW A NEW TECH INCUBATOR IS NURTURING FLEDGLING BUSINESSES AND A CHANGING WORKFORCE UP NORTH

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Made in NORTHERN

D edicated desk space, a collegial environment, good coffee— for Ken Davies, the coworking space at 20Fathoms was a no-brainer. It was 2018, and Davies was working remotely in Traverse City for Microsoft as its director of innovation, energy strategy and research. The tech-focused coworking environment he found at 20Fathoms was the perfect way to get out of the house (remember those days?) and connect with like-minded co-workers, all while enjoying a million-dollar view of the bay.

Turns out that desk-with-a-view was worth quite a bit more.

Like $70 million more.

That’s the amount of funding Davies has gained access to for his own startup since being nurtured by and graduating from 20Fathoms, a tech startup incubator that is changing the landscape for entrepreneurs and businesses in Northern Michigan.

It seems the entrepreneurial environment, mentorship, education and support at 20Fathoms was contagious— months after joining the coworking program, Davies left his post at Microsoft and was inspired to co-found Birch Infrastructure, which develops data center industrial parks and the renewable energy infrastructure needed to power them. In 2019, Birch received its first outside investment from Casey Cowell, founder and principal of Traverse City investment firm Boomerang Catapult.

Davies, now co-founder and chief strategy officer of Birch, credits local entrepreneurship leaders 20Fathoms and Boomerang Catapult, in part, for the company’s early success. “Both organizations were instrumental in launching Birch and getting us to this point,” he says.

As funding flowed in and the team grew, it was time for Davies to leave the nest and set up offices on State Street.

Birch Infrastructure graduated from 20Fathoms in the summer of 2021, the fourth scalable tech startup to graduate since 20Fathoms’ founding in 2018.

But at this lively incubator, things have only just begun to hatch.

MICHIGAN

T e c h i n c u b at o r s s e e m less an Up North thing and

more the stuff of Silicon Valley whiz kids in expensive turtlenecks and minimalist eyewear. For good reason—they were born in the heart of that tech-boom headquarters.

One of the first tech incubators in the U.S. was established in 1981 by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell to help launch startup and early-stage companies.

The point was to encourage bold-thinking entrepreneurs so they could create the technologies of the future, realizing that those ideas needed nurturing, mentorship and cash.

Money, however, is not the sole predictor of what makes a startup flourish or fail.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all startups fail within the first year, and 75 to 90 percent tank before year five. Cash flow is certainly an issue—it takes money to grow, and growth is essential for any startup’s success. But a survey by startup studio Wilbur Labs asked 150 company founders for their recommendations. The consensus was that a great way to raise the odds of startup success is to learn from current and past entrepreneurs, and also that strong business planning is the surest way to avoid failure.

That’s where incubators like 20Fathoms come in. With guidance from a board of directors, nonprofits or private organizations provide mentorship, education, support, networking (in particular, connection to potential funders) for aspiring entrepreneurs from the idea stage all the way up through stacking a team, growth and scaling.

“Our roots are in tech and innovation incubation,” says Eric Roberts, executive director of 20Fathoms. “More and more companies don’t have all the resources, skill sets and access to get off the ground. What we’re doing is creating an environment where those startups can thrive and launch, and then they graduate.” In addition to Birch Industries, previous graduates include ATLAS Space Operations, HealthBridge and SampleServe, with more in the works.

Removing barriers for startups isn’t just good business for entrepreneurs; it can also have a profound impact on the area’s economy, Roberts adds.

“If Covid has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is a given and diversity and flexibility for any local economy is a must—particularly one so focused on one industry, tourism,” he explains.

Attracting and nurturing more year-round industries is a key focus for 20Fathoms, as well as local economic development leaders such as Traverse Connect.

“If we can get good jobs here that will support a population that can go to our restaurants in February, that pay for road improvements and keep hospitality folks employed, it’s more stable,” Roberts says. “We take less of a beating. It’s a healthier type of economy.”

The 20Fathoms mission is to provide industry expertise, business resources, educational programming and an energetic community and work space.

But what does that look like to a Traverse-area entrepreneur with a dream?

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I n 2 0 1 5 , ATLAS Space Operations was a scrappy Califor-

nia startup with a handful of employees and a mission to connect humanity through space. The company specializes in antennas that communicate with satellites in space and provides satellite communications as a service.

In just two short years, Morgan Stanley named them a top 12 disruptor in the satellite industry. But as they grew, co-founder Mike Carey, who was splitting his time between California, Colorado Springs and Traverse City, began looking for support on the business side of things.

“I’ve found starting a business to be far more challenging than I ever expected,” he shared in a recent interview with a local podcast Terrapin Small Biz Connection. “And one of the things I’ve learned is that there’s a lot of people who want to try to help you succeed. The colleagues who are kindred spirits in the entrepreneurial world are just really, really refreshing because this is a hard grind, and a lot of energy goes into creating a new business.”

A chance encounter in California with a member of the Michigan Angel Fund investment group led to a pitch and an offer to invest in ATLAS Space Operations—with one catch.

“They said, ‘Hey, we’ll invest in your company, but you have to move it to Traverse City,’” Carey recalls. “What they didn’t realize is that I lived in Traverse City and commuted to California. I looked up at the sky and said, ‘Thank you, God.’” Carey explains that satellites don’t care where you control them from, and he could frankly do this work from many places. But the nurturing and community provided by 20Fathoms and regional investors, as well as the skills of local talent, allowed him to headquarter ATLAS Space Operations here.

one-person business. Johanson had worked running product management at LLamasoft, an Ann Arbor-based supplychain software company, but he felt the company was missing opportunities to do things better, faster and smarter.

So, he founded Starboard, his own supply-chain software company in 2019. “Since then we’ve gone from making just enough to keep one person employed to a team of six employees with six contractors,” Johanson says. “20Fathoms took us from startup to early growth. At first, it was a lot of referrals: everything from nuts and bolts like website man-

“ W e ’ r e d o i n g a l o t o f w o r k t o at t r a c t b u s i n e s s a n d b r i n g pay l e v e l s t h at s u s ta i n fa m i l i e s . T h i s i s a d r e a m p l a c e t o l i v e — a n d I ’ d l i k e i t t o s tay t h at w ay. ”

- Eric Roberts

Over the next three years, ATLAS projects the need for an additional 10 hires in their technical functional teams, including full-stack software development, data science, network operations, security and technical sales writing—and his preference is to locate these positions in Traverse City.

“The fact that we have the opportunity to do it in Traverse City is just a gift,” Carey says. “I don’t see any particular challenge at all in sustaining this business in Traverse City.

It’s generally speaking a disaster-free zone. We don’t have to worry about earthquakes. Yeah, it gets cold. So, I just advise those that come here from California to use a hat.”

Not every 20Fathoms startup is as dazzling and futuristic—but they have a common emphasis on software technology.

Member Steve Johanson started out at 20Fathoms as a 36

agement, or accounting,” he explains. “Then I hooked into two mentors who really guided me in branding and positioning the company.”

Johanson describes the mindset struggle many entrepreneurs face, particularly if they come from working inside a big company. “Suddenly, you’re doing it all. Previously you could write a six-figure check and solve problems; now, you’re trying to figure out absolutely everything on your own. Sometimes having someone accessible as a mentor even for an hour or two is enormously valuable.”

And those mentorships can have double value, as many are tied into Michigan programs such as the Business Accelerator Fund with direct connections to advisors with money to spend. “I don’t have to spend hours going to find these programs,” Johanson says. “20Fathoms brings

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these people in to us.”

Ditto for the space, the community and people to knock ideas around with, he adds.

“You need to funnel your energy and find those people and programs—sorting through them is hard,” he says. “To be introduced, and led to them—it’s priceless.”

T h e h o p e s o f a handful of big-thinking

entrepreneurs may not feel very personal to many of us carving out our own dreams here in the North. Which raises a rather blunt question: What’s in it for the rest of us if 20Fathoms’ efforts are a success—or not?

This is where 20Fathoms has dedicated itself to investing not just in the growth of businesses, but also in the human capital of the region through education. A constant flow of programming is available to members and non-members alike, providing expertise on everything from managing intellectual property to closing a sale or building trust within your team.

In particular, the focus has shifted to providing tech education to help grow a workforce able to meet the demands of new businesses. Tech professionals like software developers are some of the most in-demand people in the country.

However, businesses in rural areas like Traverse City often find it difficult to hire enough qualified tech employees due to a limited talent pool.

In 2019, before the pandemic struck, 20Fathoms taught coding and cyber security to 250 people in the region.

“Some of those people were starting down a new career path and learning the fundamentals. Others have been working in tech for years and learned new skills that positioned them for promotions,” Roberts explains.

That education effort got a boost in late 2021 when the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity - Workforce Development awarded 20Fathoms a $250,000 grant to support its tech education and workforce development programming.

Opposite and above: Sarahbeth Ramsey, a marketing professional, values 20Fathoms as a coworking space, offering collaboration and a view of the bay. Below: 20Fathoms helped Steve Johanson take Starboard, a supply-chain software company, from one person to six employees and six contractors. Previous spread: Ken Davies launched Birch Infrastructure from 20Fathoms, and the incubator helped him raise $70 million.

“With this new grant, the first and most important thing we’ll be doing is reconvening with local companies and listening—that’s job one,” Roberts says. They’ll be identifying the tech and IT skill sets needed and then developing inhouse, hands-on coursework around those skills, including the continuation of the tccodes learning community for software developers, expansion of tccyber for cybersecurity professionals and introduction of a new program focused on data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

20Fathoms will also work to create and expand workforce development programs with its partners, including Northwest Michigan Works!, Northwestern Michigan College, Michigan Technological University, Traverse Connect, Newton’s Road, TCNewTech and local employers. Courses are slated to begin in early 2022 with options available for those at all stages of their careers.

The bottom line, Roberts says, is that communities capable of providing a steady and reinforced pipeline of tech talent will attract employers and provide an increased tax base that benefits the entire community. “We’re doing a lot of work to attract business and bring pay levels that sustain families. This is a dream place to live—and I’d like it to stay that way.”

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits.

Michael Poehlman is primarily a portrait photographer living in Traverse City. He specializes in people and personalities, attributing much of his experience to living and working for many years in New York City and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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Made in NORTHERN

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North

Meet designer Abby Foster, the woman behind the revered clothing brand Toile and Stripes.

by Kim Schneider / photos by Courtney Kent

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When she was in

Artsy beginnings Foster spent several school-year summers at Interlochen Center for the Arts, returning later for more in-depth study there and at an arts-focused boarding school in California. But the art of clothing design was a totally new pursuit, honed by buying and devouring patterning textbooks, then using her home space in a guest house on her parents’ Northport property where she’d lived since her elementary years, to sketch, cut patterns and lay them out on the floor.

“I just fell in love,” she says. “The whole construction process is so fun to me. It’s a giant puzzle.”

her early 20s, musical theater actor and dancer Abby Foster had a major complaint with clothing she’d find to wear when not on stage. The clothes not only didn’t flow; they also didn’t allow a young mom with a new baby the freedom to do what she needed to do throughout her day: look and feel good (but not fussy) when getting down on the floor with an infant, running errands, hiking with friends and then heading off to meet with business colleagues.

When her mother gifted her a sewing machine at age 21, Foster says her first thought was, “This skill has to be outdated … In my complete ignorance, I thought, ‘No one is doing this anymore.’”

Before long, the now-owner of Suttons Bay’s Toile and Stripes clothing boutique had discovered an active community on Instagram—makers who inspired her to create clothing she had before only hoped existed. In doing so, she realized an undiscovered talent and love for design that has garnered a cult following for her line of sustainable handmade clothing for real-life pursuits.

As it turned out, Foster’s sense of body movement from dance—the way you have to be aware of not only how your own body moves but also the bodies of others with whom you’re dancing—offered an advantage. Foster shares that she proved especially adept at what’s called flat patterning, something distinct from the drape patterning you might see on “Project Runway” where designers build the piece on a mannequin and later lay it flat and cut.

With flat patterning, “You’ve got rulers, pencils, pens and you’re essentially drawing out one-dimensional shapes

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that get cut out of that paper to become two dimensional,” Foster explains. “Then you cut them out of fabric to fit a 3D model. I was a terrible math student, but I could see the shapes. This math made sense to me.”

In 2017, she set up an online shop called Toile and Stripes, the name she’d previously given to a running blog of her creative design process. Her formula for success was completed by adding in her genuine desire to help other women live better lives and an artist’s eye and sensibility that uses stunning textiles as a base, says friend and frequent customer Kelsey McQuown, a Leland-based jewelry designer. Like the best of artists, Foster wants each piece to go to a customer who will wear the work, love it and live in it.

“She has such an eye for how to style pieces in multiple ways and stretch them out to be versatile and useful in different seasons and types of events,” McQuown says. “She’s not precious. She’d be the first to tell you to wear her piece doing anything—cooking, running around in the yard, going to the beach. It’s about living in the clothing.”

While Foster still sells a majority of her clothing online, in April 2021, she moved her sewing studio out of her home to a sunny spot with a bay view that holds both workspace and her own retail space.

An unexpected boom in sales at the start of the pandemic helped fund the expansion. “People were home with more time on their hands, and they were connecting with me on Instagram, looking to support small businesses and building their wardrobes,” Foster says.

Sales increased between 500 and 700 percent over the past three years, and her once online-only customers have taken vacations centered around meeting the maker of their favorite clothing and adding to their wardrobe staples. It was still a risk to take on retail space amid an ever-evolving pandemic, but the perfect spot opened up as her customers continued to clamor for a brick and mortar store. With clothes Foster describes as having an investment price point, customers want to try them on, be sure they fit as they’d hoped and talk to the person who made them.

“I always said, ‘I’m keeping it in my home until it’s lucrative enough to get out,’” says Foster. “This past April, that happened.”

This spread: Foster’s fabric selections are anything but random. She sews with only natural fibers—linen, cotton, wool and silk—that might be more expensive at first, but age well and end up costing only pennies per wear. “I quickly learned that if you don’t spend the money on the fabric, that fabric is going to stain more easily; it’s going to tear.

It’s going to somehow fail you.”

“She’s not precious. She’d be the first to tell you to wear her piece doing anything—cooking, running around in the yard, going to the beach. It’s about living in the clothing.”

–Kelsey McQuown

The secret As the music of another Interlochen alum, Norah Jones, plays on the music system of her Suttons Bay shop, Foster looks luminous as she stands before a collection that’s a muted rainbow of soft blue-grays, sand, cream and forest greens with the occasional pop of the gold of a garden mum. Elsewhere in the store,

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she’s displayed a circle of colorful napkins she makes from her fabric scraps, along with handmade candles, journals and tea made by other artisans and the rare clothing pieces she doesn’t make herself: sweaters hand-knitted in Africa, each signed by the artist with a note about how many hours went into the piece.

The bulk of the store is dedicated to Foster’s handiwork, and she could sign each of her pieces, too, if she so chose. She’s the one designing every piece in her T&S label, ordering the fabric from countries like the United Kingdom and sewing each garment by hand. As she turns 30, with a fiancé and a son who is now 9, she’s creating those garments to fit her own lifestyle and, she says, that of the many artistic, hard-working and entrepreneurial women who inspire her—pieces she intentionally creates to be not overly

embellished or super trendy but to be simple, beautiful and draw the eyes to the person wearing them.

As she points to her “line worker dress,” a simple tank-style dress with a vintage feel, she notes it was her third or fourth design and one created when she was home sewing full time and needing something akin to a 1940s factory worker dress for herself, but with a bit more style. “I needed something simple I could do errands in, meet people to show them my designs, and I needed just one pocket for my phone.”

Her line staple, the “Kat pants,” are comfortable and trouser-like, cropped to hit just above the ankle to be worn with boots in winter, over a bathing suit in summer and to be something anyone can “always grab and know it’s comfortable and it looks good on me,” she explains. Ditto the roomy but slightly tailored “Grandpa shirt” that she’s wearing this day in a black that matches her boots, tucked into the waist of her gold skirt.

Other pieces come and go, like a tunic in a creamy oatmeal-colored wool, inspired by a design from the Middle Ages, or the European-style “Karl tunic,” named after a grandfather who came from Germany and that cleverly combines the concepts of the basic black dress with that of a comfortable hooded sweatshirt.

“I’d say there’s a universal thread throughout our customers that they’re looking for workhorse pieces,” Foster continues. “They want a dress they can wear in the spring, put a jacket over in the fall or put a sweater with in winter. I always tell people, ‘I know the clothes are more expensive, I understand that. And we try really hard to keep the prices as low as possible and fair for what the work and fabric are worth. But if you’re wearing something a couple of days a week, it can come out to pennies per wear.’ And I think it might be worth investing in more than fast fashion pieces made out of polyester that won’t biodegrade for hundreds of years.”

This spread: That clothing pieces have names—the Kat pant, the Bodie dress, the Bethany tunic—is no surprise.

Foster’s friends are both inspiration and test subjects. She looks for relatives or friends with different body types and sends them out to wear pieces doing anything they’d normally do, then tweaks designs if they feel a dress is too short, a sleeve too long, the buttons pulling.

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The beauty of being a designer and small-batch maker is that you create the store over each season, Foster says. Any time a customer walks in, they’ll find new color combinations and creations.

Subtly evoking Michigan’s north Foster’s customers hail from across the country. Many are based in Northern Michigan, but just as many are in Los Angeles, New York City, Colorado or Maine. When they say they want to wear a piece of Michigan’s north, she surmises they’re talking about the way life is lived differently here. Local women who wear, inspire and test her designs are artists, chiropractors, entrepreneurs and goat farmers.

“There’s a common thread of that Northern Michigan lifestyle,” she says. “I know they’re going out hiking, they’re being active. They appreciate the lake. There’s something magical and very attractive about that.”

Designing with that much nature in mind meant that while sustainability didn’t start out as a key part of the brand, that’s how it evolved. “Most of the early samples of fabric I got were synthetics, and I said, ‘It doesn’t feel good to me,’” Foster recalls. “I went down a rabbit hole and learned how synthetics biodegrade and said, ‘Oh my goodness. No.’ I saved up a bunch of money and did my first collection in linen and cotton, and I was so happy with what it turned out to be. I loved the feel of it and decided I’m not going back.

