Here's a gorgeous time-lapse exploration of winter on Sturgeon Bay near Cross Village Michigan. Jay Burlage of Milapse writes that it's a great place to get away from it all and enjoy a cold snowy place for a bit. The music track is 'Farlem' by Galdson, and here's hoping this will give you a little dose of wintry pleasure!

As with all his videos, clicking for the full-screen HD view is recommended!

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Goby by swatzo

Last year the National Park Service produced a series of short documentaries exploring invasive species in the Great Lakes. The series was funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative showing how invaders are changing the ecosystems in national parks and what’s being done to stop them.

All four of them are available through the Great Lakes Echo. Part 1: Aquatic Invasives is below and it explores how zebra mussel, quagga mussel, round goby and other invasive species are creating havoc in Lake Michigan, causing the food web to tilt out of balance. People can help, clean drain and dry all boating and fishing gear to stop aquatic hitch hikers. here's Part 2: Invasive Plants in our Parks, Part 3: Spotted Knapweed, and Part 4: Emerald Ash Borer!

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The Lake in Winter
by Jerry Dennis

(January, Cathead Point, near the tip of Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula)

It changes every day, every hour. It is a thousand lakes, changing faces with every shift in wind and light - flurried by offshore wind, whitecapped in squalls, colored flannel gray or pearl-white or stormy black beneath the winter clouds, a dozen blues when the sky is blue.

There’s a contemporary Japanese poet who writes a diary on a slab of stone instead of paper, with water instead of ink. He writes a word, and a moment later it evaporates. This, he suggests, is the true record of a life.

We go to the shore in search of elemental things. Probably it is just coincidence that the elemental things we find there - sand, sun, wind, and waves - correspond exactly to the four elements of the ancient Greeks and Hindus: earth, fire, air, and water. More to the point is that we need elemental things to help us restore our primitive senses to working condition. We need periodically to look, listen, scent, taste, and feel our way through the world, if only for the relief of not having to think our way through. Everyone understands that eliminating superfluities can help us discover what is important in our lives.

That’s not an easy task. Time coats us in natural increase, accruing layers as if we were snowballs rolling down a hill. Jobs, families, friends, houses, cars, dogs, our health – just maintaining it all is full-time work. Add the bulging files of information, the gunnysacks of mistakes and the duffels of misjudgments and the barrow-loads of memories, habits, regrets, opinions, prejudices, principles, laws, and codes collected in a lifetime and you can see the problem. We carry as much as we can, and the rest we stack around us until all our routes to the outside are blocked. Even when we find our way out we’re wearing too many layers of tuxedoes and zoot suits and cardigans, Icelandic woolens, parkas, longjohns, thermal socks, etc. We’re strong but we grow weary of lugging that Collyer-brothers’ accumulation everywhere we go. We bend beneath the load, our backs about to break, groaning as we push our heaped-up grocery carts through the streets.

It’s too much. Now and then we need to strip down to the naked flame at our core. Most of what we carry is baggage anyway - just adornment and vanity, ballast and deadweight. It’s the crap the pioneers threw out along the Oregon Trail.

After lunch I walked to the crest of the dune and looked out at the lake. Even from that small elevation, maybe fifty feet, the water’s clarity was startling. From a boat, on a day like this, with the sun overhead, you can lean over the side and see boulders on the bottom thirty feet down. The pale shallows stepped into blue depths. The offshore sandbars were there, a hundred yards apart, each deeper than the one before, with bands of increasingly darker blue between them. Beyond the last bar a steep drop-off into very deep water turned the lake midnight blue.

Lake Michigan. My lake, I often think, because I grew up near it and because many in my family settled along its shores. So much water, in a body so large they say that the Netherlands could fit inside, with enough room left over for several New England states. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes in volume, and third, after Superior and Huron, in surface area. It is the only one of the five to be contained entirely within the United States.

Most of the 1,640 miles of shore is sandy. Some of that shore, especially around the southern end, through Indiana and Illinois, is lined with industry. Around the top of the lake in Wisconsin and Michigan are scattered limestone bluffs and rocky strands. But most of the rest is blond sand beaches that are among the loveliest in North America. Wind, waves, and ice have shoved that sand into the most extensive network of freshwater dunes on the planet. They reach their apogee about thirty miles south of Cathead Point at Sleeping Bear Dunes, the crowning feature of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but they extend nearly unbroken for 300 miles along the eastern and southern shores of the lake, from northern Michigan nearly to Chicago. A few scattered dunes are found also along the Wisconsin shore and at the top of the lake, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but they lack the dimensions of those that face the prevailing winds.

A friend who lives part of every year in the West once told me that Lake Michigan plays the same role in the Midwest that the mountains do in Montana. That’s true for all five lakes. Like the Rockies, you can see them from miles away, forming a backdrop that is also a felt presence, always there, looming in our lives. They are depositories of geological and historical power that shape the land and the culture to themselves. We orient to them and are drawn to them and take for granted that their presence and the weather they create will affect our travels and alter our daily plans.

The lakes have always been the most prominent shaper of the character or “spirit” of the Great Lakes region. The stronger the spirit of a place, the farther it resonates beyond its borders. Alaska, Texas, Vermont, and Maine all have it in abundance. So do large geographical regions such as Appalachia, the Canadian Maritimes, and the Cajun country of Louisiana. A mythological portrait of a place needs to be only approximately accurate to give outsiders an idea of what it is like, or enough of an idea, at least, to inspire them to take some interest in it. That might explain in part why people who have never visited the Everglades or the Arctic Wildlife Refuge are willing to write letters to congressmen and donate money to protect them.