“When you’re done with a piece—if you wear it to shreds, it’s ripped and it’s done—you can put it in your garden and between three and six months later it’s gone and all your plants will grow, no problem.”

Looking ahead Foster faces the challenges of every artistic entrepreneur: Do you add retail space overhead to the already existing costs of fabric, tags, thread, needles, machine oil, tools? And then there is the ongoing challenge to

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continually be creative, especially when not in a traditional tourist season.

“When it starts to slow down, you ask, is the market looking for something different? Have I not been engaging enough?” she says.

“You’re constantly navigating what your customers want to know about you and the product you’re creating and how to share that in a way they’re able to understand and grasp.”

The main challenge now is keeping up with her success. Foster is sewing full-time and some weeks selling everything she is able to make. She’s considering adding another maker to her team and would love to, one day, open a manufacturing facility through which she could teach other women this marketable skill.

“But it’s been good,” she says. “I’m so unbelievably happy with the response I’ve gotten from people who like the clothing.” Foster acknowledges that the work can get overwhelming but adds, customer support makes all the difference. “It’s easier to be overwhelmed when you have people who are like, ‘We love it, and we want to buy it, whenever it comes out.’”

Kim Schneider is a long-time travel writer specializing in Michigan adventures, food and wine. The Midwest Travel Journalist Association has named her Mark Twain Travel Writer of the Year, and she’s the author of “100 Things to Do in Traverse City Before You Die.” Courtney Kent is one-half of The Compass Points Here, a photography and videography company based in Traverse City. thecompasspointshere.com

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2022

Medical Insider Professionals • Hospitals • Practices • Technology

A NEW APPROACH TO RESTORATIVE YOGA Get Healthy, Be Strong: Mathieu Boldron & Ashtynne Hudecz’s approach to yoga

“I can’t run a marathon.”

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New Tech Makes Dental Work a Breeze Less stress and discomfort for patients Innovative Infrastructure Inside McLaren’s new state-of-the-art hospital wing

From Rock Bottom to Recovery

Munson’s addiction program offers hope, help, success

Petoskey neurosurgeon meets needs of aging population Nephrologist Dr. John Stanifer brings life-changing procedure to Traverse City

A SUPPLEMENT TO

How family doctors are using telemedicine to improve patient care

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A MyNorth Media Publication PRESIDENT/EDITOR IN CHIEF

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Table of Contents MI 4 | The Unstoppables

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PROOFREADERS REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

ART DIRECTOR PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

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Two courageous women refuse to give up on their dream: running a marathon.

MI 9 | Dream Machine

Kim Schneider, Cara McDonald, Kandace Chapple

Nephrologist Dr. John Stanifer brings a life-saving treatment to Northern Michigan, helping patients fight autoimmune disorders, cancers and more.

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MI 13 | Brains and Heart

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GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Claire Houser

Dr. Justin Thomas is no ordinary small-town doc.

This Petoskey neurosurgeon tailored his training specifically for the needs of the North.

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Tabatha VanWingerden

From France to Traverse City, two instructors share their passion for physical, mental and emotional wellness.

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SALES ACCOUNT COORDINATOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

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Mike Alfaro Ann Gatrell Julie James Meg Lau Kirk Small

MI 18 | The Future of Medicine How to best utilize telehealth services—from the technology required to best practices and protocols.

Erin Lutke Ashlyn Korienek Libby Stallman Kim Stewart

MI 22 | Opioid Treatment Program Returns Munson’s successful residential program is once again available after a pandemic-induced pause, along with new recovery coaches.

MI 26 | Innovation in Infrastructure

A SUPPLEMENT TO

Impressive building and equipment expansions at two local hospitals elevate patient care.

MI 29 | Great First Impressions New technologies are lessening the pain of major dental work, and making it more beautiful, lasting and speedy.

MI 30 | For Kid’s Sake

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THE UNSTOPPABLES Defying the odds and breaking down barriers— these courageous people never give up.

by Anne Stanton photos by Michael Poehlman

Amy Spegele On a snowy, cheek-blasting evening, Amy Spegele, a volunteer coach for the Traverse City Track Club, explained to her two mentees—me and a 20-something runner—that instead of running, she run/walks. Forty-five seconds of running, 30 seconds of walking. And she meant a leisurely, chatty kind of walk. Hmmm.

I remembered triumphantly running my first straight three miles.

So back to run/walking? But, hey, I was open.

As the wind bit our foreheads along the Boardman River Trail, Amy called out, “Start!” “Stop!” During one of the walking intervals, she casually mentioned that she suffers from two medical conditions that cause her to blackout when pushing too hard. But not to worry. She only has to stop running and there’ll be no need to call 9-1-1.

So naturally, I was surprised to learn she not only is a running coach but also teaches yoga, holds a third-degree black belt, MI 4

and founded and runs a nonprofit martial arts school. Intrigued, I talked to her a few nights later about her unstoppable approach to exercise.

Amy agrees, it is surprising that she’s so active, given all her physical challenges. In fact, her health problems began in early childhood, when she suffered from vesicoureteral reflux (VUR), a malady caused by cockeyed neurons that sent urine from the bladder back to the ureters, and sometimes all the way to her kidneys. Her condition caused recurring urinary tract infections, not to mention embarrassing accidents.

“I couldn’t run, jump or laugh without an accident, which makes you very uncool on the playground,” she says. “I never grew out of it, as the doctors hoped, so I finally had surgery when I was 12.”

With the operation, accidents and infections became maladies of the past. But it wasn’t so easy losing her ingrained self-image as a non-athlete.

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INSPIRATION STARTS HERE «

Her turning point came in her early 30s when she signed up for a martial arts class with her 5-year-old son. She was instantly enthused, but again, confronted obstacles.

“During one of my first days, I was working with a head instructor, and he was showing me how to punch, and he wanted me to do it quickly,” Amy recalls. “We were drilling over and over again, and my vision started leaving me. I told him, ‘I can’t see very well.’ He said, ‘Keep going! You can do it!’ So, I kept going. Then I told him, ‘The world is black. I can’t see a thing.’

He said, ‘Stop!’”

She did, and the world came back into focus. She later learned that she was afflicted with vasodepressor syndrome (VDS); her blood pressure plummets when her heart rate peaks at around 180. There is no cure for it, but she only has to stand still to avoid blacking out.

Despite the medical setback, Amy’s confidence was bolstered by her success in martial arts. So much so that she began running

with a friend. Knowing the risk of blacking out, she opted for the walk/run system made famous by Jeff Galloway. For months they enjoyed running together, but then her friend began pushing for speedier, longer run intervals. Amy exerted herself to keep pace, but then another medical malady popped up. On faster runs, she’d make an asthmatic, high-pitched sound, a symptom of paradoxical vocal cord dysfunction—essentially her vocal cords began closing off her air supply. Taken too far, she’d pass out.

The solution? Again, just stop.

As it turned out, her friend grew into a competitive racer, and they parted ways—at least when it came to running. Dejected, Amy stopped running altogether.

“I was hard on myself,” Amy says. “I thought, ‘This is horrible for my body,’ ‘Why can’t I keep up?’ ‘Why can’t I go faster?’ But then I realized, ‘This isn’t how I want to talk to myself, this isn’t how I wanted to feel about me.’”

Amy decided to place her ego firmly on the shelf, tie up her shoelaces and return to the shorter splits of 30/30.

“It was then that I realized I actually loved running,” she says. “I loved being out in the fresh air and everything else. And that I had to let go of my times. I am a person just running for myself. Even if I didn’t have these medical issues, I was never going to win anyway … It was ridiculous to put pressure on myself.”

Amy says she runs just as fast this way as she would without the restful walk intervals. But the benefit—above and beyond remaining conscious—is that she doesn’t get injuries. The 30-second walk provides her heart, her breathing and her running muscles with a calming break. She uses the “interval timer” app and bone conduction headphones so she can hear what’s going on around her or talk with a friend. On long runs, she takes time to drink or eat an energy gummy. Sometimes, she just stops altogether to take in a beautiful view.

Amy loves to share what she’s learned with others, envisioning a world where everyone runs, hikes, golfs, swims–whatever—in a joyous way without the mental baggage of judging themselves or others. Carina Conklin, 33, says she teamed up with Amy when she first started running and learned the mindset of running “happily.” But her husband took the opposite tack.

“He was trying to qualify for the Boston and was constantly injured. I just ran for me. That approach eventually clicked for him, too, and that’s how we both run together now,” Carina says.

In the last dozen years, Amy, now 45, has run 31 half marathons, three marathons and a 31-mile ultra, extending her splits into a two-minute run, one-minute walk. In one race, she clocked 10-minute miles.

She has this advice for folks who apologize on social media for their slow pace: Let go of people’s opinions and celebrate yourself for just getting out there.

“When somebody asks, ‘What was your time?’ I say, ‘I passed everybody on the couch. Every single person.’” 4 MyNorth Medical Insider 2022

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INSPIRATION STARTS HERE «

Nicole Enger When Nicole Enger took her maiden run in her Bass Lake subdivision, she decided to leave the house at midnight.

Like some folks who are overweight, she preferred to avoid people’s judgmental stares. She ran nearly a half-mile—lit by the stars and a bright full moon—and went unseen by anyone.

Night after night, she ran a little farther, alone with her thoughts and the sound of her feet hitting the pavement.

The beginning of her transformation was quiet and unannounced, and so were all of her runs that summer. But over the next nine years, she became loud and proud. She made many friends, explored new trails, raced her first sprint triathlon and is now training for her first, in-person marathon. Along the way, she’s lost 95 pounds and shrunk 10 sizes.

“It changed me as a person,” she says.

“For the better.”

The journey for Nicole began on a late spring day, looking out the office window of her family business, thinking she was 34 years old and it was time for a change.

“I got into a crappy relationship—this sounds so cliché—that was on its way out,” she recalls. “I had gained a bunch of weight. I thought, ‘You know what, I want to do something to fix the things that I can change.’ So, I started running, thinking it wouldn’t cost me anything.”

Nicole confesses to hating running in high school—she preferred to walk. But that first summer—each night after the sun went down—she donned a pair of running shoes, a loose cotton T-shirt and leggings, and willed herself out the door.

“I was too embarrassed for people to see my fat butt running,” she recalls. “I remember when I couldn’t get through half a mile, and it was so frustrating. In the beginning, I said negative things. I called myself a fat ass, things like that. But I stuck with it. ‘Gosh, I can run a mile now. Oh! Okay. This is good, this is a good thing.’

And I stuck with it.

“I came to a spot where I didn’t have to constantly reinforce negative thoughts with positive thoughts,” Nicole continues.

“It was more, ‘Hey, I did this! It was just a run, and I’m enjoying it. I’m running at night under the stars, no dogs, no cell phones, no barking, no kids screaming.’”

She had proudly reached the three-mile mark when a friend invited her to join the Wednesday “fun run” with the Traverse City Track Club.

“I thought, I’m a fat person, I run slowly. Runners are tall, they’re thin, they have decent bodies. I am not that,” Nicole says, a pretty brunette who’s on the shorter side.

“But I eventually did go and thought, ‘My gosh, why didn’t I run with these people sooner?’ On the first run, I was the last person to finish. But the people who passed me said, ‘Good job, good job, good job!’

I thought, ‘I don’t even know this person,

“ I’ve learned a lot about how I run and what kind of runner I am.” why are they saying this to me?’ People were so encouraging to me, so I stayed with it.”

Nicole believes many people allow their thoughts to stop them in their tracks. To overcome her own negativity, she told herself she didn’t have to fit a certain mold, that no one would persecute her for not being the fastest runner. So, she kept showing up for group runs and “met the most amazing people.”

Chats with friends made (and still make) the long hours fly by. Nicole talks about her side job as a makeup artist for movies, her two cousins she helped care for, past adventures as a “day roadie” for famous musicians and creating a campaign commercial for a congressional candidate.

Meanwhile, she cleaned up her diet.

Although a vegetarian for several years,

she knew she wasn’t eating a healthy diet.

“Vegetarians can eat a junk food diet too,” she says, laughing.

So she took a hard look at her cupboard, throwing out all the high-sugar, high-fat foods while cutting down on salt and foods with additives. She also reduced her portion sizes and began cooking at home nearly all the time.

“Once I cut out all the processed stuff, the weight fell off,” she says.

For Nicole, running is never boring.

Over the years, she’s tried different things— different race distances, exploring new trails, doing adventure runs.

“I’ve learned a lot about how I run and what kind of runner I am. I have friends who are very fast, but I’m great at running long distances for very long periods of time,” she says. “Right now, I’m at 19 miles. It feels good. ‘Gosh, that first two miles sucked, your body is not warmed up.’ But always at the end, I am so glad I did that.”

She remembers getting off course on a 5K race and accidentally running a 25K, long before she thought she was ready for that kind of distance. “When I crossed the finish line, someone took a picture of me and yelled, ‘How did that 25K feel?’

I thought, ‘What!’ You could see the astonishment and relief on my face all at once.

I never thought I could do something like that.”

Now she’s running longer mileages each weekend, with a 20-miler planned for the weekend after our interview. To keep it fresh, she tries to choose a different place to run each time.

“I’ll pick somewhere that’s absolutely beautiful, where I don’t have to worry about traffic. Not too busy,” Nicole says.

“I just go. Sometimes I’ll play music.

I enjoy the scenery, especially in the mornings. The sun is rising, and I get to see the change of day.”

Anne Stanton is a freelance writer and the editorial director of Mission Point Press, a Traverse City-based company that helps independent authors achieve literary excellence and publishing success.

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PA I D C O N T E N T

HE’S GOT YOUR BACK With a holistic philosophy and first-rate surgical skills, Dr. Alex Molinari brings hope to those with back pain.

by Cara McDonald

When orthopedic and spine surgeon Dr. Alex Molinari sees a patient with spinal issues, he knows he’s facing a puzzle that’s far more complex than identifying a problem spot and surgically correcting it.

“With spine conditions, there can be a lot of overlap with other orthopedic conditions,” he explains. “You could come in with pain in your neck that is actually originating from your shoulders.”

That’s why Dr. Molinari’s focus is on improving overall body alignment, in particular working with patients before they ever go under the knife.

As a surgeon, Dr. Molinari handles everything from degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis, revision surgery, adjacent segment disease, surgical disc replacement and fusions to spinal cord injuries from degenerative myelopathy and sacroiliac joint disorders. And, important for our aging community, he also has a passion for treating osteoporosis and bone density problems.

But as a Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.), Molinari takes a holistic approach to medicine; not only treating patients when they need surgery but also leading up to surgery and following it. Generally speaking, holistic health looks at the mind, body and emotions as a whole—if a part of the body needs healing, it should be addressed as part of the whole and not isolated and treated independently.

“When you’re contemplating a surgical procedure, patient optimization is key,” Dr. Molinari explains. “For example, I may

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have them go through physical therapy before surgery. It helps with pain relief and surgical outcomes and gets them into the mindset of healing, which is beneficial as well.”

Care may also include making sure patients are working with pain management, weaning off narcotics and attending to mental health, as well as sharing mind-

fulness and breathing techniques shown to improve pain relief after surgery.

Taking a 360-degree view of patient needs is a key part of the philosophy at Great Lakes Orthopaedic Center (gogloc.com), which recently brought Dr. Molinari on board. The center is home to 13 physicians in varying specialties as well as a staff of physician assistants, nurse practitioners and physical therapists. “Our goal is to have one practice where a patient can go and be evaluated for any spine condition and

establish a continuity of care throughout their treatment,” CEO Jim Stilley says.

Dr. Molinari brings to the Center a breadth of experience in cutting-edge surgical techniques to complement the existing expertise in the region, such as spinal navigation, a more accurate way of placing screws and instrumentation, and extreme lateral interbody fusion, or XLIF, in which a small incision through a patient’s side enables the surgeon to place a larger area of titanium cage and/or bone graft in a more minimally invasive way that improves healing time.

Dr. Molinari completed his fellowship training at Texas Medical Center in Houston but was drawn to practicing in Northern Michigan with a hunger for small-town living and close patient relationships.

“A back condition can take a very long time to heal,” he says. “It’s not like a broken arm. A spine surgeon is going to have a long-term relationship with a patient; it’s going to be something that develops over months or maybe years.

Oftentimes, patients will have conservative treatment and eventually need surgery, and I’ll be able to have a good relationship with them and keep in close contact—then if something comes up, it’s easy to coordinate a path back to me.”

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits. carawritescopy.com

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DREAM MACHINE Nephrologist Dr. John Stanifer brings a life-saving treatment to Northern Michigan.

by Cara McDonald photo by Michael Poehlman

When Interlochen’s Trish Marek arrived at Munson Medical Center’s Emergency Department last fall, she was seriously ill—a diagnosis of pancreatitis and high triglyceride levels. She was quickly admitted and treated, but her levels wouldn’t come down.

But, thanks to a newly offered treatment option at Munson, Marek was able to be the first patient to receive a life-changing procedure called plasmapheresis.

With the recent arrival of nephrologist Dr. John Stanifer, previously a faculty member at Duke University, plasmapheresis became a local treatment option. His specialized experience, and the cooperation of the nurses and dialysis staff, allowed him to leverage preexisting equipment and expertise to offer this extracorporeal treatment, which is similar to dialysis. With plasmapheresis, the patient is connected to a machine that filters the blood in a very specific manner to remove particular particles, cells, proteins or antibodies from the blood based on the type of filter used.

For Trish Marek, it paid off: after three treatments and 22 days, her levels dropped so significantly she was able to be released from the hospital.

Although plasmapheresis is available in other hospitals around the state, the travel and frequency required for suc-

cessful treatment can be an exhausting or expensive barrier for many patients who may miss out on the benefit it provides and opt for more widely available treatments instead. It wasn’t until Dr. Stanifer joined the staff that the program became a possibility locally.

The applications for plasmapheresis can be game-changers for patients battling all kinds of diseases, including autoimmune disorders and cancers like multiple myeloma.

“The idea is if you have an active disease, such as an autoimmune with immunoglobulins attacking the body, we will treat that disease with immuno-suppression treatments such as chemotherapy,” Dr. Stanifer explains. “But those treatments take time to reduce the level of diseasecausing agents in the blood. So, we use plasmapheresis to remove them in about an hour and a half. This stops the damage and serves as a bridge treatment until things like chemotherapy have time to kick in.”

The therapy is used most in neurological conditions, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes antibodies to attack the nerves and cause acute paralysis.