The Great Lakes have not had that advantage. Their mythology is not clearly defined. It was once very clear, a living mythology, inhabited by people, wolf, moose, and bear, but the stories that passed around campfires for thousands of years were drowned out by European invaders wielding their own stories of Jesuit martyrs, French voyageurs, Paul Bunyans of the logging camps, mariners of the inland seas, and up-by-the-bootstraps giants of industry. Most of those stories have now, in turn, lost their power and have not been replaced. Enduring mythologies tend to accrue to dominate features of a landscape. Louisiana has swamps; New England, hardscrabble hills; Montana, big sky. But the Great Lakes are too varied. No representative image fits. The water and dunes and rocks and cities on the shore are lost in a haze of homogeneity. Surely that is why those who have never stood beside the big lakes find it so difficult to imagine them.

Excerpted from The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes, by Jerry Dennis. Used with permission of the author and The University of Michigan Press. Visit Jerry’s website at www.jerrydennis.net. Here's a cool trailer for the book that Jerry's son videographer Aaron Dennis made that you will enjoy as well!

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The Carl D. Bradley, circa 1950 (Photo From the Edwin T. Brown Collection, Archives of Michigan)

Editor’s note: This article was first published in the January/February 2009 issue of Michigan History magazine.

“A Deafening Thud”

Abandon ship! Abandon ship! The whistle squawked seven short blasts, then one long blast. It was a signal twenty-six year old deck watchman Frank Mays knew well, but never expected to hear. Just minutes earlier, he had been having a smoke with Gary Price in the dunnage room, deep in the bow, when they heard a deafening thud. “We hightailed it out of there to find out what had happened,” Mays recalls. “When I reached the upper deck, I looked aft and saw the stern flapping up and down like a dog’s tail.” The Carl D. Bradley‘s back had broken, and it would be only a matter of minutes before water filled the tunnels and cargo holds of the 639-foot vessel. It was 5:30 p.m. on November 18, 1958.

Final Voyage

The Bradley had departed Gary, Indiana the day prior, running in ballast in building southwest seas along Lake Michigan’s western shore. On the season’s final voyage, the veteran boat was scheduled to head to Manitowoc, Wisconsin for repairs during its winter lay-up. The rusting cargo had been due for an $800,000 replacement for over a year, but its owner, Bradley Transportation Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, pushed the work back until the end of the season. A radio call from headquarters ordering an additional stone delivery before lay-up proved to be the demise of the Bradley. Despite reports of gale-force winds and thirty-foot seas that compelled other freighter captains to take shelter along Wisconsin’s shore, Captain Roland Bryan, known as a “heavy weather man,” headed northeast across the lake from the Door County peninsula toward the Straits of Mackinac and back to Rogers City. At 5:35 p.m., the Bradley sank twelve miles southwest of Gull Island.

“The Worst Night of His Life”

Even today, survivor Mays recalls that horrific night with clarity. Hunkered down on the life raft just aft of the pilothouse, he trembled realizing the sinking beneath him. His eyes were drawn aft toward the flying sparks as the huge steel deck plates began to tear apart. In the growing darkness and mayhem, he could make out second mate John Fogelsonger running toward the stern and leaping over the break. Before his eyes, his friend disappeared as the Bradley ripped apart. The next thing Mays recalls was being pitched into the air, landing in the icy, angry water and then struggling onto the raft where he fought to hold on through the worst night of his life.

“A Painful Memory”

By morning, only Mays and first mate Elmer Fleming were alive. After fifteen bone-numbing hours in the icy waters, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sundew rescued them. All thirty-three of their mates, including Gary Strelecki and Dennis Meredith, who shared the raft for most of the night, as well as two of Frank’s own cousins, perished. These men left behind twenty-five widows and fifty-four fatherless children. Considering twenty-three of the crew hailed from Rogers City, the home port of the Bradley, the loss personally affected nearly everyone in the small community. Fifty years later, the sinking is still a painful memory.

As promised, here is the trailer for November Requiem. You can get the Emmy Award Winning DVD right here from the Presque Isle County Historical Museum.

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Joseph Fulton put together this amazing tribute to the 29 men who went down with the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. This video is one of the best I've ever seen on YouTube and I hope you can watch it. More shipping & shipwrecks on Absolute Michigan and also see much more about the Edmund Fitzgerald on Michigan in Pictures including the launch of the Fitz.

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~A message found in a bottle 11 days after Plymouth disappeared, dictated by Chris Keenan, federal marshal in charge of the barge

Wikipedia says that the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, also known as the "Freshwater Fury"or the "White Hurricane", was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that ravaged the Great Lakes November 7-10, 1913. With the sinking of 19 ships, the stranding of another 19 and a death toll of at least 250, it remains the deadliest and most destructive natural disaster in Great Lakes history.

Major shipwrecks occurred on all but Lake Ontario, with most happening on southern and western Lake Huron. Lake masters recounted that waves reached at least 35 feet (11 m) in height. Being shorter in length than waves ordinarily formed by gales, they occurred in rapid succession, with three waves frequently striking in succession. Masters also stated that the wind often blew in directions opposite to the waves below. This was the result of the storm's cyclonic motion*, a phenomenon rarely seen on the Great Lakes.

In the late afternoon of November 10, an unknown vessel was spotted floating upside-down in about 60 feet (18 m) of water on the eastern coast of Michigan, within sight of Huronia Beach and the mouth of the St. Clair River. Determining the identity of this "mystery ship" became of regional interest, resulting in daily front-page newspaper articles. The ship eventually sank, and it was not until early Saturday morning, November 15, that it was finally identified as the Charles S. Price. The front page of that day's Port Huron Times-Herald extra edition read, "BOAT IS PRICE" DIVER IS BAKER "SECRET KNOWN". Milton Smith, the assistant engineer who decided at the last moment not to join his crew on premonition of disaster, aided in identifying any bodies that were found.

You can get a map to the wreck of the Charles S Price, and here's a list of shipwrecks of the 1913 storm and an account of the weather. You can see more photos from Wikipedia and also in Lakeland Boating's slideshow of some of the on and offshore damage from the Freshwater Fury (includes a shot of the Price prior to its sinking). GreatLakesShips has this excellent tribute to the ships and crews that didn't weather the storm below and you'll also want to check out this interview with survivor Edward Kanaby.

*The Great Lakes storm of October 2010 had cyclonic wind patterns as well.

More at absolutemichigan.com/Shipwreck and even Michigan shipwrecks on Michigan in Pictures (where this post originally appeared).

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Graveyard Coast II by Michigan Nut

michiganpreserves.org explains that although the vast inland waterway of the Great Lakes provided natural highway, there were also dangerous, fraught with sudden storms, fog, heavy traffic and shipping companies who cared more about the bottom line than the thousands of schooners, steamers and barges that ended up on the bottom. One generations loss can be another ones treasure, and the Michigan underwater preserve system was created in 1980 to preserve Michigan's shipwrecks. It's a felony to remove or disturb artifacts in Michigan's Great Lakes, and Michigan's underwater preserve system has grown to include over 2300 square miles of Great Lakes bottomland in twelve underwater preserves.

The first preserve established was the Alger Underwater Diving Preserve:

For ships in trouble on the long southern coast of Lake Superior, harbors of refuge are few. Munising is one of them. The waters off Munising are sheltered by Grand Island and have been the final destination of many ships seeking safe harbor from the fury of the big lake.

The area stretching from just west of Munising to Au Sable Point and including the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is the home of the Alger Underwater Preserve. Several major shipwrecks lying within recreational diving limits are found inside its boundaries.

Read on for some of the best wrecks to dive and also check out the state's underwater preserve pages. We found some nice videos of diving in the Alger Preserve. You can get an excellent overview of Diving the Alger Preserve from Saginaw Underwater Explorers, but this video of a dive on the wreck of the Bermuda is a really immersive treat!

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Collectively Falling - Bond Falls by Aaron C. Jors

The Department of Natural Resources announced today that Michigan state parks and recreation areas have won the 2011 National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) Gold Medal for the top state park system in the nation. The DNR was notified today by the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration and NRPA.

Michigan was named one of four finalists in May, and beat North Carolina, Florida and Missouri for the top honor.

"This award is a credit to the people of Michigan," said Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who recently appointed a blue-ribbon panel to guide the parks system into the future. "For more than 90 years, Michiganders have realized that these unique areas are an integral part of the cultural enhancement, economic enrichment and overall quality of life that we value. Our parks are what we make of them and the people of this state clearly prize these treasures. I commend the DNR for its outstanding stewardship of these resources and look forward to working with all stakeholders so that we have a parks system that serves our state and its visitors for generations to come."

The Gold Medal Award honors communities throughout the United States that demonstrate excellence in long-range planning, resource management, and agency recognition. Each agency is judged on its ability to address the needs of those it serves through the collective energies of citizens, staff, and elected officials.

"We are very proud to receive this award, and I want to recognize the employees of the Parks and Recreation Division who have worked hard to make sure our 99 state parks and recreation areas remain excellent places for our citizens and visitors to experience Michigan's abundant and amazing natural resources," said DNR Director Rodney Stokes. "This is the result of teamwork, talent and vision that is aimed at protecting our special places, and also making sure that visitors have an enjoyable, high quality experience."

In its winning application, the DNR focused on innovation, such as the Recreation Passport, which is the new funding model for state parks and outdoor recreation in Michigan. The $10 optional fee that Michigan residents can pay when renewing their vehicle registration at the Secretary of State gives them annual access to all Michigan state parks and boating access sites and also supports state forest recreation programs. A portion of the funding also supports a grant program for local parks.

"This achievement is indicative of the tremendous staff who works in the Parks and Recreation Division, who strive for excellent customer service every day to provide a positive experience for our customers," said DNR Parks and Recreation Chief Ron Olson.

Michigan is home to 99 state parks and recreation areas, offering visitors more than 13,000 campsites, trails, access to inland lakes, rivers and the Great Lakes.

For more information on state parks in Michigan, go to www.michigan.gov/stateparks.

And for even more, check out the Absolute Michigan Parks section!

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Thus begins The Three Sisters by Michigan's own Song of the Lakes. Check this great video out for a song to kick off Absolute Michigan's month-long tribute to shipping, shipwrecks and those who brave Michigan's Great Lakes.

Speaking of waves, Freak Waves and Rogues from the book the Bird in the Waterfall by Jerry Dennis & Glenn Wolff is a great read that will give you a little of the science behind Extreme Storm Waves (or ESW) and the three sisters.

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ship wreck by hoperenewed

In November Absolute Michigan always features shipping and shipwrecks, and while most of the stories are tragic, Great Lakes Echo has a feature about a Michigan lawmaker who hopes to sink ships to boost tourism revenue:

Some tourism officials question if the expensive and lengthy process of cleaning and sinking a vessel or aircraft will provide enough economic revenue. Others are concerned about environmental impacts.

But with nearly 10,000 shipwrecks at the bottom of the Great Lakes, recreational diving is already a popular activity in the state.

“Recreational diving tourism is a huge tax revenue source in other states such as Florida and California,” said Rep. Greg MacMaster, R-Kewadin.