“We can reduce those damage-causing antibodies by as much as 60 to 70 percent,” Dr. Stanifer says. “If you do that multiple times, you deplete the circulating patho-

gens or antibodies down to undetectable levels in a few days.” However, the body will continue to make them, which is why recurring treatment and/or chemotherapy remains crucial.

“When I came in 2019, we’d often see patients where this was a therapy that would be beneficial, and the patients would invariably have to be transferred to Grand Rapids,” Dr. Stanifer says. “Once they leave our system, there’s a lack of continuity of care. So that was a major motivation to do it; we had the expertise and we had the need.”

For Marek, the procedure targeted her triglycerides and bilirubin. Three treatments brought her levels to a place where she could be safely discharged from the hospital. “Just the comfort of knowing that my family didn’t have to uproot and leave their jobs to be with me, that was huge,” she says. “Knowing that I am paving the way for others to be able to have this procedure done in Northern Michigan warms my heart, understanding it will ease some frustration for other families as well.”

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits. carawritescopy.com MyNorth Medical Insider 2022

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BRAINS AND HEART

Dr. Justin Thomas is no ordinary small-town doc.

by Cara McDonald photo by Michael Poehlman

You can find Dr. Justin Thomas out and about in the Petoskey area, relishing the outdoors and small-town life that mean so much to him—hitting the slopes, hiking the trails with his Siberian husky or simply bumping into patients for a friendly chat at the grocery store.

For one of McLaren Northern Michigan’s newest docs, getting to know the community he calls home brings Dr. Thomas as much joy as serving it—in fact, the two are inextricably linked, as he trained specifically to work in underserved smaller communities. However, Dr. Thomas isn’t your typical rural physician: He’s a highly specialized neurosurgeon.

Like many of us, his love affair with the tip of the mitten began with childhood summers spent on the lakes. But as his studies at Michigan State University’s medical school progressed, Dr. Thomas knew he wanted to follow his heart and make a life and career Up North. Specializing in neurological surgery of the brain and spinal cord, he tailored his final years of training to fit patient needs in our region.

“I noticed there was not a lot of providers up here offering treatments for more challenging spinal disease, and I wanted to be able to offer treatment or a second opinion without patients having the burden of travel,” he says.

Additionally, our aging population is undergoing spinal surgeries that frequently need to be revisited for areas above and below the original surgery site, so Dr. Thomas focused on revision spine surgery techniques as well.

“The doctors who trained me took me under their wing,” he explains. “They knew I was going to the North, and they also have those attachments to the region, so they really helped me tailor my training to what I would be seeing in practice.”

In addition to general neurosurgery, Dr. Thomas was trained by his mentor Dr. Teck-Mun M. Soo to perform minimally invasive spine surgery and revision spine surgery along with other treatments for complex spinal deformity. He also has a passion for cerebrovascular neurosurgery and is looking to build the stroke and endovascular programs at McLaren.

The hospital recently invested in infrastructure upgrades, including a powerful operating microscope in order to accommodate the specialized treatment Dr. Thomas provides, enabling the surgeon to intra-operatively image the patient to allow for less invasive techniques.

It required a million-dollar-plus technology upgrade at the hospital, which was completed in 2021. “Now we can image the brain and the spine at very, very high resolution, and that means safer and more efficient surgery,” Dr. Thomas says.

He explains his decision to take his high-powered specialty North in this way: “When you are in a big city, you’re just a fish in a big, big pond. Here you get to know people, stories, family and history, and you are held to a high standard—you are known, and so are your patients. That always meant a lot to me.”

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits. carawritescopy.com

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HEALING THROUGH ART «

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON YOGA From France to Northern Michigan.

by Kandace Chapple | photos by Michael Poehlman

There’s a new yoga guy in Traverse City and he’s causing a buzz. His name is Mathieu Boldron, and if you’ve never tried yoga, he might just be the one to get you on the mat.

His wife, Ashtynne Hudecz, is also a yoga teacher, and they recently moved from France to Traverse City to raise their baby daughter, Luna. They now teach at Dharamsala TC (both in-person and online), offering a different approach to yoga in Northern Michigan. “They bring very different trainings to Traverse City because they’ve trained all over the world,” says Kay Epple, co-owner of Dharamsala.

Let’s start with Mathieu.

“Mathieu’s classes are not your typical American yoga with music and flowing pose to pose,” Kay says. “They are almost like a workshop because he breaks things down to strengthen your practice and truly connect. It’s really fresh!”

And that’s exactly how Mathieu describes his approach. “One thing I’ve noticed is that many people are rushed, they just want to move,” he says. “You can enjoy going fast, but you are missing a lot. I teach something a little softer, more restorative. Yoga is something to explore.”

He gives this example: In class, he will tell people to touch their mats like they would someone they love. “It’s a telling moment,” Mathieu says. “How do you touch the face of someone you love?

Are you stiff or are you cupping their cheek?”

He holds a hand to his face and smiles. It’s a quick moment of sincerity, then a flash of playfulness. “That makes people stop and think!” he says with a laugh.

There’s something else that Mathieu brings to the mat, which makes his classes different, too: His background is in musical theater. “He’s a performer at heart,” Kay says. “Plus, he’s got such a passion for what yoga can do for people. He’s got a high game—I’ve never seen him not deliver an amazing class.”

Mathieu credits his days of theater to his discovery of yoga.

“At the time, I wasn’t getting good roles in theater,” he says. “I was depressed and working a lot of hours, show after show, day after day in small roles.”

He was 21 at the time, and he was performing so much that his body was breaking down. However, not everyone on the set was suffering from the long hours. “I noticed the oldest woman on the set—she was in her 40s—was stronger than all of us. I had to ask her, what are you doing? She told me to go to yoga!”

He laughs as he tells the story: “I didn’t believe her, no way could yoga do that for you. But I went to one class and realized I was wrong. I thought there is no way I could keep doing yoga, it was that intense.”

But he kept going, and that’s where the change happened.

“The studio was full of mirrors and—well—looking at myself, I suddenly saw that I was capable.”

Soon thereafter, Mathieu decided to audition for a musical in Germany, for a bigger part. The only catch? He didn’t speak German. He convinced an ex-girlfriend (“She owed me, haha!” he says.) to record the entire audition for him with inflection so that he could memorize and mimic it word for word. 4

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HEALING THROUGH ART «

To his surprise, he got the part. And when the producers found out he didn’t actually speak German, they were so impressed, they gave him his choice of parts in several musicals. It was a dream come true: He played the lead in Disney’s Broadway musical “The Lion King” and in “Sister Act,” produced by Whoopi Goldberg.

Meanwhile, though, yoga had taken root in his heart.

He began to focus on his practice, taking trainings from master teachers all over the world. Mathieu taught his first training when a lead trainer broke her leg, and they recruited him to teach instead at the last minute. This sparked Mathieu to quit musical theater and start teaching yoga full-time.

He now co-owns a yoga teaching studio in France and has become a renowned teacher worldwide, having offered trainings in more than 16 countries and counting. He has since landed and started a home in Traverse City with his wife, Ashtynne, whom he met—of course!—at a teacher training.

“I was studying yoga and living in Michigan,” she says.

“I had saved up money for three years to go to Thailand and take a yoga teacher training. I met Mathieu, and we had a whirlwind love. Within a week, he asked me to come to Paris with him, and I decided to just go for it!”

Ashtynne grew up in Alma, Michigan, and had several relatives in Traverse City, a place she loved to visit. When they knew their daughter was on the way, the couple decided to move to Michigan to be closer to family.

Ashtynne’s practice is a bit different than her husband’s. She focuses on healing trauma in the body. Because her childhood was filled with trauma and bullying, Ashtynne says she was depressed for many years. “Growing up in the standard Midwest home, I had never been exposed to yoga,” she says. “I didn’t have

a lot of tools to regulate my emotions and keep my body healthy.

I thought going to the doctor was the only option, which was helpful at the time, but I needed more to lift my spirits.”

At 21, she read Julia Cameron’s book “Morning Pages” and began journaling. She also incorporated yoga. The combination began to help her heal. “I was initially just using medication to change the chemicals in the brain,” she says. “When I started to learn stream of consciousness writing with the addition of actually moving my body, I started to feel a great sense of release. A relief that medication never invoked.”

From then on, she says, her life purpose became to help others find that same sense of relief and understand the mind-body connection.

“You don’t have to feel helpless,” Ashtynne says. “Instead, feel hopeful. We have way more control than we know. You carry trauma in your body and you can bring it out. Yoga is very healing.”

Kay agrees, and loves the perspective Ashtynne brings to Dharamsala. “Her classes offer a mental health focus. They are very spiritual and calming and healing. It is amazing what happens so often in class—you’ll find yourself crying and you don’t know why, but it feels really good!”

Dharamsala TC recently opened a second studio at 319 E. Front St. in Traverse City and continues to expand its offerings for all ages and levels. Try Mathieu’s “Foundation” class if you’re a beginner. For more information visit dharamsalatc.com or mathieuboldron.com.

“ YOGA IS VERY HEALING.”

Kandace Chapple is a freelance writer and founder of the Michigan Girl Bike Club. She can be reached at kandacechapple.com.

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HEALTH CARE FROM HOME

Local physicians share what you need to know to utilize telehealth services— from the technology required to best practices and protocols.

by Allison Jarrell

While telehealth isn’t new, its uses and applications are constantly changing, and that can be, well, overwhelming at times.

When should you call in versus walk into your clinic? What level of service can you expect remotely? It can be a lot to sort out, especially if you’re already under the weather.

We caught up with Dr. David Klee, MD, who specializes in family and emergency medicine at Munson Family Practice Center in Traverse City and the Emergency Physicians Medical Group in Cadillac, and Dr. Kelly Flynn, DO, a family medicine physician at McLaren Northern Michigan’s Mitchell Park Family Medicine in Petoskey, to hear about how they use telehealth in their practice.

Most people see a primary care physician, whether it’s for an annual check-up or a symptom they’re concerned about. How are you using telehealth to manage that process in a way that works for both you and your patients?

Dr. Klee: Many of the patients we see through video have symptoms consistent with Covid, and to reduce potential risk of spreading that within our building, we’ll triage them and see them through video to decide whether they need Covid testing.

Beyond that scenario, there are a lot of medical issues that can be managed very well through video connections, such as mental health issues. I think it works really nicely for this situation.

We don’t have to wear masks. The patient can be in a place of comfort—whether it’s in their house or the car or wherever they feel like they can talk freely. I think that opens up better dialogues than it does sometimes within the office. We also do Medicare wellness exams and can manage a lot of preventive issues with our patients who are 65 and older and are at higher risk of getting infections coming into the office.

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Dr. Flynn: It’s really helped connect people who wouldn’t typically come in for an appointment—people who have certain health conditions that make it hard for them to get in to the typical physical office space, people with transportation issues or mental health issues. It’s really just opened up the door for a lot of people.

It’s great for things like doing a Medicare wellness exam, which is a yearly exam that patients over the age of 65 on Medicare are able to participate in that doesn’t require any sort of physical exam.

What’s your protocol for when a visit can/should be done via telehealth and when a patient should see a doctor in person?

Dr. Klee: I think the biggest question is how much of the physical exam is needed to make the diagnosis. You’re taught in medical school that 90 percent of your diagnosis comes from history, and you can obtain history just fine over video. There’s some good evidence that chronic medical care can be managed nicely through video, things like diabetes or hypertension. If patients have home blood pressure monitors—and we know that home readings are even more accurate than in-office readings—and we can have that data, then we can manage most of that through video. Musculoskeletal issues are harder to do over video though: Actually feeling somebody’s knee or examining their abdomen because they’re having acute belly pain—those are things that we need them to come into the office to do.

Dr. Flynn: At McLaren, we’re not having patients that are experiencing Covid symptoms come physically into the office. We always see them first in a telehealth appointment and assess them that way and then decide if they need an in-person evaluation or if they need testing, imaging labs or any sort of treatment.

So that’s what telehealth is best used for—to assess. But there

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are so many limitations with it. If it’s something that requires a physical exam, like an injury or a skin rash or you fell and hurt yourself, you should be seen in person. We can’t always make, in my opinion, an appropriate diagnosis through video because you don’t have a physical exam component with telehealth. I still feel people should be seen physically in the office at least once a year; twice a year if you’re on any prescription medication.

DR. DAVID KLEE, MD ›

How do you work with telehealth to create the same care and focus a patient would get in the office?

Dr. Klee: That’s a good question. One of the things that develops rapport with your provider is one-on-one time and connection. I think, right now, the fact that we have to wear masks, and the patient has to wear masks, that breaks down some of that normal communication we have through reading people’s facial expressions and body expressions. Over video, we’re able to maintain some of those more normal nonverbal communications. I also think it’s easier for us to stay on time when we’re seeing video patients, because we’re otherwise relying on our staff to have the patient roomed and they’re being pulled to get vaccines or run EKGs or do other things that sometimes delay us. So often my schedule runs more smoothly when I’m doing a full day of video patients than it does in the office.

Dr. Flynn: We all have training as far as keeping eye contact with the patient, where to look at the camera, that sort of thing. I think people feel less vulnerable

when they’re in their own home and they sometimes share different things. I’ve found it useful, too, that people will bring their medication bottles right up when I ask, “What are you taking?” “When are you due for a refill?” They can just grab their bottle really quick, which is nice.

What technology do patients need to properly utilize telehealth?

Dr. Klee: We use an app called Doxy.me that sends a link to a patient’s smartphone and all they have to do is click on the link and it connects directly to us—they don’t have to download anything else. We can also send [the link] to somebody’s home computer through email if their computer has video capabilities. One of the issues that we do run into in Northern Michigan is connectivity problems. If you’re in an area where you don’t have good cell coverage or you don’t have good internet coverage, that makes it more difficult.

There are places like a public library parking lot where people can go and freely access the internet. So, there are ways to combat that, but that’s probably our biggest struggle. We do have some patients that don’t have those technology resources at home. We can accomplish some things over just a telephone visit, but otherwise we’ll bring patients into the office.

Dr. Flynn: I think it’s been good. But when there are connectivity issues, it’s very frustrating for patients. Some people who are not very comfortable with technology will have family members with them, which works really well actually, because then I can talk to the patient and the family at the same time. And then there’s not having to travel—we serve a wide area up here.

There are people who were traveling from the U.P. to see us, so that they do not have to do that every time is nice.

Do you see the emergence and popularity of telehealth as a positive?

Dr. Klee: Yeah, I think it really is a positive. One of the things that we’re working at is becoming as patient-centered as we can. Typically, patients have had to follow whatever works best for the clinic and the provider and that’s how things are done.

But with the patient-centered approach, if we have somebody that has anxiety and feels like they can’t leave home or they’re having difficulties with transportation, a video works really well in those situations.

Dr. Flynn: McLaren has an app—McLarenNow—that the patient downloads that’s internet-based and we go on and connect to them that way.

What kind of feedback have you received from patients about their telehealth experience?

Dr. Klee: We’ve actually done some research projects over the past year that we’ve presented regionally looking at providers, thoughts about how well this platform of video visits works, what type of patient or conditions it works best with, and then also on the patient side. Both have shown this is a positive—for patients, you can take your appointment from wherever you are. If you’re at work, you can step out. You don’t have to take a half-day off to come to the doctor. You don’t have to travel if you’re living 30 minutes away—you can just jump on right from your home.

It’s convenient.

DR. KELLY FLYNN, DO ›

Dr. Flynn: I think so. I think it’s here to stay. Patients like it, but there are definite downsides. A lot of insurance companies and pharmacies like Walgreens offer visits that are telehealth-based, and I think sometimes patients really should be seen in person. Like for urinary tract infections, they need their urine tested and that sort of thing. I’ve certainly had things that are not correctly managed, so there are just those components. But for the most part, I hope it stays because there are benefits to it.

Allison Jarrell is the managing editor of Traverse Magazine. You can reach her at allison@mynorth.com.

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OPIOID TREATMENT PROGRAM REOPENS Residential treatment in Traverse City returns after a pandemic-induced pause, along with new peer recovery coaches.

by Kandace Chapple

Those in crisis for Substance Use Disorder (SUD) can once again seek residential treatment at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City. While their outpatient services have remained open throughout the pandemic—averaging 60-90 telehealth sessions per day—the residential program closed in March 2020 and reopened this January with a couple of noticeable changes. There are now Covid-19 protocols in place (i.e. fewer residents, masking, social distancing, being closed to outside visitors), as well as something that’s fairly new to the SUD field: Recovery Coaches.

The crisis “The opioid crisis keeps going up and up and up,” says Susan Kramer, outpatient behavioral health manager at Munson in Traverse City.

For the 12-month period ending in April 2021, more than 100,306 people died of opioid overdoses in the United States, MI 22

according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

That’s an increase of 28.5 percent from the previous 12 months, per the CDC data.

To give it a local perspective, Susan says that Munson had 425 overdose visits in 2020. “And that doesn’t count the people who chose not to come in for treatment” she adds. “I would expect similar, if not higher, totals coming out of 2021.”

The Michigan Overdose Data to Action Team (MODA) reports overdose deaths in Michigan each year. In 2020, they reported 2,738 deaths. In the first quarter of 2021 (the most recent data provided), they reported 956 deaths, an upward trend from the same time period in the previous year.

Susan believes the increase is, in part, related to the pandemic.

“There are several reasons,” she explains. “People became more isolated throughout the pandemic, access to care decreased, community recovery meetings shut down, people got sick and lost their jobs and experienced increased stress.”

She notes that pre-pandemic, there were about 200 recovery meetings in Traverse City each week—people could get to AA, Smart Recovery and other programs. “They had so many options,

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but then everything shut down and many people lost their support overnight,” she says. “It took us a while to learn how to put together virtual meetings and services.”

The result? People were stressed and isolated.

“Even for someone without addiction, it was a stressful time and people looked for coping mechanisms,” she says. “Many would describe addiction as a disease of isolation.”

The program The return of Munson’s residential program, which treats all kinds of substance use disorders, is a welcome sight locally.

However, the reopening has its own scars from the pandemic.

Instead of the 14 beds they had before, they now offer 10 beds (one patient per room). In addition, it is now a “closed” program—meaning that no visitors are allowed. Instead, telehealth is used to include family members and loved ones in a patient’s treatment experience.