MacMasters has introduced a bill to help fund the process of seeking old vessels from naval yards, and preserving and cleaning them. They would then be transported to a Great Lakes location and sunk.

“The idea is to bring in more recreational divers to Michigan,” MacMaster said.

Read on for some thoughts from dive shop owners and an archaeologist with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. For a look at what Great Lakes diving is like, check out this video featuring a dive at the Straits of Mackinac on the Sandusky and the Martin Stalker, two ships that sank in the 1800s.

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Detroit Public Television (DPTV), in partnership with the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission, U.S. EPA, and Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition provided unprecedented access to the largest gathering of scientists, political voices, educators, environmentalists, and interested groups ever assembled to discuss the status and the future of the Great Lakes at greatlakesnow.org.

Sleeping Bear by ideowl

Great Lakes Week takes place October 11-14, 2011 and celebrates one of the world's true natural wonders, the five interconnected Great Lakes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior provide jobs, recreation and drinking water to more than 30 million people in the Great Lakes basin. Great Lakes Week is a new partnership to improve the places around the basin where people live, work, learn and play. This week's activities, meetings and conferences bring representatives of the U.S. and Canadian governments together with a broad coalition of public and private groups to highlight efforts to implement solutions for the lakes' most pressing problems. The event is headquartered in a single city for the first time ever and that city is Detroit.

Today's coverage kicks off at noon with an overview of Great Lakes Week, highlights of yesterday's Great Lakes Commission Meeting. Also on tap is the International Joint Commission of US and Canadian government agencies, a report on U.S. and Canadian efforts to restore the chemical, physical and biological diversity of the Great Lakes Basin, updates on critical issues from algae to aquatic invasive species and the Great Lakes Town Hall featuring top officials from both the U.S. and Canada answering on-site and virtual audience questions (Twitter hastag #AskGLW). Much more to follow tomorrow and Friday - check the schedule of events out for an idea.

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at Mackinac :: a composite from -3 and -43 by Emery Co Photo

Sea Monster of the Straits

The authorities tried hard to convince the public what they saw were only giant catfish, but even the oldest, orneriest cats would be hard-pressed to attain a length of forty-five feet! The owner of a resort along the Cheboygan lakefront reported seeing something of just that size, and two of them, frolicking in the Mackinac Straits on Lake Huron in front of his property, about 600 feet from shore, according to an article in the June 25, 1976 Grand Rapids Press. The day after the resort owner called authorities about it, Cheboygan County Sheriff Stanley McKervey stopped by to have a look for himself. To his surprise, he also was able to observe one of the creatures. "I went down to the beach, and sure enough, I'm looking at something 20, maybe 30 feet long, swimming just below the surface," he said in the article. "I was amazed. I didn't know what it was, but it sure wasn't a publicity stunt."

The sheriff continued watching the creature through binoculars. It only rose about an inch above water level, he said, but any disturbance on shore would cause it to dive deeper again. And that's exactly what happened when the sheriff ordered a couple of deputies to surveil the thing in a canoe. It was gone long before the pair got there. Unfortunately, rough water conditions set in the next few days and no one could go out for another look. It wasn't observed again, and other experts theorized that perhaps it was a giant eel or carp. But neither of those sound like what the sheriff and the resort owner saw!

Lake Leelanau Monster

The story of an early 20th Century sea monster sighting was sent to The Shadowlands Web site by a reader whose great-grandfather was the witness. The boy was fishing for perch one day in 1910 in the shallows of Lake Leelanau in Leelanau County. The lake had been dammed in the late 1800's to provide water power for the local mill and to enable logging. The dam also flooded much surrounding area, turning it into swamps and bogs punctuated by dead, standing trees.

On that particular day, the young great-grandfather, William Gauthier, rowed out to a new fishing spot near the town of Lake Leelanau. Looking for good perch habitat, he paddled up close to a tree that he estimated to stand about five feet tall above the water, with a six-inch trunk. He was in about seven feet of water, and after deciding this would be a good place to stop and cast a line, began tying the boat to the tree.

That's when young William discovered the tree had eyes. They were staring him dead in the face at about four feet above water level. The boy and serpent exchanged a long gaze, then the creature went, "Bloop" into the water. Gauthier said later that the creature's head passed one end of the boat while the tail was still at the other end, though it was undulating very quickly through the water. The writer noted that Gauthier always admitted to having been thoroughly frightened by his encounter, and that the event caused him to stay off that lake for many years.

The writer added that his great-grandfather came from a prominent area family and was very well-educated, and that he knew others who would admit privately but not publicly that they, too, had seen the creature. No sightings have been reported in recent times, but who knows how many people have believed they were passing by a rotting old cedar when in fact they had just grazed the Leelanau lake monster?

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Be sure to follow Lake Superior Photo on Facebook for her latest aurora borealis photos!

Space Weather says that a category G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm is expected on August 5th (tonight and tomorrow night) due to the effects of a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) observed early on August 2nd. In plain English, that means we might see the Northern Lights on the 5th! Don't get too terribly excited though - according to NOAA Space Weather who puts out the email alerts that I subscribe to, G1 is the lowest level of a scale that goes up to 5. Don't get depressed either though, as they say that during G1 activity, the Aurora Borealis is commonly visible at high latitudes (northern Michigan and Maine)!

I posted the above on Facebook, and my friend Shawn (who took the photo above) told me that it is also possible for an x flare this week producing an EARTHWARD directed flare that would hit earth probably some time next week which would produce a northern lights display to remember! There was a brief x flare on July 29 - read about it here and see a video from NASA here. The displays in February 2011 were produced by a powerful x flare...