“Addiction affects the whole family, and it’s important for family members to receive education and be involved in the treatment experience based on the patient’s needs,” Susan says.

Other Covid precautions include testing, masking, social distancing and no travel to community support meetings. The program is considered short-term and high-intensity. It is a variable length of stay less than 30 days based on medical necessity, Susan notes. Munson helps patients secure insurance, Medicaid or other funding when possible.

“The program includes individual and group therapy, psychoeducation, wellness activities and more,” Susan says. “We look at the reasons that people began using. We teach coping skills, create a healing space for trauma and/or loss, family relationships, and chronic and mental illness, in addition to substance use disorder histories, emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills. We teach new ways to build a life in recovery.”

The coaches Part of that comes from the advice of those who have been there: Recovery Coaches.

“A Recovery Coach is different than a therapist, different than a 12-step program,” Susan says. “It’s focused on getting connected to resources, building recovery capital, helping with housing, employment and transportation, and showing people in the program the steps the coaches took to recover as well.”

Munson Behavioral Health has four Recovery Coaches. They have all lived their own recovery experience and gone through

a coach certification process. Jesse Lewit is a Recovery Coach who started last fall. He was in law enforcement for 30 years, then, after retiring, he says he slid into an alcohol use problem.

He eventually did the residential program at Munson, as well as an outpatient program.

“I’ve been completely sober now for two years and love it,” he says. “During my recovery, I tried out lots of things I enjoyed to spend my time on, but my desire to help others like I did in law enforcement resurfaced. I decided to take the training to become a coach.”

Jesse now works three days a week as a coach, mostly helping in the Emergency Department at Munson, meeting people there when they come in due to an overdose. “My role is uniquely suited to me as a former first responder,” he says. “I build a bridge from their hospital stay to treatment. I see people at their worst, and sometimes, later, at their best!”

Jesse says he visits people every day that they’re in the hospital, sharing his story of recovery, hoping to help them.

“I tell everyone about my substance abuse, which is something they may not have in common with anyone else in the medical system,” he says. Then with a laugh, he adds, “I don’t always tell them I’m a former police officer! But I do tell them what I think will help or provide them with an example or glimmer of hope.”

Jesse also helps patients navigate the system to get into residential care and receive medical assistance. “The best plan is to discharge from Munson and be admitted to a detox program the same day,” he explains. “You want to keep them from going back out into the environment that brought them here in the first place. When a person hits rock bottom and is fighting for their life, that’s a good time to get them to talk about improving their life.”

Susan adds that there are specific SUD and HIPAA laws that protect the confidentiality of patients while seeking treatment.

“You don’t need a referral,” she says. “We do a phone screening and help you determine the right level of care and look at how we can help you with funding.”

To learn more about the program, call 231.935.6382 or 1.800.662.6766. Online, visit munsonhealthcare.org/services/ behavioral-health/behavioral-health.

Kandace Chapple is a freelance writer and founder of the Michigan Girl Bike Club. She can be reached at kandacechapple.com.

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PAID CONTENT

Families Against Narcotics - Grand Traverse Your Connection for SUPPORT-EDUCATION-RESOURCES More than 274 people die from drug overdoses every day.

In 2018, prosecuting attorney Robert Cooney and local pharmacist Kathy Jones were troubled by the number of drug overdose deaths of young people in the area. As a result, Cooney and Jones, who had both become familiar with the nonprofit Families Against Narcotics (FAN), decided to form the Grand Traverse chapter of FAN with a group of other concerned community members. Their mission: to provide support and recovery resources for individuals and families in our area who have been affected by substance use disorder; to provide educational forums where people can also share their experiences; and to reduce the stigma associated with the disease of addiction.

Families Against Narcotics is a group of professionals, volunteers, parents, survivors, and other individuals who are concerned about substance use disorder (SUD) and have a passion for helping others.

EDUCATION: Substance use disorder today is no longer “someone else’s problem.” The sad reality is, it will probably touch all of us at some point. FAN educates the public about SUD and recovery in several ways. Many of the FAN volunteers have personal experience with the disease, either personally or through a loved one.

They are a valuable resource when it comes to questions about how to support and assist someone with SUD. They also provide a listening ear so people who have been impacted by addiction can share their stories and concerns.

sharing each other’s journeys. Through sharing, problem solving can begin. After each forum, there is time to meet and discuss with others at your own pace and comfort level in a non-judgmental atmosphere.

naloxone TRAINING opioid overdose reversal

STR NGER TOGETHER Family & Friends: An Addiction Support Group

Once a month, Grand Traverse FAN offers a public forum. These meetings are open to the entire community as a resource for navigating substance use disorder, and are truly a place to learn, listen, grow, and share. Each forum features a guest speaker from the Grand Traverse area who discusses an important SUDrelated topic and provides information and resources from their area of expertise or agency. Forums are the beginning of

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Wellspring Healthcare Foundation A Place for Everyday Miracles

SUPPORT: Families Against Narcotics supports families and helps guide them through the chaos that can accompany a loved one’s substance use disorder. They understand that when individuals and their families are struggling, there are important things they need and want to know.

Our Stronger Together family and friends support group helps families make a recovery plan that can move them from a life of despair to a life of hope and purpose. Participants benefit from the encouragement and experience of others who are facing, or have faced, similar circumstances.

RESOURCES: Grand Traverse FAN has an extensive list of SUD resources that can be incredibly helpful to families on their recovery journey. While we are not an agency, our goal is to provide a list of multi-faceted resources that is continually updated as new information becomes available. FAN Northern Michigan serves; Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Alpena, Alger, Chippewa, Otsego, Crawford and Benzie Counties.

The Grand Traverse FAN chapter holds its forums on the first Thursday of every month at the Central United Methodist Church, located at 222 Cass Street in Traverse City. The meetings start at 6:30 pm and can be attended either in person or virtually (via Zoom). Check our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/grandtraversefan) one week prior to the forum date for that month’s topic and Zoom link. For more information, questions, or to sign up for our monthly newsletter, contact our coordinator at 231-883-9111 or email tccoordinator@familiesagainstnarcotics. org. You can also follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, or visit our web page at www.familiesagainstnarcotics. org/grand-traverse.

Wellspring Healthcare Foundation is committed to providing evidence based mental health services, addiction treatment and education to the northern Michigan community.

Wellspring is committed to bringing education to the schools, community members and believes in addressing the needs of the rural communities. We are aware of the need for more treatment providers and the lack of centers for students to gain necessary knowledge and experience needed to become providers of mental health, psychiatric and addiction treatment. We are committed to taking students from the schools of social work, nursing, physicians assistance, and nurse practitioners to assist in facilitating the growth and education of future treatment providers.

We are committed to furthering the education of medical residents and medical students. As we grow, we will be reaching out to rural areas to provide education, screening, evaluation and treatment for mental illness and substance abuse.

We are also well aware of persons who are incarcerated have high rates of addiction as well as psychiatric and behavioral health needs. As such, Wellspring Healthcare Foundation is committed to serving mental health needs of the incarcerated and providing education and support to law enforcement in efforts to create improved outcomes for all.

Lastly Wellspring Healthcare Foundation is in support of the legislative agenda that addresses and funds these initiatives. With an eye towards a better future for all, may we all strive for the same outcome. www.wellspringhealthcarefoundation.com • 231-922-9625 • 501-c-3 Non Profit

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Well-Spring Psychiatry PC Dr. Conlon works with individuals who have mental illness as well as substance abuse concerns. Dr. Conlon has 25+ years experience in the mental health and behavioral fields.

Well-Spring Psychiatry, P.C. is a small privately owned practice in Traverse City, Michigan. It is a place to begin your journey to wellness. Dr. Conlon looks forward to walking beside you on your path to healing.

Office hours are by appointment only.

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INNOVATION IN INFRASTRUCTURE Building and tech expansions at McLaren Northern Michigan and Munson Healthcare continue to elevate patient care in the region.

by Carly Simpson | photos courtesy of McLaren Northern Michigan

McLaren Northern Michigan Debuts Offield Family Pavilion In August, McLaren celebrated the opening of the Offield Family Pavilion in Petoskey—a $158 million expansion and renovation project focused on increasing patient comfort and privacy, improving wayfinding and enhancing physician and staff workflow. Those goals translated to a four-story, 182,000-square-foot addition that includes 104 private patient rooms, 10 state-of-the-art operating rooms with a sterile processing department, an expanded intensive care unit and new cardiovascular and orthopedic/surgical units.

“With the opening of our new wing, we are the first hospital in the region to have private rooms in all units,” says Todd Burch, McLaren Northern Michigan president and CEO. “We know the healing environment is just as important as the care a patient receives. The wing offers a more peaceful, private setting that complements the nationally recognized care provided by our team.”

Smart technology also plays a major role in enhancing safety and communication between patients, families and caregivers. In fact, Burch says the Offield Family

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Pavilion offers the most technologically advanced in-room experience anywhere in the country. “Our patients experience the future of healthcare today right here in Northern Michigan,” Burch adds.

So, what does the future look like?

Smart i-beds with safety alarms that are customizable for every patient’s condition to prevent injury; electronic whiteboards that display McLaren employees’ pictures and the care plan, plus provide the patient with verbal and visual safety alerts; bedside tablets with mobile apps for entertainment and health education that also connect to the patient’s call light, video chat camera, TV and web; a virtual nurse, available via the TV, who assists patients at the touch of a button; Smart Badges, worn by care team members, that are a hands-free way to connect patients to staff for immediate response; and operating room suites equipped with the latest 4K resolution technology—four times the resolution of high definition—to provide surgeons superior image detail and video streaming to collaborate with experts around the globe in real-time during surgery.

One of the more visual elements of the expansion is the added artwork. More than 3,000 studies conducted over the past

several decades have revealed the positive impact of art on health and well-being, such as measurable changes in blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, respiration rate, cortisol levels and brain activity, explains Capital Campaign Officer Patricia Jones.

The Offield Family Pavilion is decorated with more than 200 pieces from nearly 100 Michigan artists, many from Northern Michigan. McLaren worked with an art consultant who is certified in evidencebased design and who works exclusively within the health care industry to select pieces for their therapeutic properties that serve as a visual comfort to patients and families. McLaren also partnered with regional organizations, including Crooked Tree Arts Center and the Northwest Michigan Arts and Culture Network, who helped to broadcast the call for artists. “Along with the smart room technology, we have created an environment of healing with the use of art, coordinated color schemes and large, open common areas,” says Vice President of Operations Shari Schult, who oversaw the expansion.

In addition, more parking was added by the new main entrance, now off Jackson Street. There is improved wayfinding with letter and color-coded signs that start from

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the parking lot and guide people to the right entrances and elevators.

And there’s even more to come in 2023.

The final phase of the construction project is the renovation of 70,000 square feet of existing hospital space that includes the surgery waiting area, pre- and post-operative areas, lab, pharmacy, community education room and the radiology waiting room. Special patient hallways and elevators will also be created for private patient transportation.

The wing is named the “Offield Family Pavilion” after a lead donation from the Offield Family Foundation, spearheaded

by Harbor Springs residents and capital campaign co-chairs Jim and Sujo Offield.

“My grandfather was one of the hospital’s original founders and my father served on the hospital board for many years,” Jim Offield says. “Providing the best hospital services for this community is a way for our family to give back to an area that has given our family six generations of memories. Our family has utilized every service the hospital offers, from birth to death. My own life was saved there. With a history of providing exceptional health care for an exceptional community, our family is proud to be in partnership with McLaren.”

Another key donation was made by Martin and Lisa Sutter. McLaren named the north surgery entrance the Martin and Lisa Sutter North Pavilion Entrance in their honor. In total, 1,500-plus individuals and organizations donated more than $38 million.

“One of the truly great things about this project is that it shows what a community can accomplish with great physicians, highly trained staff, excellent governance, an amazing foundation and our generous donors all working together,” Burch says.

“Generosity and commitment helped build this new wing, and generosity and commitment will sustain it.”

View a video tour of the Offield Family Pavilion on McLaren Northern Michigan’s YouTube channel.

Munson Medical Center Expands Surgical Services On Oct. 12, the first-ever robotic-assisted total knee arthroplasty was completed at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City by Dr. Michael VanWagner. This was made possible by Munson Healthcare’s recent investment in a robotic orthopedic

surgical assistant known as ROSA. The ROSA customizes the fit and approach to each patient by considering their individual anatomy through 3D imaging, bringing a higher level of precision and accuracy for a truer alignment.

“To date, Dr. VanWagner’s patients who choose to incorporate ROSA as part of their surgical plan are doing remarkably well postoperatively,” says Executive Director of Surgical Specialties Spencer Derenzy. “The interest in using this technology has grown and has resulted in on-site labs and training to further enhance the skills of current orthopedic surgeons within the community.”

In addition to ROSA, Munson recently purchased a new da Vinci Xi Surgical System to replace its original, 11-year-old da Vinci Si. The Xi offers significant additional capabilities, says Executive Director of Surgical Services John Cox. As part of its surgical services addition, Munson Medical Center has also added two general-purpose

operating rooms and one hybrid OR imaging room for vascular procedures. A fourth room is shelled and will be finished in the future as the system recruits additional vascular surgeons.

In Gaylord, Munson’s Otsego Memorial Hospital (OMH) replaced their da Vinci Si with a Xi last spring. The OMH robotic surgery program debuted in May 2017 and completed its 1,000th robotic surgery in April 2021.

“Implementing a robotic surgery program at OMH was a strategic initiative to further strengthen an already strong minimally invasive outpatient surgical program,” Cox explains. “This initiative developed a strong sense of team among Surgical Services staff, surgeons, anesthesia and administration. The dedicated team has built a best-in-class robotic surgery program with superior quality, efficiency, exceptional patient experience and innovation, providing life-enhancing care to the communities we serve.”

OMH’s robotic quality and efficiency benchmarks rank in the top quartile across the country. In some categories, the metrics are in the top 10 percent across all robotic programs. The success has led Otsego Memorial Hospital to pursue the Center of Excellence designation in robotic surgery.

“Becoming a Center of Excellence will assist in the recruitment of surgeons across specialties and attract patients throughout the region to receive the best care in a robotic surgery,” Cox says.

Carly Simpson is the associate editor of Traverse Magazine and editor of MyNorth’s email newsletter The Daily Splash. Subscribe free at MyNorth.com. You can reach her at csimpson@mynorth.com.

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GREAT FIRST IMPRESSIONS Digital imaging and new technology are making major dental work more beautiful, lasting, painless and speedy.

by Cara McDonald

The prospect of major dental work can be pretty rough—long afternoons spent in the dentist’s chair, weeks waiting for a lab to fabricate necessary crowns or implants and repeat visits are nothing to look forward to.

But digital imaging and new technologies have revolutionized procedures such as implants, bridgework, veneers, orthodontics and crowns, enabling dentists to do in a day what used to take weeks.

Dr. Phillip Yancho, of Yancho Family and Cosmetic Dentistry in Traverse City, explains that the traditional process for these procedures involves taking impressions with polyvinyl siloxane putty (a.k.a. “the mouth full of goo”) to create a mold that is sent to a lab where impressions are made and then the restoration pieces are fabricated. “But that process is time-consuming and intolerable for many patients, especially children,” he says.

Instead, Dr. Yancho utilizes digital intraoral scanning technology and the CEREC (chairside economical restoration of esthetic ceramic) method of creating dental impressions and restorations right in-office—no goopy mold, no shipping to a lab, no temporary crowns and no second visits.

“You can think of this process as ‘one and done,’” he says. “It’s highly accurate, so much more convenient and minimizes post-op discomfort.”

Dr. Yancho explains that CEREC procedures go through three primary steps:

1. The dentist numbs the patient’s mouth and prepares the tooth needing restoration, then scans the mouth with a tiny camera in a hand-held wand, which takes about a minute.

2. The image is uploaded to a computer with specialized software to design a customized model of the needed dental restoration.

3. The designs are sent to either an off-site lab or to the in-office milling equipment. These specialized machines use diamond burrs to mill the dental restorations (like a crown or veneer) from a solid block of porcelain, which takes about 12 minutes.

The restoration goes into a small kiln, and in Dr. Yancho’s case, his dental assistant, who is trained as a stain and glaze lab technician, customizes it to perfectly blend in with the patient’s teeth. It’s then fitted and bonded, and the patient walks out the door—typically within 90 minutes.

Dr. Lisa Siddall, of Lake Leelanau’s Lisa Siddall DDS Holistic & High-Tech Dentistry, was also an early adapter of CEREC technologies and is particularly excited about their applications for bridges and implants.

“There’s a newer procedure for implantsupported bridges that secures the teeth directly to the jawbone,” she explains.

She utilizes the digital scan and a type

of 3D X-ray called a cone beam, marrying the two images to find the best place in the bone for the implants to have the most stability.

In addition to working with implants, Dr. Siddall is excited to pair high-level imaging with a machine she recently purchased that allows her to mill zirconium restorations in her office—a more durable alternative to porcelain. “Zirconium is literally unbreakable,” she says, which will make it a natural for things like crowns on teeth that receive a lot of bite pressure, such as molars.

Sophisticated imaging allows her to provide orthodontics as well, creating perfectly fitting clear plastic aligners that are changed out weekly to move your teeth. “I had a patient for years with really crooked teeth,” Dr. Siddall says. “This technology was a game-changer. Her teeth were straight in about four months.”

The benefits of CEREC and new imaging techniques are undeniable—not just in the convenience, durability and quality of the dental work that results, but also in one more crucial way: “They create less discomfort and anxiety,” Dr. Yancho says. And less stress in the dentist’s chair is always something to smile about.

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits. carawritescopy.com

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“ BEING TREATED OR BEING ABLE TO RECOVER FROM AN ILLNESS OR MEDICAL ISSUE IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY IS ALWAYS LESS TRAUMATIC.” —JOAN RIKLI

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FOR KID’S SAKE

Munson Healthcare brings pediatric specialists from top hospitals to complement care for Northern Michigan’s littlest critically ill patients.

by Cara McDonald

It started with a fall down the stairs and a broken arm. A trip to the hospital, some X-rays and eventually a cast got 9-year-old Ariah House on the path to healing her broken bone. But a few days later, the little girl wasn’t herself. She was having trouble walking, then standing. She started wetting the bed. Something was definitely wrong—beyond just a broken arm.

A trip to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital revealed blood on her cerebellum and began an exhausting odyssey of monitoring, EEGs and a spinal tap, as well as trips in and out of the hospital.