You can see & purchase lots more of Shawn's photos of northern lights through LakeSuperiorPhoto.com and also check out her cool Northern Lights - square format album!

Michigan in Pictures has LOTS more pictures and information about the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and if you see northern lights, post them to the Northern Lights log on Absolute Michigan! Here's a cool timelapse of Northern Lights from 2010 by Ken Scott!

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The Project Shiphunt Students

mLive has a nice feature on some Michigan students who helped discover 2 wrecks in Lake Huron. 122 years ago, the 138-foot schooner M.F. Merrick was hit by the steel freighter Etruria, sinking both ships. The students used historical records and diving experts to identify the ships, and helped to document the vessels in 3-D for the newest exhibit at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center. The article explains that:

...the crew of Project Shiphunt — which included five high school students from Saginaw — had identified two previously undiscovered wrecks in more than 300 feet of water just outside of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

"That was just powerful, to be the first human eyes to look at these since they went to the bottom," said James Delgado, director of Maritime Heritage at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and expedition leader for Project Shiphunt. "We were looking for a ship that was sunk in a collision, and we ended up finding two other ships that were sunk in a collision."

The project was a joint venture sponsored by Sony and Intel corporations that incorporated technology, oceanography, archeology and history into a hands-on curriculum that brought history to life for the Saginaw students during six days in May. The students directed the mission, charted the map in search of the steamer Choctaw, and manned the massive research vessels as they painted the floor of Lake Huron with triple-beam and side-scan sonars.

You can learn more about Project Shiphunt in a video from Sony/Intel. Definitely watch this if you can - it's a very cool video and shows how engaged the students were with the actual work of exploration. The documentary will air on the Current cable channel at 10 PM on Aug. 30th so check that out too!

To my mind, this is what education should be. Here's a 3D visualization of the ROV exploring the MF Merrick that's pretty neat as well.

3D Shipwreck - MF Merrick with ROV from Mike Postons on Vimeo.

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Superman by sullivan06

OK, so jumping out of your chair at work and dancing? That's not gonna help.

1. The office does offer a strategy though. With highs today in most of Michigan into the upper 90s and a chance of topping 100 on Thursday, air conditioners are one of your best friends. FOX-17 offers some tips for maximizing their effectiveness including drawing the blinds so they don't have to work as hard. If your workplace has A/C, today is probably a good day to work late.

2. Fortunately, Michigan has its own A/C in the form of 300+ named rivers, over 11,000 lakes (take THAT Minnesota) and the big ones: Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and the best lake for a day like today, mighty (cold) Lake Superior. The water temperature in Superior by Marquette today is in the 60s - maybe it's time for a trip to the U.P.! Even if you can't make it, Michigan boasts tons of parks with water access, so cut out to the beach or float down a river today. Sunscreen is of course, a must.

Smile + Flow by Ralph Krawczyk Jr

3. Speaking of water, the Freep reminds us to drink lots of water in a cool feature that includes photos of how some Metro Detroiters are beating the heat. Water can get a little old after the 10th glass, so try one of my favorites - make a batch of lemonade and add some Michigan tart cherry concentrate for a tart & refreshing drink!

4. Have you felt guilty for not taking advantage of Michigan's incredible variety of museums & libraries? This week is a perfect time to take some time to explore with family & friends. Pure Michigan has a nice list of Michigan museums and you can get lots more art museums and historical museums & libraries from Absolute Michigan!

5. At the end of the day, it's almost impossible to avoid the heat on a day like today. A good piece of advice is remember February and revel in it!

Let us know other ideas to beat the heat in Michigan in the comments, and if anyone out there has a heat-beating product, tell us about it below.  If you want, email me and we'll give it away to our email list!

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Surfing Michigan by farlane

We've pulled together a great collection of Great Lakes & Michigan surfing videos with a few links:

• The photo was taken on Lake Michigan at Leland. You can see more surfing photos on Michigan in Pictures and also on Northern Michigan Surf on Facebook and in the Surfing slideshow from the Absolute Michigan pool!
• The best of the bunch is below, a TV special on Grand Haven filmmaker Vince Deur's movie Unsalted. the 7 minute short introduces you to the history and present day of Great Lakes surfing. There's also a couple of outtakes that take you to surfing hot spots like Michigan's Lake Superior shore in winter! Last December we ran Michigan Film: Unsalted: A Great Lakes Experience that has all the details (including where to get it!) and tons of clips from the definitive work on riding the freshwater wave.
• The Roxy Get Outside Tour recently visited Grand Haven, Michigan with a couple pro female surfers. They also answered the "Michigan question" and visited the Great Lakes Surf Association (more Michigan footage including waterskiing at the Roxy blog)
• Surfing isn't just for lakes any more, there's also the Grand River Surf (featuring some cool Police tunes...)
• If surfing isn't fast enough (or the waves aren't big enough) there's always kiteboarding. Boarding Lake Michigan Waves from South Beach in South Haven shows you highlights of surfers, kiteboarders and windsurfers. Every September, the King of the Great Lakes Kiteboarding Competition is held in Grand Haven. You can visit Mackinac Kites for information on the event.
• Pure Michigan gets in the act with the Fresh Water Surfing page.
• Check out Absolute Michigan keyword surf for surfing articles and surfing-related businesses! Might as well try Absolute Michigan keyword kiteboard too!

Did we miss something? Of course we did!! Tell us and/or add a link in the comments.

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We're gearing up for an exciting development in our Festival Summer giveaway, so we're going to keep it short & sweet today with this time-lapse video from photographer Ken Scott. It shows a collection of storms traveling across Lake Michigan, starting with one on the 2010 solstice.