After finally receiving a rare diagnosis—an autoimmune disorder of the nervous system—Ariah was not only able to get the help she needed, but she’ll also be treated close to home.

Instead of making the monthly 3.5-hour trip to DeVos, Ariah will receive her care from both her DeVos team and Munson Medical Center staff, thanks to an inspired partnership between Munson Hospital and downstate institutions such as University of Michigan and Helen DeVos. The partnership involves cooperation with Munson Healthcare and the sharing of downstate specialists—in particular pediatric specialists—who regularly visit patients in Northern Michigan.

Reaching Ariah’s diagnosis was no easy feat. Her grandmother, Diane House, who had adopted Ariah and her siblings when the child was 4, was beside herself after their initial hospital visit; she felt perhaps the little girl’s deteriorating condition was connected to her fall, but a definitive diagnosis eluded them.

In just a few weeks, Ariah ended up in a wheelchair. She couldn’t draw, write or color; her speech began to slur. Her medical team believed she was battling an autoimmune disease of some sort, but couldn’t determine precisely which one.

After numerous trips home, in and out of a rehab hospital and back to DeVos, Ariah was eventually diagnosed with opsoclonusmyoclonus-ataxia syndrome, or OMAS. It’s an autoimmune disorder of the nervous system characterized by new movements of the limbs and eyes, abnormal behaviors, sleep dysregulation and difficulty talking. OMAS is typically concurrent with cancer, and it’s incredibly rare—worldwide, there are only 1,700 currently known patients.

Although the two situations were unrelated, Ariah’s fall and broken arm happened to coincide with the onset of the disease, and her family credits it with putting her in front of skilled medical personnel that were able to help pursue a diagnosis.

With aggressive intravenous immunoglobulin and steroid treatments, Ariah’s condition has stabilized. However, the treatment required to help her improve will require monthly in-patient two-night stays over the next 18 months for her to receive the IV/IG fluids and steroids she needs.

That’s where the partnership between Munson Hospital and

downstate institutions comes into play.

A host of doctors including pediatric urologists, geneticists, cardiologists and sleep specialists make their way north once or twice a month for regularly scheduled clinics to see patients in need of care. Working in coordination with pediatricians and primary care doctors, these specialists provide critical intervention or follow-up care, allowing for local treatment and/or recovery at home instead of extended hospital stays far away.

The partnership facilitates continuity of care and the reassurance of a steady, unchanging medical team; even if a child is treated downstate, he or she can remain under the watchful eye of a specialist who can see them at regular intervals once they are home recovering.

“Being treated or being able to recover from an illness or medical issue in your own community is always less traumatic,” explains Joan Rikli, women’s and children’s service line executive director for Munson Healthcare. “This program allows not only convenience, but access to an extraordinarily high level of care and cutting-edge treatment.”

The collaboration is seamless, with pediatricians referring patients for specialized care. For example, a young child with cancer would have a visiting pediatric oncologist directing their care with the cooperation of the child’s pediatrician. Under the guidance of the advising specialist, the child would be able to receive their chemotherapy in the friendly environment of the pediatric floor at Munson Hospital, close to home.

“This sharing of resources changes the lives of children needing treatment in Northern Michigan,” explains Rikli. “And by treating our young patients locally, downstate hospitals can not only share their expert resources, but they can expand accessibility of care by freeing up capacity for other children in critical need.”

For Ariah, the program has added caregivers and doctors to her team that can treat her locally, giving her and her family much-needed respite from the distance and travel for the lifesaving treatment her rare condition would typically require. “The staff here in Traverse City have been wonderful, every bit as wonderful as the ones we’ve seen around the state,” Ariah’s grandmother says. With a clear and local treatment plan, Ariah’s family has high hopes that she’ll eventually reach complete remission.

For more information on how your child can access Munson’s specialty care teams, consult with your family pediatrician or visit munsonhealthcare.org.

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits. carawritescopy.com

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Welcome to Inspired Life. At the heart of this magazine is the idea that at every age, we share a common love of this place we call home. Meet new neighbors embracing adventures—both big and small. Discover ways to give back to the people, land and water of this region. Find real advice for taking good care of family, friends and loved ones. Tap into a true joy for the outdoors that keeps our inner lives vibrant and our bodies well. Connect.

Join in. Find smart and new ways to inspire your life Up North. —the Editors

CONTENTS 4

FOR THE LOVE OF SKIING At 90 years old, ski instructor Tom Awrey is still imparting his wisdom—and hitting the slopes—at The Homestead.

7

CRITICAL TIPS FOR CAREGIVERS Caring for a loved one can be overwhelming: These expert tips will help prevent burnout and set you up for success.

11

5 RETIREMENT EXPENSES TO PLAN FOR Even for those of us who have a good handle on our retirement savings, budgeting for the day-to-day reality of retirement can be daunting. Erickson Braund of Black Walnut Wealth Management in Traverse City shares how to plan for unexpected expenses.

14

18

IT TAKES A VILLAGE Eagle Village, a nonprofit based in Hersey, Michigan, supports youth through love, education and care—and they’re in need of more volunteers to help make that happen.

22

BUSINESS IS BLOOMING Carolyn Faught has found a colorful, and meaningful, mission in her life’s next chapter—bringing joy to those who stop to smell (and pick!) her gorgeous flowers in Omena.

27

HIKE FOR YOUR HEALTH Guided hikes led by local groups are keeping Otsego County seniors happy and healthy year-round. Plus, check out our roundup of easily accessible hikes across the North.

COVER PHOTO BY ALLISON JARRELL

FINDING THE NORTHERN DREAM A blended family of seven hunts for the perfect home Up North. After viewing 12 houses, they narrow their search to three: two in Traverse City and one in Cedar.

Which would you choose?

Inspired Life is produced by Heritage Broadcasting Company of Michigan. Advertising and editorial offices at: 125 Park St., Ste. 155, Traverse City, MI 49684. 231.941.8174, MyNorth.com. All rights reserved. Copyright 2022, Heritage Broadcasting Company of Michigan. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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FOR THE LOVE OF SKIING 4

At 90 years old, Tom Awrey is still imparting his ski wisdom— and hitting the slopes —at The Homestead.

TEXT + PHOTO BY ALLISON JARRELL

MyNorth.com

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AS I WATCH 90-YEAR-OLD TOM AWREY ZIGZAG WITH EASE DOWN A SNOW-LADEN SKI RUN, THERE’S NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT HE CAN TEACH ANYONE TO SKI—AND AT ANY AGE. The longtime Homestead ski instructor (and former NASTAR racer) is living proof that the sport is an option for anyone, as long as they’re willing to take the powdery plunge.

The Traverse City resident has been hitting the slopes for 85 years now and has no plans to put the brakes on anytime soon.

“It keeps me young,” Tom says. “At my age, I need it!”

On this sunny February morning, Homestead Ski School Director LeeAnna Grafstein is watching Tom and some young skiers descend Sweet Cicely hill. She’s only been in her position for part of the winter, but that’s long enough to recognize that “Tom is a great person to know.”

“He really has a lot of heart,” says LeeAnna. “He puts everything into this.”

Upon starting the job, LeeAnna told Tom she wanted to learn to ski so she could guide the other instructors. “He kept encouraging me, and one day we were slow and he said, ‘OK, let’s go out. Get your skis on!’” recalls LeeAnna. “So, I did, and within an hour, I was at the top of that hill skiing.

He’s phenomenal. He will not stop until you’re skiing the proper way, and he makes sure these instructors are teaching everyone the proper way.”

Whether it’s giving advice to a passing skier, or telling stories to coworkers off the slopes, LeeAnna says Tom has left a lasting impression on her. “He goes home with me,” she says. “I go home and I think about the conversations we had. He’s just touched my heart.”

BORN TO SKI

No one pushed Tom to try skiing at the age of 5. One day, as he tells it, he just decided to grab some pine boards (for skis)

and hit the hills of his small town of West Branch. “There was no such thing as lessons then,” Tom recalls. “My first pair of skis were 6 feet long and had a leather strap across the toe!”

Tom’s dad worked in a gas station, and when Tom was 6 or 7, he got an inner tube, cut two pieces off it, sewed them through the leather strap and pulled it back on his heel. The “binding” of sorts allowed him to start doing turns.

A Boy Scout who was no stranger to adventure, he would often head out to Tolfree Farm in West Branch—a plot of land that had been timbered off, leaving huge stumps in the hills. “I would go out there on the weekends and just take a backpack, pack my lunch and build a fire in one of the stumps,” Tom recalls. “I’d ski out there all day.”

Skiing remained a love of Tom’s, and eventually, it led him to the love of his life, Shirley. The two were childhood sweethearts—they met at West Branch Public High School and, naturally, he taught her to ski.

Shirley has since lost her eyesight, but Tom says “she was a beautiful skier in her day.”

“She was one of those skiers who started at the top of the hill at a certain speed, and when she got to the bottom, she was still going the same speed,” he says with a smile.

“I don’t know how she did it. She was fully in control all the way down the hill.”

Tom and Shirley were married right out of high school, and they’ve been together for more than 70 years now. “She’s probably the reason that I’m skiing today,” Tom laughs.

“She puts up with me.”

Following school, Tom worked at a couple of grocery stores in West Branch before joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He went on to have a 25-year career with the Michigan State Police and retired in 1980.

Tom says he decided to start teaching skiing because “it’s something [he] always loved.” He got his start at Snow Snake Mountain, after owner Howard Brockway approached him while skiing and personally invited him to teach there. It was a perfect fit.

“It’s fun just to see people and their transformation,” Tom says. “At first they’re all nervous and scared, and all of a sudden, they’re relaxed, and they’re skiing down the

hill just having a ball.”

Tom went on to teach all over Michigan —from the Lansing Ski Club and Mid Michigan College, to Timberlee Hills, Shanty Creek, The Highlands, Boyne Mountain and Sugarloaf. In 2000, he started instructing at The Homestead, making this his 22nd year at the resort.

And as if all that weren’t impressive enough, Tom added NASTAR racer to his resume while at The Homestead. (Developed

by SKI Magazine in 1968, NASTAR —National Standard Race— is the largest recreational ski and snowboard race program in the world.) “I was here and they had the courses set up, so I just jumped in and started skiing,” Tom recalls. “It was fun racing for the 5-6 years we had it here.”

Tom smiles as he recounts racing down Purple Clover hill against local ski legend Lou Batori—who later on was still hitting the slopes at the age of 106. (Lou passed away in 2018 at the age of 107.) “He was a very nice guy,” says Tom. “Sometimes I beat him, and sometimes he beat me. It was fun to compare techniques.”

TEACHING TODAY’S SKIERS

Over the years, Tom has seen skiing change “tremendously.” He motions down to his feet. “The skis I’m on right now are left and right skis, because the inside edge is a carving edge and the outside edge is a rocker,” says Tom. “So, it just slides right out of the way when you’re making your turns. There’s all kinds of technology built into skis today.”

And the old pine boards he used as a child? “I can just use them for kindling now,” he laughs.

But no matter how much the world of skiing changes, one constant remains: Tom’s love for the thrill of the sport. Today, he delights in sharing that passion with his family (a daughter, two sons, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren), as well as those who are lucky enough to encounter him at The Homestead.

And his advice for those still on the fence? “Take a lesson from a certified instructor.” You know where to find him.

Allison Jarrell is the managing editor of Traverse Magazine. You can reach her at allison@mynorth.com.

MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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10 TIPS

FOR NEW CAREGIVERS Caring for a loved one can be overwhelming—these expert tips help prevent burnout and set you up for success.

BY CARA MCDONALD

Even the healthiest among us don’t know when an illness, diagnosis or injury will change our plans and the rhythm of our daily lives. And if that sudden health change happens to a loved one, we can find ourselves as caregivers, facing down an acute or chronic health condition that will change our lives and lifestyles.

Stepping into a brand-new role as a caregiver can be profoundly stressful as we grapple with the changes our loved one faces and find ourselves in a steep learning curve to provide the care they need.

“Every caregiving individual and situation is unique,” says Ronda Cram, director of community services for the Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan. “There are common themes, but there’s never a one-size-fits-everything guide on how to do this right.”

However, Cram says there are fundamental strategies, guidelines and tips that will help any new caregiver transition into their role with confidence—and provide a better quality of life for both them and their loved one.

1 PRACTICE SELF-CARE, NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION.

The term can sound a bit cliché, and the advice to practice selfcare frustrating to those in situations where they are juggling caregiving, work, family, home life and more. “It absolutely takes a concentrated effort to do this,” Cram says. “But if you end up sick or burned out, you’re no good to yourself or anyone.” To succeed, she advises making a conscious choice to incorporate a few things into your daily life: • Get plenty of sleep. Do your best to not burn the midnight oil “catching up” on all the many to-dos.

• Eat well. Think of your food as fueling your caregiving; don’t skip meals.

• Take a walk. Even if it’s only for 10 minutes, that time can get your blood pumping, clear your head and help you breathe.

• Schedule time away, even in a crisis. If that means getting respite care or simply stepping away from the bedside to get a cup of coffee, you’ll be preserving yourself to carry on in the best way possible. 4

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2 DEVELOP A ROUTINE. Creating a structure for your day helps

7 LET GO OF GUILT. “It’s very difficult sometimes when you feel like

3 FIND A SCHEDULING TOOL THAT WORKS FOR YOU. “My thing is

8 F IND SUPPORT FROM THOSE WHO KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING THROUGH. “A lot of support groups have moved online,”

both you and the person being cared for, taking the chaos and frustration out of having things occur haphazardly. Break down your day into meals, rest times, activities, necessary events like work or appointments, and keep it somewhere visual to help you both have a sense of stability. “Consistency helps set expectations, which lowers the potential for upset or burnout,” Cram says.

sticky notes,” Cram says. “I have a big board that I use with them to keep track of things, but everyone is different.” Find your own approach, whether that’s a whiteboard, a calendar, a bulletin board, a paper day planner or a calendar app on your phone to track to-dos, appointments and milestones.

4 KEEP A CARE JOURNAL. There may be formal and informal care-

givers coming in on different days, so write down pertinent info to share, such as if your loved one had a good day, or any notes about meals and appetites, sleep and mood. It helps all caregivers know what’s going on and track any patterns, and serves as a communication tool that allows you to step away and easily hand off relevant information.

5 TAKE HELP WHEN IT’S OFFERED. “We all think we’re super-peo-

ple,” Cram says, “but no one can go it alone. If someone wants to bring you a meal, say yes, and say it without guilt. Because if someone didn’t want to help, they wouldn’t offer.” Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask, too. Church groups, book clubs, neighbors, friends and coworkers can all be sources of a helping hand, a hot meal or just a listening ear.

6 GET HELP WITH MEALS LONG-TERM. “In most communities,

there are home-delivered meal programs such as Meals on Wheels, but more options exist,” Cram says. An online program called Mom’s Meals ships frozen meals to your door. Meal kits like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron can help; some even offer meals for restricted diets. Sites like Caring Bridge or Meal Train can help you organize friends who wish to help and provide a meal, as well as coordinate other offers to help with things like trips to the doctor, yard work or house cleaning. Tip: Especially if you’re in a new or crisis caregiving situation, space out your requests for meals over time so you aren’t overwhelmed with them all in the beginning.

you are not able to deliver on promises, such as ‘I’ll care for you at home, I’ll never put you in a nursing home,’” Cram says. Honor that you are giving your best effort and that sometimes that may not be enough, and you may need additional help. “Instead, reassure your loved one that you’ll do your best to see their wishes through.”

Cram explains; not just because of Covid-19, but because internet-based groups have popped up that are readily accessible and more diagnosis-specific. Private Facebook groups dedicated to specific conditions are a wonderful place to start, and they usually have a sub-group for caregivers.

9 REACH OUT FOR HELP SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. The Area

Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan has counselors who are nurses and social workers ready to help sort through the stage of life that people are in, talk about future goals and draw out some of those questions to help you and your loved one plan ahead. They meet you at whatever point you currently find yourself. “In a crisis, we can help you get on a long-term path,” Cram says.

10 AS A CAREGIVER, GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT. On some days the

best you can do is just be there; other days you feel like you’re really hitting it out of the park. “Caregiving is difficult, and showing up for someone you love in this way is a meaningful thing,” Cram says. “Take the win, take the credit that you are doing everything you can do.”

For more information, guidance, resources, online classes and support, contact the Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan at aaanm.org or call 231.947.8920.

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits.

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Everyday Retirement How to plan for five unexpected expenses.

BY CARA MCDONALD

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Even for those of us who have a good handle on our retirement savings, budgeting for the day-to-day reality of retirement can be daunting. And if we’re not immediately ready to retire, that kind of planning for a more distant future can feel abstract and easy to brush to the side, leaving us unprepared for unexpected expenses that may come our way.

“No one can plan for everything 100 percent,” says Erickson Braund, founder and chief financial officer at Black Walnut Wealth Management in Traverse City. “But the sooner you start, the better.”

Braund explains that while many of his clients may have healthy retirement savings and a solid plan, there are still many retirement expenditures that can crop up and surprise even those with significant savings. Luckily, Braund has a fix that may not be easy, but it’s definitely simple: Creating a detailed vision of your day-to-day retirement reality. 4

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“I tell my clients, ‘Let’s get as vivid as possible,’” he says. It can often take several months of careful listening and strategizing, during which Braund and his client meet, budget, talk priorities, assess financials and create goals.

Braund asks questions like these to get his clients thinking about money requirements beyond just basic living expenses: • How often do you travel? Do you plan on taking adult children and grandchildren on trips with you?

• Where would you like to live? Do you plan to stay in Northern Michigan year-round? Will you relocate? If so, what are the home prices and taxes like in your proposed location?

• Do you plan to have a second home? If you already own one, do you plan to use it more? Will you be losing rental income or gaining rental income on it?

•

Is downsizing on the horizon?

• How do you spend time each day? What is a typical day like?

• Will you be covering expenses that were previously covered by a job, such as a company car, cell phone, home Wi-Fi or travel allowances?

• What memberships will you need to enjoy your lifestyle—gym, boat club, HOA, golf, etc.?

• Do you like to cook and eat in? Will you be dining out more?

Hosting large gatherings?

• What are your hobbies? Do you plan to scale them up? Will you need to invest in space or equipment? Will you be purchasing major items like a boat, camper or vintage cars?

“The closer we can get to your vision of retirement, the better idea we’ll have of exactly how much you’ll need to budget,” Braund says.

His rule of thumb is to use 4 percent as a guideline—4 percent is used to determine an amount you could draw annually from your diversified portfolio. To determine how much to save for retirement, divide your annual income needed by 4 percent. Example: If you want $200,000 a year, you will need approximately $5 million in a portfolio.

Although every client situation is different, there are some easyto-overlook expenses that Braund advises everyone to consider when planning for retirement, no matter how far out that is.

HERE ARE FIVE THAT CAN SURPRISE RETIREES: 1 INFLATION. It may be top of the news now, but we usually don’t

think about inflation because typically it’s moderate and nothing to panic about. “This is something any good portfolio will be taking into account,” Braund says. “It’s not sexy, but a balanced, diversified portfolio really is the answer and helps through all types of uncertainties and environments.” Real estate and the stock market perform well during moderate inflation, he notes, although lately he sees a lot of clients rebalancing portfolios to account for large increases in home values. “You don’t want to be overcommitted in any one area,” he adds.

2 THE NEEDS OF ADULT CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN.

Retirement is a time in life when grandchildren may be heading to college or adult kids are trying to buy a home. This can be particularly tricky, Braund admits, when a client has quite a bit of

money, as they may feel more obligated to share it. “We always advise that retirement is the first priority,” he says. “You can borrow funds for real estate and college, but not for retiring, so those retirement needs have to be taken care of first.”

Braund often works with multi-generational families to help adult children plan, save and set up investments so they won’t be reliant on Mom and Dad. Some insider advice? Ensure that college-age children or grandchildren pay something toward their degrees, even if you plan to help. “Having skin in the game can really help keep the focus on school and teach them about the value of their education,” he says.

3 WANTING TO RETIRE EARLIER THAN PLANNED. “This is an issue

that can come up unexpectedly,” says Braund. “In particular, we see how Covid has changed things. People are tired, stressed; work can feel like too much and can influence their decision to maybe sell their company or step down from their job.” Retiring earlier than planned isn’t impossible, but it can mean making significant adjustments to the budget, such as a smaller home, less travel or lower spending on entertainment.

4 HOBBIES AND PASSIONS. For many, retirement brings the time

and money to pursue projects and pleasures that have taken a back seat to work, but those can become a tempting way to spend way beyond expectations. The key here is to price your passions. Check in with someone retired who’s enjoying your hobby of choice and get a reality check on the time and money they spend. If you’re just getting into a hobby, like woodworking, be sure to create a thorough breakdown of all the necessary equipment, supplies as well as space needs. Will you need a heated workshop? Will that require home improvements and a higher utility bill, or will you need to rent a space? Or if you’ve always wanted an RV, will your HOA allow you to store a 30-foot camper on your property or will you need to pay for off-site storage? What about additional insurance, maintenance, repairs or winterizing? Shaking out hidden expenses will help you better plan your budget.

5 HAVING MORE INCOME THAN BEFORE YOU RETIRED.

Wait, what? Most people think of retirement as a situation where they are navigating a more fixed income, or downsizing and spending less. But Braund says that it’s not unusual for retirees to be faced with income from multiple streams such as investments, along with new sources of income such as social security and pensions. “If you have accumulated a good chunk of retirement funding you could end up paying more from a tax standpoint,” he explains. “It can get complicated, so we help clients determine where to take the money from in a tax-advantaged way.”

No matter when you plan to retire, having a clear picture of how you want your life to look and being alert for hidden expenses will help prevent you from having to reconfigure a budget or give up certain things that feel important. “The sooner you can plan and save,” Braund says, “the more your money is working for you.”

Cara McDonald is a freelance writer, creative entrepreneur and believer in the power of storytelling for small businesses and nonprofits.

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FINDING THE NORTHERN DREAM A blended family hunts for a home in Traverse City.

Which would you choose?

BY RACHEL SOULLIERE

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Pat and Lee Perry were on the hunt for the perfect home for their blended family of seven. With three kids currently out of the house and twin 11th graders still at home, this family knew they needed to find a place with as much space as possible while staying in Grand Traverse County. Moving out of the county was not an option, as they wanted to keep the twins at the same school and needed to be close enough to take care of aging parents.

Having attended high school in Traverse City, Lee is no stranger to the area, while Pat is originally from out east. They moved their family to Northern Michigan in the early 2000s for work and to raise their children around both sets of grandparents. From there, they fully immersed themselves in the community and haven’t looked back since.

You can find their family outdoors enjoying Northern Michigan’s beauty or downtown checking out everything Traverse City has to offer.

“This is such a neat area filled with culture, amazing food and endless activities that has grown so much in the past 45 years. You’d also be hardpressed to find a more beautiful place on Earth,” Lee says.

Heading into their home search, Pat and Lee knew they wanted a house in a great location not too far from downtown, at least three bedrooms, a warm and welcoming atmosphere, an open floorplan and space for entertaining family and community members. With the help of real estate agent Kelly Leipprandt of Live Local Realty, this couple was able to look at more than 12 houses before finally finding their dream home.

“Kelly was a counselor to us and took the time to get to know both Lee and me,” Pat says. “She dug deeper every chance she got, and we truly valued her opinion every step of the way. She did a fantastic job and constantly worked to find a home that was perfect for our blended family.”

After viewing more than 12 homes, Pat and Lee, with Kelly’s help, narrowed it to their top three.

Rachel Soulliere leads web content and social media for MyNorth Media and Traverse Magazine. When she's not posting new articles online or working on social media strategy, she's most likely traveling or celebrating Northern Michigan. Follow her adventures on Instagram @rlsoulliere.

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finalist no.1 PINE MEADOWS > TRAVERSE CITY This 4-bed, 3-bath 3,256 sq. ft. Traverse City home was located two miles from downtown and within walking distance from West Senior High, where the twins attend school. Everything in the home felt brand-new and turnkey, and it had a very open and modern floorplan. There was plenty of space for entertaining, however, there were hardly any trees on the lot and the basement still needed carpet or hardwood. Overall, it was a beautiful home at the end of the neighborhood with new, contemporary finishes.

> ASKING PRICE: $550,000

finalist no. 2 HEMLOCK ROAD > CEDAR Located on a double lot, this spacious 3-bed, 3-bath home featured an open floor plan, updates throughout, fireplace, hardwood floors and a beautiful kitchen with quartz counters and plentiful cabinetry. Some of the most recent updates included new carpet, paint, flooring, a bathroom remodel and new roof shingles. It was located close to everything both Leland and Glen Arbor had to offer, however, it was in a different school district. It was also the smallest home at 3,248 sq. ft. but was fully updated with gorgeous finishes.

finalist no. 3

> ASKING PRICE: $450,000

STONE RIDGE > TRAVERSE CITY This 4-bed, 3.5-bath home was the largest option at 3,394 sq. ft. It featured a spacious main floor master bedroom, vaulted ceilings, a bonus room, theater room, wet bar and a workshop with plenty of storage. The backyard had a patio perfect for entertaining and lush landscaping, and it was only two miles from the beach and downtown. While this home had the space and location the family wanted, it was at the absolute top of their budget and they had to factor in the home needing a new roof in the next few years and HOA fees and restrictions.

> ASKING PRICE: $599,000 WHAT HOME DID THE PERRY FAMILY PICK? Discover which home the Perrys bought, and vote for the property you would have chosen: link.mynorth.com/perryfamily MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE This nonprofit supports youth through love, education and care—and it needs your help.

BY KANDACE CHAPPLE // PHOTOS COURTESY OF EAGLE VILLAGE

Do you have a few hours to spare on a Friday? We have an idea for you.

“Friends Friday” is the newest program at Eagle Village, an organization that has been changing the lives of youth and families since 1968, located in Hersey, Michigan.

Eagle Village supports children impacted by trauma with several programs: a residential care program for 10- to 17-year-olds, summer camps and weekend interventions, therapy programs and mentorships, foster care and adoption services … the list goes on.

Given the breadth of their programs, it’s easy to see why “Friends Friday” is an excellent way for volunteers to learn about the world of Eagle Village and see which of the nonprofit’s many programs might be a fit for their skills.

“Come in and see what we are doing firsthand,” says Chad Saxton, director of outreach and engagement. “We see how visits spark something in potential volunteers—they suddenly see how their own special skills or gifts can help the kids, and they get excited.”

A prime example of this happened a year ago when a volunteer 18

was on campus helping the boys decorate for Christmas. She left wanting to do something special for them and donated $8,000 for mountain bikes.

Another volunteer was there for a tour and heard the story of the donation. He was a mountain biking enthusiast and after seeing the gorgeous wooded campus—all 681 acres of it—he became invested in doing more. The volunteer went on to recruit biking friends to help improve trails on the property and—the fun part—put together group rides for the kids.

“The only catch was that it was impossible to find bikes during Covid-19,” Chad says. “But the volunteer didn’t give up. He reached out to REI and explained what Eagle Village does to help youth. It just so happened that the very same day, REI got a huge shipment of bikes in. They sent us the first 20 mountain bikes from the shipment!”

Programs like these not only get kids outside in nature—a key part of Eagle Village’s healing philosophy—they also work as an incentive. Children who complete five rides and an hour of trail work receive a bike jersey.

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But there’s one thing that means most of all.

“There are a lot of firsts for kids here at Eagle Village,” Chad adds. “You can’t fathom it in most cases, but some kids here have never been on a bike or gone for an ice cream cone after a game.”

Chad shares another “first” story at Eagle Village that happened on Christmas morning.

“We had one young gal opening her present very, very slowly. Finally, we had to ask, why are you taking so long?” recalls Chad. The answer: The girl had never received a Christmas present before, and she wanted to make it last.

“She said her mother was always working to keep the heat on and keep them in their home, so there wasn’t any money for presents,” Chad says.

It’s stories like these that are both heartbreaking and heartwarming at Eagle Village.

A HELPING HAND

Eagle Village has a 1:3 staff to youth ratio.

Volunteers are in addition to staff members, so they don’t have to handle behavioral issues; they are there to enjoy, have fun and engage with the kids. All volunteers undergo a background check and training before starting, Chad notes.

Volunteers Rick and Beth Gentner are regular faces at Eagle Village. However, when Covid closed the campus to volunteers last year, they had to get creative.

The Gentners put out a Facebook call to provide masks for the youth, collecting 400 handmade cloth masks. Then, when they couldn’t decorate the residential houses for the holidays as usual, they collected “Cookie Baking Kits” (via Facebook again) for the residential houses instead.

“They thought of everything!” Chad says.

“The kits included aprons, baking sheets, spatulas, ingredients, a recipe—everything.”

Rick and Beth both say the experience is beyond fulfilling.

“There is no way to track the impact that volunteering has,” Rick says. “There is no way to put a price on the worth and value this brings to your life.”

THE PROGRAMS

As the pandemic continues, Eagle Village has about 30 children on campus, half their usual number. In 2019, Eagle Village served 120 Michigan youth from 56 different counties.

Currently, they have four residential houses open, down from six, due to lack of staffing—something that is happening across the board with all residential programs, Chad says. 4 MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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Each house has nine children (grouped by age and gender) with three staff members on day, afternoon and overnight shifts to care for them. The children go to a charter school right on campus and do normal family things together after school, like sports (mountain biking!), leisure, dance, art, Christmas pageants, drama, etc. There are auditions and practices and prepping stages, and parents and the public are invited to watch their productions.

There is also a vocational certification program available for older residents as they prepare to leave Eagle Village and live in the community. All residents are provided with on-site medical care and therapy, and all students have the opportunity to earn a high school diploma.

In addition, the children’s families are involved in Legacy Weekends, which are chances for Eagle Village therapists to work with kids and their families together. When safe and appropriate, Eagle Village picks up the family, provides all the food and lodging for the weekend, and returns the family to their home at no cost.

“We do our best to help the family heal as a whole,” Chad says.

MENTORS

Mentoring children is another rewarding way to volunteer at Eagle Village. Mentors are assigned by gender.

“For example, we would pair up a female adult with a young lady for an hour a week,” Chad says. “It could be phone mentoring or they might come here, walk and play games with them. After six or so visits, they might take off-campus field trips. We keep it very structured, so everyone knows what to expect.”

They are sure to emphasize that mentors aren’t there to lecture or become additional therapists, they are simply there to care about the kids.

“Some of our kids don’t have any place to go on Christmas Day, no foster home, nowhere,” Chad says. “They see other kids getting phone calls, but they don’t. Mentors can become that person for them.”

In addition, Eagle Village facilitates foster care and adoptions.

Chad has firsthand experience with the program. He started fostering with his wife in 1994, and they have adopted three children.

“When you work here, you see kids who need help and don’t have it,” Chad says. “Our adopted children are now ages 31, 22 and 14.

We see miracles here every day.”

For more information, visit eaglevillage.org. “Friends Friday” is held the third Friday of every month and includes a campus tour and lunch with the kids. Some needs include mowing, raking, gift wrapping, baking, sorting clothing and spring cleaning. Chad encourages you to come out and see if there’s a way to share your gifts.

Kandace Chapple is a freelance writer and founder of the Michigan Girl Bike Club. She can be reached at kandacechapple.com.

SP E N D T I M E AT E AG L E VI L L AG E NO MATTER HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE TO VOLUNTEER, THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO FIT YOUR SCHEDULE:

1 HOUR

•

Speak in chapel or be a part of student athletic events.

2 HOURS

• Teach a specific skill, such as cooking, crafts, organizing or changing car oil.

• Participate in a Career Day and share what you do and the education it requires.

• Mentor a child—spend two to four hours monthly investing in them through phone calls and in-person visits.

•

Bring a group for a tour of the campus.

4 HOURS

• Help with an event, such as Eagles Pride (residents are recognized for accomplishments and get to have their hair done, makeup, formal attire and dinner to celebrate!) or the Eagle Village 5K, usually held in July.

•

Invite Eagle Village to speak at your church or service group.

• Invite Eagle Village children to an event or project in your community.

5 HOURS

• Attend an Eagles in Action Day to help tackle larger projects around campus. (There’s usually one in April for spring cleaning.)

•

Do landscaping or raking around campus.

LONG-TERM • Coordinate volunteers (10 hours weekly).

• Rally your church or group to adopt one of their residential houses. Be their go-to person for learning skills, cheering them on and helping purchase Christmas presents (1-year commitment).

• Involve your group or another organization in recurring volunteer days.

YOUR AREA OF EXPERTISE

• Offer your area of expertise to the Career and Trades Center program. Some examples include teaching kids how to mountain bike or cook a meal.

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Finding a colorful—and meaningful—mission in life’s next chapter.

BY KIM SCHNEIDER // PHOTOS BY ALLISON JARRELL

Carolyn Faught is kneeling by the edge of a raised garden bed, methodically placing tulip bulbs in a grid pattern that resembles a carton of eggs—well, if you were laying out an impressive 208 cartons worth. It’s one of 26 flower beds she meticulously maintains at her U-Pick garden, Omena Cut Flowers, a business that’s continued to bloom during her retirement.

Underneath the massive bed, she’s laid netting to keep burrowing critters away, one of many lessons learned in her quarter-century of flower farming. As Carolyn quickly but precisely plants some 2,500 bulbs, her accountant husband, Dave, sprinkles dirt to set them in place (the work is his “antidote” to taxes). Omena Bay glistens in the background, and the family’s golden retriever pup, Marigold, lounges nearby.

A few minutes later, Dave will dump a truckload of dirt on top to tuck in the bulbs for winter as Carolyn moves on to cutting back peony bushes; these 150 bushes are stunning additions to the garden, she explains, and also great revenue producers. She’ll check plantings of winter rye that enrich the soil and then move on to the next task, barely pausing and nearly impossible to keep up with.

Carolyn’s is a retirement job by only the loosest definition of the term. Her recent retirement from a weekday career as the communication director for the Leelanau Conservancy has just given her more time to devote to her longtime avocation and passion.

Here on M-22, just a two-minute drive from the quaint bay town of Omena and on the main route between Suttons Bay and Northport, the 64-year-old self-taught flower farmer and entrepreneur has built a business including U-Pick flowers, premade bouquets for purchase, flower subscriptions, the sale of perennial plants and bulbs and beautiful wedding arrangements. Customers find scissors, jars and handled baskets to hold their chosen flowers, and pencils and pads to tally what they’ve spent, all inside a storybook-perfect wooden potting shed. From there, U-pickers have total freedom

to create custom bouquets as they wander the flower beds covering a wide, sloping lawn with a bay view. Payment is on the honor system.

“People say ‘You work so hard,’” Carolyn says. “For me, this is my play. This is my joy. I don’t consider it work. I would be here 24/7 if my body could take it. I would. I just love every piece of it.”

Finding a sense of mission in retirement is what everybody dreams of for this chapter of their lives, and more and more retirees are finding that mission in a new livelihood or the chance to turn a hobby into a new source of income. Carolyn got a head start, beginning her passion job when her son (now a medical school graduate and resident) was 8 years old, and a second was on the way, seizing the chance to make some residual income with flexible work after leaving a job she similarly loved as managing editor of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine.

The original idea for this now full-time project came as many of the best do—by serendipity. She walked from her magazine office to the local farmer’s market one lunch break to buy flowers for the magazine’s office manager. When she walked in with an armload of sunflowers, the staff swarmed around her asking, “Where’d you get those?!”

“I thought, I could plant my whole front yard in sunflowers!” she recalls. “I started researching flower farms and learned of one on the West Coast.

I thought, ‘I’m on a busy road, in a tourist area. I could do that.’ And the plan turned into a U-Pick garden.”

Carolyn initially planted six beds and teamed up with a close friend, now a local judge, who had then taken a short break from her law career. Even more special was the way her mother walked the journey with her, watching the young boys while she worked the garden and providing both gardening inspiration and perennials.

Many of the U-Pick’s most successful beds are from sprigs off her mother’s gardens.

As the business started to grow, so did demand for her considerable writing and marketing talents.

Just a couple of years after her first plantings went into the 4 MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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—Carolyn Faught

ground, the then-director of the Leelanau Conservancy called to see if she could help by doing some writing five hours a week to help raise the caliber of the organization’s communications efforts.

“I thought, ‘How can I say yes, but how can I say no?’” she says. “I moved here because I loved it so much and loved what the conservancy was doing. That five hours turned into 32 hours a week, and I was there 20 years.”