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Golden Sunset on Lake Superior by unifiedphoto

The Detroit Free Press has launched a summer-long feature on the Great Lakes, water and Michigan. It starts with an interesting read by John Gallagher entitled Water shaped Michigan's past: Now it's a key to state's future that looks at the economic impact of the lakes and their potential as a source of new jobs and technology. It begins:

Michigan grew up on the Great Lakes. It can grow anew from their cool, abundant waters -- if they are used wisely and protected.

The greatest natural resource in all of North America and perhaps on our planet, the sweet water seas brought people to Michigan's peninsulas and moved Michigan ore, timber and manufactured goods to markets around the world.

The lake waters nourish our crops, slake our thirst, cool our machinery and change our weather -- sometimes rather abruptly. They provide fun, fish and spectacular vistas for millions of people.

In a world where 1 in every 6 people lacks daily access to fresh water, the Great Lakes are a treasure of immeasurable value.

And yet they have been exploited, depleted and polluted. They are threatened by invaders, foreign and domestic, some already in the waters or on the way, others on dry lands.

Where (in my opinion) it gets interesting and requires a whole lot of thought is the point when you start to think about the Great Lakes as an exportable commodity. When I read things like "Michigan has more water than Saudi Arabia has oil," I get scared. Thankfully there are some positive signs:

In the past year or two, all sorts of efforts have begun in Michigan to create a blue economy -- purifying water, recycling it, measuring how clean or dirty it is and providing water-based expertise to the world. The market for water technology is estimated at $500 billion a year and growing.

"We're sitting on liquid gold," said Dave Egner, director of the New Economy Initiative, a coalition of nonprofit foundations hoping to steer Michigan toward a new economic future.

Read on at the Freep and have a look at the New Economy Initiative as well. If you have the time, check out the trailer for one of my all-time favorite films, Waterlife by Kevin McMahon. It's a spell-binding look at the state of the lakes shot in beautiful HD. The official trailer is below and you can watch a longer version here.

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The Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival takes place on Saturday, June 18th from 1-10 PM at Weko Beach on Lake Michigan in Bridgman.

It's a showcase event that allows you to sample locally grown and produced varietals and wines by the taste or the glass from the wineries of the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail: Tabor Hill, Contessa, Domaine Berrien, Fenn Valley, Karma Vista, Lawton Ridge, Lemon Creek, Round Barn, St. Julian, Free Run, Hickory Creek, Warner and Founder's. Wrap this into a day filled with sun & sand, extraordinary cuisine from local restaurants, jazz, blues, R&B, and a dazzling sunset and you have one fantastic summer festival – ideal not only for wine aficionados but for the entire family! (there's even beach access for kids to play on beach all day!)

Click through for details & ticket information and be sure you're entered below for a pair of free passes to the festival!

All summer long Absolute Michigan is partnering with some of Michigan's most amazing festivals & events to give our readers FREE tickets and a chance to enjoy the food, music and celebration that is part of summertime in the Great Lakes State!

Corrine G. from La Porte, Indiana took home the pair of passes to the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival. She says she's been to Bridgman and Weko Beach many times. Her favorite wineries are St. Julian and Tabor Hill, and while her favorite Michigan wine changes according to the occasion and accompanying food, St. Julian Braganini Reserve Pinot Noir is her current favorite.

To be entered in every one of the Festival Summer giveaways, just join our email list using the form below!

Absolute Michigan will not share your email address with anyone. Period. Your inbox is safe with us. What we will share with you is a periodic but usually no more than weekly update, possibly including a special offer, potentially a prize or giveaway and definitely some great news about what is working and fun to do in the Great State called Michigan that we love!

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Sequence 7408-09
by StacyN - MichiganMoments

Hosted by the Flow for Water Coalition, the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute at Northwestern Michigan College and Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the conference will focus on learning about the abuses and threats facing the Great Lakes. The conference will also provide solutions to stop these threats and to protect the citizens, communities, local agriculture, and businesses who depend upon the waters of the Great Lakes Basin.

Friday night's kick-off will feature a presentation by Maude Barlow, internationally recognized water advocate and former Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Ms. Barlow is the author of 16 books. Her address will offer a unique perspective on how each of us living within the Great Lakes Basin need to come together to protect the waters of the Great Lakes.

A screening of the award winning documentary "Tapped" (trailer below), an unflinching look at the plastic bottled water industry, will follow Ms. Barlow's presentation and the evening will conclude with an afterglow party in the "Dome" at the Park Place Hotel for networking, live music, and refreshments.

The conference continues on Saturday, May 7, at Milliken Auditorium and Scholar Hall on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College. Registration opens at 8:00 a.m. Welcome and introductions begin at 8:30 a.m.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch and one of the world's leading experts on water, energy, food and the environment, will speak at 9:00 a.m. Her address will be followed by breakout workshop sessions on a variety of water-related topics. The event will conclude with an expert roundtable discussion: Solutions for Saving the Waters of the Great Lakes Basin.

"We are incredibly excited to hold this conference here and to be able to have presentations from both Maude Barlow and Wenonah Hauter. They will provide a dynamic wake-up call to everyone interested in protecting our Great Lakes," said Traverse City attorney, Jim Olson, who also serves as Executive Director of the Flow for Water Coalition.

"We take our incredible natural beauty and abundance for granted, but there are very real threats facing the Great Lakes Basin." Olson continued, "If we don't protect these majestic waters now, the Great Lakes could be lost for our future generations. Our goal is to build deep citizen awareness and provide solutions to make sure that doesn't happen."

Tickets & more information are available at www.flowforwater.org or by calling  231-432-0103.