When she retired last year from the second full-time job she loved, the transition was as smooth as a transition could be. Not only had she been growing the U-Pick business over the past 25 years, but she was also integrating the writing and marketing skills honed through her other positions. Her 3,000 Instagram and 7,000 Facebook followers learn about flowers and farm challenges through her explanatory journalism, peeks into daily life and announcements of what’s fresh and waiting in the cooler. All this translates into customer connections—and sales.

The biggest change, as she looks toward the chapter ahead, is the addition of more ways to work “smarter, not harder,” she says, as she points to a flower bed on which perennials have been planted on fabric liners to reduce weed pressure, and then to other spots where she’s found ways to plant flowers closer together for better yield.

“I love to weed, and I love the physical work, but if I can be lean and efficient, it’s better for me,” she says.

As much as Carolyn clearly loves the technical aspects of gardening, she lights up when talking about what she’s been able to share with customers and the mission that runs through it—the thread of connection to place that has been woven through her entire career.

“I tell people when they come, ‘Sit on the bench, take in the view,’” she says. “We have great flowers at a great price, but people are coming for the experience I think as much as they are for the flowers.

“It’s so rewarding, in so many ways, not just financially,” she adds.

“I have a guest book, and people leave me messages like, ‘I can feel my blood pressure lowering when I’m here,’ or ‘I’m picking to put flowers on my best friend’s grave’ or ‘for my 95-year-old grandma’s birthday.’ It’s an emotional thing for people. They love this place, and they thank me for doing it. I think it’s my calling really.”

Kim Schneider is a long-time travel writer specializing in Michigan adventures, food and wine. The Midwest Travel Journalist Association has named her Mark Twain Travel Writer of the Year, and she’s the author of “100 Things to Do in Traverse City Before You Die.”

A RE P EOP LE RETIRIN G EAR LY ?

WEALTH MANAGEMENT ADVISOR DAWN M. HEMMING OF HEMMING& WEALTH MANAGEMENT IN TRAVERSE CITY SHARES SOME INSIGHT. ARE THERE STATS THAT SPEAK TO A TREND OF EARLY RETIREMENT?

I understand that early retirees have exceeded three million workers in the U.S. I also understand the excess in retirements is equal to over half of missing workers. Back in April, a government survey suggested that 2.7 million Americans age 55 or older were contemplating retiring sooner than they had imagined. Both surging stocks and housing values during the pandemic made it possible for many to accumulate larger nest eggs and stop working. Growth in assets have also enabled many young baby boomers to leave their jobs.

ARE YOU SEEING THIS IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN?

I am seeing a trend toward intentionality. Sometimes that is retirement, and sometimes that is using time as it best serves us.

DO YOU THINK THIS INTENTIONALITY IS DUE TO THE PANDEMIC?

I think the pandemic gave many clarity. I have seen some get lost in all of it and others find focus and renewed conviction. We see a wide range. Most of our clients are expressing a variety of goals and we are crafting solutions to make them possible. Others seem lost. In all cases, we try to be a “lighthouse in the storm.”

FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE HOPING TO RETIRE EARLY, WHAT'S YOUR MAIN PIECE OF ADVICE?

Practice living below your means, which results in being more choiceful in the long run and much less stressful. Find a balance between today’s desires and tomorrow’s dreams.

Learn more about Hemming& Wealth Management at hemmingwm.com.

MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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2/8/22 11:03 AM

EMBRACING THE ELEMENTS Guided hikes led by local groups are keeping Otsego County seniors happy and healthy year-round.

BY HEATHER JOHNSON DUROCHER PHOTOS COURTESY OF HEADWATERS LAND CONSERVANCY

No matter the wintry weather—frigid and sunny, blizzard-like and blowing—Sam Cornelius, 69, tries to head outdoors and move his body every day.

“I’ll get out for a little bit of a walk in the woods, a walk with my dog,” says Cornelius, who is retired and lives in Livingston Township near Gaylord. “It’s good to get out there as often as you can—just a walk around the backyard is better than nothing.”

Come winter, Cornelius is often on snowshoes, enjoying trails throughout Northern Michigan with family and friends. And a few years ago, he played an important role in helping HeadWaters Land Conservancy secure a grant to purchase snowshoes, says Dianne Farner, community engagement and development coordinator for the conservancy. Through a partnership with the Otsego County Commission on Aging, the conservancy provides these snowshoes to seniors who participate in a winter hiking program. 4 MyNorth INSPIRED LIFE | SPRING 2022

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“The commission sets their own hike dates and we bring the snowshoes,” Farner says. “We plan one guided snowshoe hike a month in the winter, starting in January going through March.”

These hikes, geared toward retirees, typically take place around 10 a.m. Organizers try to mix up the locations, with a popular spot being the Groen Nature Preserve near Johannesburg. The event attracts hikers of all abilities who are looking for ways to keep moving while also connecting with others in their communities.

“We’ve got people who are living alone or who maybe don’t have family around, so it’s just good to be able to help people get out there,” says Farner, whose own mother—in her 70s and who snowshoes often—serves as an inspiration.

The hikes are also great for anyone who has dealt with health issues that kept them indoors for some time, Farner says. Now they’re ready to get exploring again, and the groomed, relatively flat trails provide a safe way to return to an exercise routine.

“It’s breaking down a barrier—maybe you got knee replacement surgery last year, or you have other health issues or you’re living alone.

It’s helping people get out and stay active, and the group situations are nice,” Farner says.

For Cornelius, revisiting pathways and trails, and seeing how they change through the year, is a big motivator for staying active.

“Find places you like and go back to them many times. Have your favorites,” he says. “You get to know them better and get to see changes with weather and the seasons and the time of day—you’ve got that favorite curve, that nice downslope when you know the terrain well. It adds to the richness of being outdoors.”

And always remember the importance of dressing in layers and having the appropriate gear, which may include shoe traction when hiking slippery trail conditions and walking poles or ski poles for stability, the latter of which “can increase your workout because you get to use your arms and your legs,” Cornelius says, adding, “We have to know what we need to be comfortable and safe.”

Check the HeadWaters Land Conservancy calendar of events at headwatersconservancy.org to learn more about upcoming snowshoe hikes. Find information about year-round hiking opportunities for seniors at otsegocountycoa.org/walk-michigan.

Heather Johnson Durocher writes from Traverse City, where she lives with her husband Joe and their three kids. She is the founder of the travel and active lifestyle site MichiganRunnerGirl.com and also hosts a weekly podcast.

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GREAT TRA ILS TO EXP LORE ACROSS TH E N ORTH Sam Cornelius, who retired from a career in early childhood and family-based services, helped start the volunteer group Kids Outdoors Otsego (KOO) in 2011 to promote outside activity in nature for young children with their parents. (Learn more about this group by searching Kids Outdoors Otsego on Facebook.) Cornelius is passionate about people of all ages spending time outdoors and recommends these spots for exploring in the Otsego County area, whether you’re spending time with your children and grandchildren or friends: LOUIS M. GROEN NATURE PRESERVE NEAR JOHANNESBURG. It’s groomed throughout winter. Features include Johannesburg Lake, woods, fields.

STURGEON RIVER PRESERVE, accessible by taking Old 27 North to Whitmarsh Road and going three miles east to the parking area (which is along the road).

PIGEON RIVER COUNTRY - SHINGLE MILL PATHWAY NEAR VANDERBILT. This multiuse trail has features including the Pigeon River and forested ridges.

COMMUNITY GARDEN AREA, off Livingston Boulevard, in Gaylord. This Otsego County Conservation District nature spot has lots of different garden areas, a paved walk, wooded trails and more.

OTHE R S E NI OR-FR I E NDLY TR A I LS I N NORTHE R N MI CHI GA N: LEELANAU TRAIL, a paved pathway connecting Suttons Bay to Traverse City. Running through the last of Leelanau County’s former railroad corridors, the Leelanau Trail features picturesque forests, farms, vineyards, lakes and ponds.

MISSION POINT LIGHTHOUSE, at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula, in Grand Traverse County, which is surrounded by five acres of wooded township land and hundreds of acres of state land—all with miles of trails. Find trail maps in the park. Enjoy spectacular views of the beach and deep forest views on these trails, which are open year-round and until 10 p.m. daily.

PETOSKEY CITY TRAILS. From the Little Traverse Wheelway, access the Bear River Valley Recreation Area by crossing West Lake Street at the fire station/city hall complex. Snowshoe the 1.5-mile paved path along Bear River trail that runs from Sheridan Avenue to Lake Street.

MyNorth.com

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2/8/22 10:56 AM

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2/2/22 8:51 PM

T he Cu l i nary North

Pâté of Danu Hof Pork (Mancelona) with beet “soil” crumble, local vegetables and greens from Grass Lakes Organics (Bellaire) and Daybreak Dreamfarm (East Jordan)

local cuisine . drinks . restaurant guide

D I N I N G OUT

ROOTED IN BELLAIRE

by CARLY SIMPSON

Three siblings run the restaurant they’ve always dreamed of in the place they’ve always loved.

T

photos by Dave Weidner

he ingredients used at Terrain speak of place: Michigan-grown apples and heirloom squash, maple syrup, asparagus, ramps, strawberries, peaches … “The emphasis is really about what’s here,” says Chef Randy Minish.

“What can be done with what’s here and celebrating the value of the region.”

And what’s created with those ingredients is indeed special. Chef Randy brines pork chops with cider from neighboring Bee Well, makes coffee ice cream using Mundos Roasting’s beans and sources peppers from Grass Lake Organics for chili-infused tequila. The menu is constantly rotating depending on what’s in

season and new items Randy discovers, like Michiganmade vinegars and barrel-aged soy sauce.

The Minish siblings—Randy, Jenna and Shana—grew up in Bellaire, and they each spent stints at the nowclosed Lulu’s Bistro as teens. Shana started at Lulu’s in 2001, the year it opened. “I was young and I was learning a lot about food and wine—it was a really educational time,” she says. Jenna agrees, adding that it was her “first immersion in real food culture, something more than a good burger.” For Randy, Lulu’s was where he learned to love to cook, working with owner Michael Peterson who went on to open Siren Hall in Elk Rapids (now American House Wood Fired Pizza). Randy graduated from the Great Lakes Culinary Institute, taking jobs in Detroit and San Francisco before moving back to Bellaire.

When the Lulu’s building became available, it was kismet, and Terrain opened in May 2019. The logo, a twist of ramps and sumac, speaks to the northern woods in which the Minish siblings spent their summers. The atmosphere is comfortable and welcoming. It’s a spot for birthdays and anniversaries but also a place to grab a bite after you’ve finished a hike, spent an afternoon on the lake or hit the ski slopes; a restaurant of this region and for this region.

From left: Terrain Shana, Randy and Jenna Minish 213 N. Bridge St., Bellaire terrain-restaurant.com NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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T he Cu l i nary North Trends

Farm-Style Sriracha, Harwood Gold 230 Bridge St., Charlevoix

T

he parsons are a sappy bunch. The family has been making maple syrup since the late 1800s from the trees surrounding Harwood Lake in Charlevoix County. Today, fifth-generation sisters Amber and Katie are at the helm and continue to develop the brand to include gourmet products like maple peanut butter, black fig maple spread and—a staple for every northern pantry—farm-style sriracha. This 2021 Good Food Award winner is made with five different peppers, but the heat is balanced out by the addition of maple syrup. Pizza, breakfast tacos, mashed potatoes—put it on everything. For a spicier kick, try the ghost pepper-infused maple syrup. “It’s definitely not for everyone, but those who love it are diehard fans,” Amber says. She suggests drizzling a little over grilled salmon or mixing it into a pork marinade. harwoodgold.com

MAPLE MADNESS

by CARLY SIMPSON

Kick off the March tree tapping season with three unique twists on Michigan maple syrup.

to be pleasantly surprised. The Petersens make a range, from dry to sweet. (Yes, a maple wine really can be dry.) Their fruit wines—blueberry, cherry, peach and blackberry—work especially well with maple. “It’s amazing how it will pop out fruit flavors,” Christi says. Dry red drinkers, try Christi’s fave, the Maple Blackberry. You’ll find a few

Maple Blackberry Wine, Maple Moon Sugarbush & Winery 4454 Atkins Rd., Petoskey

JUST A BITE Shepherd’s Pie To experience a true celebration of Made in Northern Michigan, grab a seat at Taproot Cider House in downtown TC. Proprietor Jen Viren has (literally) put down roots in the community—a taproot (the strongest root and the foundation of a tree) is the centerpiece behind the bar. To Jen, roots represent local partnerships—something she and husband/co-owner/chef Andrew Viren showcase in every item on the menu. On March’s still chill nights, we love their take on a classic English dish: Shepherd’s Pie. Served up bubbling hot in a crock, it features Zimba Farms organic grass-fed beef, Providence Farm ground lamb, Omena Organics sweet peas, Lakeview Hill organic Oneida gold potatoes and St. Ambrose red wine. Pair it with a glass of cherry ginger hard cider. “Its bright complex flavors cut through the richness and bring the dish to life,” Jen says.

300 E. Front St., Traverse City, taproottc.com –C.S.

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wines at Olsen’s in Petoskey, but for the full lineup, head to the tasting room.

Tip: Call ahead and schedule a tour— the Petersens love sharing what they do. mmsyrup.com

Maple Sprinkles, Michigan Maple Farms

11866 W. Thompson Rd., Rudyard

To make maple sprinkles, syrup is simply boiled and then continuously stirred until all the steam is removed and granulated sugar begins to form.

These sweet, small bits are delicious on ice cream, oatmeal, yogurt or in your morning coffee for a burst of maple.

Owner Mike Ross started tapping as a hobby in the 1980s and has since grown the operation into a generational business. The Ross family also sells maple-making equipment, for others who want to try it at home with buckets and those who have larger enterprises. Stop by, or place an order online. michiganmaplefarms.com rmgmaple.com

top: photo by Michael Murphy IV / bottom: photo by Dave Weidner

Michigan’s only maple winery is especially fun to visit in March when proprietors Todd and Christi Petersen are in the thick of tapping. If you’re picturing bottles of thick, syrupy wines, expect

T R AV E R S E / M A R C H 2 0 2 2

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2/2/22 8:25 PM

The Culinary North

GUIDE R E S T A U R A N T

Whiskers Bar & Grill at The Homestead

| WATER VIEW | RED HOT BEST WINNER 2021 BLD | BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER BAR | ALCOHOL SERVED $ | ENTRÉES UNDER $10 $$ | $10-20 $$$ | ABOVE $20

photo by Brian Walters

RESTAURANT GUIDE WINTER/SPRING SCHEDULE Save each issue for a look at the North’s dining scene, and find the full guide in print June– September. Or, visit MyNorth.com > Directories > Restaurants.

FEBRUARY: Grand Traverse Area MARCH: Leelanau & Benzie APRIL: Petoskey & Mackinac Straits + Charlevoix & Chain of Lakes

Funistrada Casual trattoria features Italian specialties such as veal saltimbocca and lasagna. 4566 MCFARLANE, MAPLE CITY/BURDICKVILLE,

Knot Just a Bar Fish and burgers in a modern, beachy pub perched over pretty Omena Bay. 5019 BAY SHORE DR. (M-22), OMENA,

Hannah’s Cakes, cupcakes, ice cream and hearty sandwiches to

La Bécasse Part the heavy velvet curtains and find a Provençal par-

231.334.3900 D • BAR • $$

MAY: Manistee & Cadillac

balance out the sweets. 112 E. PHILLIP ST., LAKE LEELANAU, 231.994.2068

LD • $

LEELANAU COUNTY

The Homestead Whiskers Bar & Grill—pizza, wood-grilled

ribs, burgers and more. Dine inside and out. D • BAR • $-$$

9 Bean Rows Bakery Artisan bakery and farmstead known

1 WOODRIDGE RD. (OFF M-22), GLEN ARBOR, 231.334.5000

for French-style breads, croissants and assorted pastries.

Hop Lot Brewing Co. Family-friendly microbrewery with four-

9000 E. DUCK LAKE RD., SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.6658 BL • $

season patio and games serving ribs, tacos, wings and a s’more kit to top it all off. 658 S. WEST BAY SHORE DR., SUTTONS BAY, 231.866.4445

45th Parallel Cafe Artsy spot with creative breakfast and lunch.

102 S. BROADWAY, SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.2233 BL • $-$$

LD • BAR • $-$$

Art’s Tavern Burgers, whitefish, steaks, Mexican and piz-

Hang-On Express Thai and Chinese classics. 316 N. ST. JOSEPH ST.,

za. Smelt year-round at this legendary watering hole.

SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.0202 LD • $

6487 W. WESTERN AVE., GLEN ARBOR, 231.334.3754 BLD • BAR • $-$$

Joe’s Friendly Tavern A rustic, comfy spot with bar food: white-

Barb’s Bakery House-baked goods famous for cinnamon twists,

fish, burgers, sandwiches, chili and soup. 11015 FRONT ST., EMPIRE,

doughnuts, croissants and more. 112 N. MILL ST., NORTHPORT,

231.326.5506 BLD • BAR • $$

231.386.5851 BLD • $

231.386.7393 LD • BAR • $-$$ •

adise. C-675 & C-616, BURDICKVILLE, 231.334.3944 D • BAR • $$-$$$

NEW Leelanau Coffee Roasting Breakfast Bistro Arabica coffees,

breakfast sandwiches, sourdough pancakes, cinnamon rolls and more. 101 S. MAIN ST., LELAND, 231.994.2202 BLD • $

Leland Lodge Bogey’s 19th Hole has burgers, sandwiches and a

house specialty whitefish chowder. 565 PEARL ST., LELAND, 231.256.7504

LD • BAR • $-$$

Little Traverse Inn Old World gastro pub highlighting the food and beer of the British Isles. 149 E. HARBOR HWY., MAPLE CITY, 231.228.2560 LD • BAR • $$-$$$

Lylah’s Sandwiches and salads made to order, homemade soups,

sauces and dressings. 99 W. 4TH ST., SUTTONS BAY, 231.866.4081 BL • $ Market 22 Deli, pizza, bakery. Eat in or take out. 497 E. HARBOR

HWY., MAPLE CITY, 231.228.6422 BLD • BAR • $

intimate setting on Sleeping Bear Bay. 5705 S. LAKE ST., GLEN ARBOR,

Martha’s Leelanau Table A European-style cafe with an emphasis on regional cuisine made from scratch. 413 N. JOSEPH ST.,

231.334.2530 D • BAR • $$$

SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.2344 BLD • BAR • $-$$$

Boone Docks Log lodge with roomy deck, shrimp, burg-

NEW Nittolo’s Restaurants Two restaurants under one roof. Nit-

Blu Exquisite regional cuisine from chef Randy Chamberlain in an

ers, steaks. 5858 MANITOU BLVD., GLEN ARBOR, 231.334.6444 LD • BAR • $$

tolo’s Pizza: Unique brick-oven pizzas. Seafood & Social: Ora king salmon, Alaskan halibut, Chilean sea bass and more. 104 MAIN ST.,

Boone’s Prime Time Pub Seafood, steaks and burgers in a cozy cabin with a fireplace and a lively, friendly wait staff.

North Country Grill & Pub The Boone family keeps the classics

LAKE LEELANAU, 231.994.2400 LD • $$-$$$

while flirting with fondue, fried pickles, Phillys and Cubans. 420 N.

102 JOSEPH ST., SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.6688 LD • BAR • $$

ST. JOSEPH ST., SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.5000 LD • BAR • $$

Broomstack Kitchen & Taphouse Great burgers, hand-cut fries, Sicilian-style pizza. Curling rink. 172 W. BURDICKVILLE RD., MAPLE CITY, 231.228.8869 LD • BAR • $

Dick’s Pour House Homemade soups and pies, sandwiches, pizza. 103 W. PHILIP ST., LAKE LEELANAU, 231.256.9912 NEW Fiddleheads An eclectic breakfast and sandwich shop serving

beer, wine and cocktails. 202 W. MAIN ST., LAKE LEELANAU, 231.994.2121

BL • BAR • $–$$

Fischer’s Happy Hour Tavern Rustic family-style road-

house known for burgers, soups and raspberry pie in season. 7144 N. M-22, BETWEEN NORTHPORT AND LELAND, 231.386.9923

LD • BAR • $

photo by Dave Weidner

LD • BAR • $-$$

FIND MORE NORTHERN MICHIGAN RESTAURANTS!

MyNorth.com > Food & Drink > Restaurants

New Bohemian Cafe

NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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2/2/22 8:25 PM

The Culinary North New Bohemian Cafe A neighborhood coffee shop and deli. 110 S. WAUKAZOO ST., NORTHPORT, 231.386.1034 BL • $-$$

Pegtown Station Pizza, subs, burgers, sandwiches, salads

and breakfast—all done well. 8654 S. MAPLE CITY RD., MAPLE CITY, 231.228.6692 BL • $

Shipwreck Cafe Homemade pretzel, Italian herb and plain buns

baked daily for phenomenal made-to-order sandwiches. 11691 S. LACORE RD., EMPIRE, 231.835.2580 BL • $

Streetside Grille Seafood, burgers, pasta, flatbread pizzas, great

beer list and more. 111 N. ST. JOSEPH ST., SUTTONS BAY, 231.866.4199

LD • BAR • $$-$$$

The Tribune Ice Cream and Eatery House-cured lox, breakfast burritos, meatloaf sammies and burgers. 110 E. NAGONABA ST., NORTHPORT, 231.386.1055 BLD • $

Trish’s Dishes Crêpes, omelettes, salads, gourmet sandwiches. 407 E. MAIN ST., LELAND, 231.994.2288 BLD • $

Western Avenue Grill Pasta, seafood, whitefish and burgers. 6680 WESTERN AVE. (M-109), GLEN ARBOR, 231.334.3362 LD • BAR • $$

Wren Contemporary comfort food and a constantly changing menu

to feature locally sourced ingredients. 303 N. ST. JOSEPH ST., SUTTONS BAY, 231.271.1175 D • BAR • $$

BENZONIA/BEULAH/HONOR Cold Creek Inn Perch, planked whitefish, homemade pizza, burg-

ers. 185 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.335.1247 LD • BAR • $-$$

East Shore Market Pizza, subs, salads, spirits and wine to go. 276 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.882.4323 L • BAR • $-$$

Five Shores Brewing Craft brewery with appetizers to share and

pressed sandwiches. 163 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.383.4400 LD • BAR • $-$$

Hill Top Soda Shoppe 300+ flavors of ice cream, seasonal sorbets, ice cream cakes and more made right in store. Doughnuts and coffee, too. 7117 SOUTH ST., BENZONIA, 231.882.9697 BL • $

Hungry Tummy Corner Pub Pizza, broasted chicken, burgers and

more classic pub fare. 226 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.882.5103 LD

• BAR • $-$$

Jim’s Joint BBQ Find platters heavy with succulent smoked brisket, plus all-star sides like corncakes and potato salad. 10914 US-31, HONOR, 231.227.1227 LD • $-$$

Jodi’s Tangled Antler Friday Fish Fry (and karaoke!) and

nightly dinner specials. 15015 US-31, BEULAH, 231.325.2480

photo by Nick Hearn

LD • BAR • $-$$

L’Chayim Delicatessen NY-style deli with sandwiches and bagels.

274 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.882.5221 BL • $

Lucky Dog Bar and Grille Burgers, smoked wings, brats, sand-

wiches, craft beer, cocktails. 223 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.383.4499

The Tribune Ice Cream and Eatery

LD • BAR • $-$$

Papa J’s Pizzeria & Diner Sparkling diner serving homemade

dishes and fine pizza pie. Weekend buffets and every day pizza lunch buffet. 10583 MAIN ST., HONOR, 231.325.7070 BLD • $-$$

Platte River Inn Classic dining in a casual atmosphere.

LAKE ANN/THOMPSONVILLE The 231 Bar & Grill Spot for live music and a meal. 17170 VONDRA RD., THOMPSONVILLE, 231.378.0231 LD • BAR • $-$$

BLD • BAR • $-$$

The Bread Lady Small-batch artisan-style breads, cookies, specialty muffins and other dessert treats. Special orders for cakes of all sizes.

The Roadhouse Traditional Mexican cuisine with a cool cantina atmosphere. 1058 MICHIGAN AVE., (US-31), BENZONIA, 231.882.9631 LD

Crystal Mountain Resort Thistle Pub & Grille—Wood-paneled

Steaks, Italian, Mexican. 10921 MAIN ST., HONOR, 231.227.1200

• BAR • $-$$

St. Ambrose Cellars Known for fabulous meads, but also serving wine, beer, burgers, wood-fired pizza, tacos and truffle fries. 841 S. PIONEER RD., BEULAH, 231.383.4262

LD • BAR • $-$$

Sweet’s Bar & Grill A hometown sports bar with pizza, burgers and sammies. 10919 MAIN ST., HONOR, 231.227.1148 LD • BAR • $-$$ Ursa Major Bistro Breakfast, burgers, sandwiches. 245 S. BENZIE BLVD., BEULAH, 231.383.4250 BLD • $-$$

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19773 LINWOOD AVE., LAKE ANN, 231.275.2253 BLD • $$

The Red Door Coffee House Coffee shop with breakfast

sandwiches and mighty fine baked goods. 19631 MAPLE ST., LAKE ANN, 231.640.0005 BL • $

The Stone Oven Darn good mac & cheese, pizza and a robust

sandwich menu. Place a to-go order and take it next door to Lake Ann Brewing. 6551 FIRST ST., LAKE ANN, 231.275.8520 LD • $-$$

eatery, continental and Scottish specialties. LD • BAR • $-$$$ Wild Tomato Restaurant & Bar—Family favorites. BLD • BAR •

$-$$ 12500 CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN DR., THOMPSONVILLE, 231.946.3585 OR 231.378.2000

Geno’s Sports Bar and Grill Burgers, broasted chicken, pizza, soups, salads. 14848 THOMPSON AVE., THOMPSONVILLE, 231.378.2554 LD • BAR • $

Iron Fish Distillery A farm-to-flask distillery with gorgeous cock-

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tails and wood-fired pizzas. 14234 DZUIBANEK RD., THOMPSONVILLE,

231.378.3474 LD • BAR • $$

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T he Cu l i nary North On the Table DINING IN

POT O’ GOLD

by STACEY BRUGEMAN

On St. Patrick’s Day—or any day— this soup bridges the gap between winter and spring.

photo by Dave Weidner / styling by Sarah Peschel

“Y

ou can turn any occasion into a party,” my motherin-law once told me as I turned up the reggae and poured her some bubbles. We were celebrating her maiden voyage on our “new” daysailer—a roadside find my husband and I were proud to share with his parents. I thought about her statement for weeks. I’ve long turned life’s little milestones into bigger ones—a trait that is especially true in the winter months.

Between Halloween and Easter, nearly any holiday that comes on a printed calendar gets a special meal.

Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Fat Tuesday and St. Patrick’s Day come to mind. I love the excuse to cook something I’ve never made before and enjoy making an average day feel, well, above average.

As life has gotten increasingly complex, it’s occurred to me that dropping this rhythm would be one way to simplify—but turning a weeknight into a special occasion makes darker winter evenings more interesting. On March 17, I always make something from the Irish cooking canon. Some years it’s been Dublin Coddle, Irish soda bread or my mother’s recipe for corned beef and cabbage. The option that’s best for anyone who needs to remember to

^

Potato Leek Soup Makes 10 cups

4 Tablespoons Irish butter such as Kerrygold 1 yellow onion, peeled and chopped 3 leeks, white and pale end sliced, about 3 cups 1 celery stalk, chopped 4 large russet potatoes, about 2 pounds, peeled and chopped 4 cups vegetable stock 2 cups milk or cream salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste fresh chives 1. To a thick-bottomed stockpot over medium-low heat, add butter, onion, leeks and celery. Sauté until soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Slide the potato into the pot and add the stock, stirring to incorporate. Turn the heat up to medium and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook until a piece of potato breaks apart when pierced with a fork.

2. Remove soup from the heat. Using a hand blender or working in batches with a regular blender, whiz the mixture until it is a smooth purée. Return to low heat and add the milk, stirring until the soup is warm throughout without letting the milk get too hot. Season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper and serve with minced chives. –S.B.

keep it simple, however, is potato leek soup. While it may not be the most traditional Irish recipe (the Welsh, Scottish and French also claim the dish as their own), it’s supremely comforting with very little work.

In this month of the vernal equinox, a bowl of potatoes, cream and leeks is simultaneously warming during our still-cold days, yet also signals spring. In March, I get this green, early-spring allium from my local neighborhood grocer, but as the season advances, this could just as easily be made with wild leeks from the forest. The recipe can even slide into summer if it’s served chilled—which makes it vichyssoise.

No matter how many seasons you slurp it in, I suggest starting by bridging that long-awaited gap between winter and spring. Now, to turn something so easy into a party, you’ll need to crank up an Irish jig and pour someone a stout.

Stacey Brugeman is a Leelanau County-based food and beverage writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, Eater and Denver’s 5280, where she served as Restaurant Critic. Follow her on Instagram @staceybrugeman.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN'S MAGAZINE

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The Culinary North

photo by Dave Weidner / below: photo by Mae Stier

L’Chayim Delicatessen

FRANKFORT/ELBERTA

The Cabbage Shed

Bella’s Café Espresso, fair trade coffee, baked goods and breakfast and lunch items. 313 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.651.0895 BL • $-$$ Birch & Maple From-scratch cuisine prepared with an emphasis on lo-

cally sourced ingredients. Friendly folks and fab craft cocktails. 727 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.399.0399 BLD • BAR • $-$$

The Cabbage Shed Suds and superb eats like seared scallops,

Papano’s Pizzá Traditional pizza pie. 334 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.6700 D • $–$$

Perks of Frankfort Higher Grounds fair trade organic coffee,

smoothies, breakfast sandwich and baked goods. 429 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.4800 BL • $–$$

Stormcloud Brewing Belgian-inspired ales to pair with inventive,

smart bistro fare. 303 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.0118 LD • BAR • $-$$

rack of lamb and Ritz-crusted walleye. 198 FRANKFORT AVE., ELBERTA,

Villa Marine Friday fish special. Saturday prime rib. American cook-

231.352.9843 D • BAR • $-$$

ing. 228 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.5450 LD • BAR • $-$$

Conundrum Cafe Light lunch fare for here or to go, espresso and

Vita Bella Italian Kitchen & Market Homemade pasta, Mama’s

alcohol available to purchase. 603 FRANKFORT AVE., ELBERTA, 231.352.8150

BLD • BAR • $-$$

Crescent Bakery Artisanal breads, pies, cheesecakes and hand-decorat-

meatballs, wood-fired pizza in the restaurant, and find Italian entrées, desserts, wine and more in the market. 320 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT,

231.399.0035 LD • BAR • $$

ed cookies. 404 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.4611 BL • $

Dinghy’s Local favorite for 27 years. Famous for smoked meats in-

cluding ribs, wings and more. Half-pound burger. Sandwiches & salads.

Legendary Friday fish fry. 415 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.4702 LD •

BAR • $$

The Fusion Asian delights like fiery curries and lettuce wraps (plus creative cocktails) served in a serene atmosphere on Frankfort’s main drag. 300 MAIN ST., FRANKFORT, 231.352.4114 BLD • $–$$ •

Hotel Frankfort Fine dining served up at this in-town inn. 735 FRANKFORT AVE., ELBERTA, 231.352.5273 BLD • $-$$$

Lighthouse Café Robust breakfasts, soups, salads, sandwiches,

burgers, steak, perch, liver and onions. 735 FRANKFORT AVE., ELBERTA, 231.352.5273 BL • $–$$

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// M MA AR RC CH H 22 0 0 22 22

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T he Cu l i nary North Last Call

photo by Dave Weidner / styling by Sarah Peschel

LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER

by STACEY BRUGEMAN

Let the good times roll with this rye whiskey classic.

F

or many, fat tuesday is the final day of feasting before the Lenten season of fasting. In this house, it’s a fast-free excuse for Hamtramck Pączki from Market 22 (market22mi.com), a platter of jambalaya and one of my favorite cocktails of all time—the Vieux Carré (pronounced voo ka-RAY).

While I was first turned on to this classic by nationally acclaimed barman Sean Kenyon in Colorado, the tipple originally hails from New Orleans. Vieux Carré means “old square” in French and refers to the French Quarter where the drink was first served in the late 1930s at Hotel Monteleone, famous today for its circus-like Carousel Bar. One of the most superbly balanced whiskey cocktails I know, the beguiling sipper is made with equal parts rye, Cognac and sweet vermouth, with a few dashes of bitters and a bar spoon of Bénédictine—a 16th-century herbal liqueur my husband and I keep on hand F R O M

O U R

C E L L A R

Not flexing your mixology muscles tonight? Here’s what area beverage professionals are drinking right now.

Wine whiz Kristy McClellan, part of the trio who took over Bon Vin and relaunched it as Lake District Wine Co. (lakedistrictwine.com) in June, can’t say enough good things about BOS Wine. This winery run by Dave Bos—who converted all of Grgich Hills’ Napa Valley acreage to biodynamic farming before setting up shop in Elk Rapids—is now making biodynamic wine in Michigan, his home state. For this month’s recipe for Potato Leek Soup (page 49), McClellan recommends the 2020 BOS Methode Agricole, a lightly effervescent pét-nat-style wine made of Valvin Muscat grapes. “Growing in our cool climate provides these grapes with natural acidity, creating a fruit-forward dry white that pairs wonderfully with cream-based soups by cutting through the richness and fat,” says McClellan of the jasmine-flower flecked sparkler. boswine.com; $32 per bottle –S.B.

^

Vieux Carré

Serves 1 ¾ ounce Mammoth 12-Year Small Batch Rye ¾ ounce Cognac ¾ ounce sweet vermouth bar spoon of Bénédictine 2 dashes Angostura bitters 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters Michigan cocktail cherry Into a mixing glass or mason jar filled with ice cubes, add rye, Cognac, vermouth and Bénédictine and stir until chilled. Place a single rock of ice in an old-fashioned glass and strain the rye mixture as you pour it into the glass over the cube. Top with dashes of Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters and garnish with a cherry.–S.B.

specifically for this drink.

Here on the Fresh Coast, try making your Vieux Carré with the Mammoth Distilling (mammothdistilling.com) 12year, small-batch rye. As one of the Central Lake distillery’s older expressions, this rye is “robust enough to stand up to the other elements in the drink without losing character,” says Head Distiller Collin Gaudard, who lived in the Big Easy for a few years. Even if you miss the boat on Fat Tuesday, a Vieux Carré tastes great deep into a Michigan spring … as long as you didn’t give up Bénédictine for Lent.

Stacey Brugeman is a Leelanau County-based food and beverage writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, Eater and Denver’s 5280, where she served as Restaurant Critic. Follow her on Instagram @staceybrugeman.

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photo by Nate Richardson / Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy

love of the land

A BAY FOR ALL SEASONS

by ALLISON JARRELL

Home to forested trails and a secluded beach, Maple Bay Natural Area is a gem worth exploring year-round.

I

t’s easy to spot Maple Bay Natural Area in the heat of summer—come August, stands of bright yellow sunflowers line the property that straddles both sides of U.S. 31 in Williamsburg. But the area—preserved by Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy—deserves just as much attention in the winter and spring months, as it features a wide array of recreational opportunities as well as stunning (and easily accessible) views of East Grand Traverse Bay. Depending on the season, the forested trail system and swath of beach at Maple Bay is perfect for hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, swimming and birding. And as winter melts into spring, visitors can watch for a variety of endangered plant species as they unfurl.

Last fall, more than a mile of trail was added to the property, which includes the new Joe and Kathy Magliochetti Trail connecting the bucolic Maple Bay Farm to the rest of the natural area. Maple Bay’s trails extend both south to the beach and north toward Petobego Pond. (Note: The trail leading down to the beach will get steep.)

52

get there To access the trails, turn down a gravel drive on the west side of U.S. 31 between Old M-11 and Plum Drive (you’ll see a quaint white farmhouse and a small sign along the highway just south of the entrance that reads “Maple Bay Park and Natural Area”). Stop and park at Maple Bay Farm to hike the new 0.65-mile trail, or drive past the farmhouse and you’ll arrive at a parking area on top of a bluff where agricultural fields meet forests to access the two-mile trail system. For more information, including a detailed map of the property, visit gtrlc.org.

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