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During an exploratory dive to the 250-foot deep wreck, MSRA made note of three features that are significantly different from sailing vessels dating to the mid- and late-nineteenth-century: the lack of a centerboard, the presence of a raised afterdeck and deadlights (a pair of openings) in the stern that allowed light to reach the cargo hold.

MSRA's historians have verified that the vessel's construction and design is consistent with ships built in the 1820s and 1830s, making it perhaps one of the oldest vessels discovered in the southern basin of Lake Michigan. The vessel sits upright and is in surprisingly good condition considering it was built nearly 200 years ago.  Exact identification will be difficult as these small, early sloops were rarely documented and most had wrecked or been scrapped before photography became available. MSRA will continue to research and explore the wreck during the 2011 season.

Underwater video of this new discovery will be shown at the annual "Mysteries and Histories Beneath the Inland Seas" evening event on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 7:00 pm at Holland's historic Knickerbocker Theatre. In addition to a program about four Ottawa County shipwrecks presented by local author Craig Rich, attendees will learn about the newly discovered steamer Westmoreland, the schooner Marion Egan, and the steamer Lady Elgin in which 300 people perished in the lakes' deadliest disaster, the subject of MSRA's award-winning author Valerie van Heest's latest book. Tickets for the show are available at the Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates' website.

Here's a video of the wreck!

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jen526 ( Jenn Adams) says that she loves the outdoors, and photography is a great reason to go exploring, little kid style, in the woods or around a lake or through a meadow - the two are synergistic.

She asks: Does it detract anything from this photo to know that I took this on a tour boat? I'm always torn between keeping a photo simple and abstract; and telling some of the story behind it, which I enjoy when other people do and hopefully people can relate to some of the things that I do share ... At Pictured Rocks, we took the typical tourist boat ride. My brother, sister and I insisted on being on the top level on the way out. There was thick fog that almost turned the boat back. People were complaining about the fog. I love fog myself, I was cheering inside. Partway out, the sun started to break through, yielding this. (you gotta see that photo!)

You can see this bigger and in her Michigan slideshow. Her other sets include Creatures, Night and Nature.

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March 11 Northern Lights over Lake Superior, photo by Shawn Malone

Last week  Michigan in Pictures featured an article saying that the prospects for Northern Lights viewing in Michigan were looking great for the next couple of years. Thanks to Pure Michigan's Facebook, that post became the most popular ever.

Yesterday on Facebook (does it look like I'm spending too much time there??) I saw that photographer Shawn Malone of Lake Superior Photo had captured a fantastic series of northern lights shots over the frozen landscape of Lake Superior near Marquette in the early morning of March 11th. She writes:

Nice to see the northern lights back, I caught the tail end of the strongest part of the display. These were taken along the Lake Superior shore near Marquette MI.

Lights were bright, brightest I've seen them in years. Snow did a good job reflecting the light hitting it.

See the whole gallery on Facebook.  Shawn and Brian haven't posted the photos to their site yet, but when they do, they'll likely be in the Northern Lights section which includes some truly jaw-dropping photos!

If you're interesting in keeping up with geo-magnetic forecasts, I would recommend NOAA's Space Weather site, which includes the ability to subscribe for updates (link to "Email Products" at the bottom of the page). Definitely tune into the Northern Lights on  Michigan in Pictures, and if you see the aurora, post a comment on the Michigan Northern Lights Log!

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Jeff Gaydash writes: My love for photography began years ago back in high school when on a whim, decided to take a course in photography. I knew nothing about the process of making images and when we got our supplies list the first thing I did when I got home was open up the box of photographic paper and stared at the blank, white sheets. I did not realize until the next class that the paper was light sensitive and therefore ruined most of the sheets in the box by opening them in broad daylight. Needless to say I was mesmerized by the chemical photographic process. Projecting a negative in an enlarger and then watching the image magically appear on the paper in the developer bath.

Definitely view this photo from Port Sanilac  out bigger and check out his sets including Piezography Prints, The Great Lakes, Architektura and Explored! (slideshow).

Dive into his Flickriver...

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While this article was originally published in 2009, we found it to be still interesting & relevant. Be sure to check out the cool video below and also to head over to Great Lakes Echo for the rest of the stories in their special report on Lake Huron Sinkholes!

by Sarah Coefield

Researchers are exploring sinkholes in Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, Mich. Photo: NOAA

The locals in Alpena have long known about sinkholes just offshore from their northeast Michigan community. But it will take researchers several years to unravel the local diving spots' mysteries.

The story of the Lake Huron sinkholes and their exotic ecosystems begins on a ship. While surveying shipwrecks in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 2001, Steve Ruberg and his colleagues were surprised to detect underwater basins 300 feet below the surface. To their trained eyes, the basins looked like sinkholes.

The discovery warranted further investigation.

Steve Ruberg

When the scientists returned they discovered salty groundwater venting into underwater sinkholes.

Sinkholes are not unusual. On land they can form wherever limestone is prevalent. Groundwater and rainwater dissolve the rock, carving underground caves and tunnels. If too much limestone dissolves, the surface collapses, forming a depression that can fill with water. The sinkholes in Lake Huron likely formed thousands of years ago, before the lake covered the limestone bedrock.

Though sinkholes are common, scientists have found that the ecosystems flourishing in them under Lake Huron are far from the ordinary.

Bopi Biddanda was immediately intrigued: "I said, what if it's a really different composition (of water) coming out. They'd be seeing very different types of life. Let's go and look there."

Biddanda, a research scientist at the Grand Valley State University Annis Water Resources Institute in Muskegon, Mich., co-leads the sinkhole research with Ruberg.

Beginning in 2003, divers and remotely operated vehicles collected samples and images from the sinkholes. They revealed conditions never before documented in the Great Lakes. The mats of purple and white bacteria thriving in them are reminiscent of life found in permanently ice-covered Antarctic lakes and deep sea vents, Biddanda said. At that point "we knew we were onto something really cool," he said. "Really unique life and possibly life processes that … could add to the exploration of life on the planet itself."

Before bubbling into the sinkholes in Lake Huron, the groundwater passes through 400-million-year-old bedrock rich with ancient marine salts and sulfur. By the time it reaches the lake, the water has little oxygen left. The combination of low oxygen and the presence of salt and sulfur is reminiscent of prehistoric Earth.

The water "is filling food webs that almost resemble what might have prevailed in the ancient shallow seas, probably a couple of billion years ago," Biddanda said.

This summer researchers are aging the water to see if it is as ancient as the bedrock it passes through.

The dense salt-and-sulfur-laden groundwater hugs the lake floor. Its constant temperature provides a nursery for exotic bacteria, but the low oxygen keeps fish at bay.

The brilliant purple mats in the shallow, sunlit sinkholes are composed of cyanobacteria – ancient, complex bacteria that rely on photosynthesis for energy, like plants, but use sulfur compounds in place of water. In the deep, dark sinkholes farther off shore, mats of bright white bacteria coat the sinkhole bottom. These white bacterial mats rely on chemosynthesis – using sulfur for energy in the absence of light or oxygen.

"You know, we never expected that in our own backyard, in the Great Lakes," Biddanda said. "It was totally, totally cool."

The unique bacteria and geology lend themselves to several research projects, including new disease treatments and a search for clues to ancient life and for similar ecosystems in the Great Lakes.

Read more about Lake Huron Sinkholes at Great Lakes Echo and check out Michigan in Pictures for more on karst and the Michigan Karst Conservancy

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ABSOLUTE MICHIGAN: What prompted you to do this?

LOREEN NIEWENHUIS: I've always felt connected to Lake Michigan.   It has always been the place where I relax, walk, and recenter myself.   When I turned 45, I wanted to take on something large, something that would challenge me on many levels.   So, I pulled out my maps of Lake Michigan and plotted a 1000-mile route around it.

ABSOLUTE MICHIGAN: What was your favorite stretch of Michigan beach?

LOREEN NIEWENHUIS: I fell in love with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and Leelanau Peninsula all over again.   The natural beauty is amazing, the towns are very connected to the lake along this stretch, and there are several excellent independent bookstores along the way.

You can read what Loreen has to say about the Sleeping Bear Dunes Lakeshore on her blog, and here's a brief excerpt from the book.

Bobcat, dead deer, and cougars, OH MY!

North of Portage Lake, it soon gets rather remote and the shoreline becomes rugged with high, wooded dunes flanking me to my right, with the expanse of calm lake to my left. There are miles without any signs of civilization, and I pass curious tracks along a small stream that look like a bobcat made them. Not a mile from the stream, a severed foreleg of a deer rests, bloody, on the shore.

A bobcat couldn't take down a full-sized deer. To forestall the obvious conclusion that something even larger had killed it, I think up a "Clumsy Deer Scenario" where the deer trips, conks its head on a rock, and is eaten by the bobcat.

Oh, clumsy, clumsy deer!

Then I think about all the times that I have stumbled on the trek so far, over icy rocks, through roots grabbing at my feet, over piles of driftwood. I begin to feel little ravenous cat eyes on me, waiting for me to blunder, stumble, and conk my head. At home, I have a 15-pound housecat who has some rather feral moments, so I am sure I can fend off a bobcat – as long as I have my walking stick and my wits about me.

To allay my fears, though, I yell, "Venison is DELICIOUS!"

There are wild cats bigger than bobcats in Michigan: cougars. And I don't mean the Demi Moore type. These big carnivores – over 100 pounds – have been seen all over the state. Cougars are genetically programmed to jump on the back of their prey and clamp their jaws on the neck, working their incisors between the vertebrae to sever the spinal cord so their prey will stop struggling. Then: dinnertime.

My main consolation was that I'd probably not see a cougar come at me. It would be over before I had time to say, "Venison is DELICIOUS!" I hope that my larger pack would protect me, or somehow make me seem less of an option for a cougar dinner.

Or, maybe, the cougar would knock me over, pack and all, but I'd have time to pull out my pepper spray and spray the cat and not myself. And I wished for a big cat that did not think pepper spray would make me taste even more delicious.

Visit Loreen's website A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach for more including photos, excerpts, book signings and ordering information.

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rickrjw (Rick Wolanin) added an ice boating shot from Harbor Springs to the Absolute Michigan pool today, but I liked this one from 2 years ago on Elk Lake.

He's a retired commercial photographer. Check his Collections for tons of iceboating and sailing shots. Other sets include Boyne City,  Sunsets/Sunrise and Iceboating (slideshow).

Speaking of Elk Lake, here's a great video from a few years ago of iceboating on Elk Lake.

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On a whim, I went to Wordle and plugged in a sampling of Absolute Michigan and Michigan in Pictures. The results are above (click above for bigger view or see it even bigger).

One thing is clear: we love water! We'll use this page to feature some watery goodness - add your own events, comments, photos, links, videos, etc to the comments or on Facebook!

Let's kick things off with an announcement of the next Water Festival - the Benzie County Water Festival on Saturday, March 19, 2011 in Frankfort! Absolute Michigan is a proud sponsor of the festival, and we will feature interviews and special features on Michigan's water leading up to the festival - stay tuned!

Check this out background bigtastic and in John's Michigan Lighthouses slideshow. Much more at Michigan Nut Photography.

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