Vermillion Point’s remote Lake Superior shoreline is home to both a historic lifesaving station and endangered piping plovers nesting sites. In the morning, Dr. Jason Garvon from LSSU will guide you through the critical work done here and elsewhere in the Great Lakes for the plovers. Keep your fingers crossed for nesting plovers to be present! After lunch you will independently visit the Whitefish Point Shipwreck Museum (ticket included in cost).

Time: 7:30 AM – 4:00 PM; Includes 1.5 hour driving time to/from Hessel
Guide: Dr. Jason Garvon
Limit: 15 participants, Pre-registration is required.
Cost: $75 (includes lunch and Whitefish Point Shipwreck Museum ticket)

For more information or to register for this event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series.

Spend the day exploring a remote 600-acre hunting camp with the three best guides our limited funds could afford. This property hosts eagles, loons, and beavers across its varied topography and forest. A slide presentation, paddling, hiking, and a traditional pasty lunch are all part of this unique experience.

Meet: Hessel School House to carpool/caravan to location
Time: 8:00 AM – 3:30 PM
Guides: Rob Routledge, Steve Baker, and Ken Drenth
Limit: 12 participants. Pre-registration is required.
Cost: $75 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series.

Start the day with a guided tour of Lake Superior State University’s new Richard & Theresa Barch Center for Freshwater Research and Education (CFRE), followed by self-paced exploration of the native-plant rain gardens, salmon fish hatchery, freighter watching (depends on timing), and the Discovery Center. After lunch, hike the mostly flat Algonquin Ski Trails and learn about sustainable forest management, invasive species, and private landowner conservation programs.

Time: 8:15 AM – 3:45 PM; Including a 45-minute driving time to/from Hessel
CFRE Guides: Ashley Moerke and Elizabeth Christiansen, LSSU Staff
Hiking Guides: Dylan Parker (Chippewa-Luce-Mackinac Conservation District Forester) and Michael Hinde (Three Shores CISMA Coordinator)
Limit: 20 participants. Pre-registration is required.
Cost: $75 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register for this event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival Website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series.

The Nature Conservancy’s Maxton Plains Preserve is a globally rare area of exposed limestone bedrock and shallow soils. These harsh environments are dominated by grasses, sedges, and wildflowers like early buttercup, early saxifrage, and prairie smoke, but also present the opportunity to discover detailed fossils exposed in the calcareous bedrock like nautiloid cephalopods. The Haacks, long-time summer residents, will be your guides on this tour.

• Meet: Drummond Island Ferry parking area
• Time: 8:40 AM ferry – 1:10 PM ferry*
• Guides: Robert and Sheridan Haack 
• Limit: 25 participants, pre-registration required.
• Cost: $40 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register for this event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

*Allow at least 35 minutes to drive the 28 miles from Hessel to DeTour Village. The ferry is first-come, first-served, so we recommend getting in line by 8:25 AM (depart) / 12:50 PM (return) or earlier. If you miss the morning ferry, you are on your own to rendezvous with the group. Ferries leave the mainland on the 0:40 and return on the 0:10 of every hour.

Get ready to soar by visiting the Mackinac Straits Raptor Watch (MSRW) to learn about the spectacular spring and fall migrations, banding, and the geolocation data the MSRW has been gathering. While keeping an eye to the sky for raptors, we will visit key areas where migrating warblers and waterfowl recharge, and enjoy northwoods wildflowers at the Headlands, French Farm, Dingman’s Marsh, and other areas along the way. 

• Guide: Sarah Reding and Ed Pike
• Limit: 12 participants, pre-registration is required.
• Cost: $75 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register for this tour, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series. 

The landscape of the Les Cheneaux area is shaped by a long, geologic history — 400 million years in the making when this area was a warm, shallow sea, then later scraped by mile-high glaciers. Gain a deeper understanding of what is literally underfoot by visiting both a working quarry and the Carl A. Gerstacker Nature Preserve.

• Guides: Libby Ives – sedimentary geologist and geomorphologist; Melissa Simon – Senior Manager and Mine Engineering, Carmeuse Limestone; Shaun Howard, Protected Lands Project Manager, The Nature Conservancy
• Limit: 20 participants. Pre-registration required.
• Cost: $75 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register for the event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series. 

Spend a day helping care for one of the most beautiful and pristine nature preserves in Michigan. After taking a boat ride across Hessel Bay to Marquette Island, you’ll spend the day trail-clearing alongside Little Traverse Conservancy (LTC) staff in the same woods that young Aldo wandered! Using supplied tools, we will work our way inland along a rustic and little-used trail that LTC is looking to improve.

• Guide: Little Traverse Conservancy Staff
• Limit: 12 participants, pre-registration is required. 
• Cost: $25 (includes lunch)

For more information or to register for this event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

This guided tour is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series. Most of this trip’s costs are underwritten by the LTC in appreciation for your efforts — thank you! 

An information packed, land and sea adventure to learn more about the Les Cheneaux area and the Martin Reef Light Station with Dan Reelitz as your guide. For late sleepers, start your day with great locally-roasted-beans coffee at the Les Cheneaux Coffee Roasters, followed by a boat ride to Government Island. Once there, hike along the trails while learning how the island was used for constructing Lake Huron’s remote Martin Reef Light Station. After lunch and a return voyage, you may choose to gather at Les Cheneaux Distillers to swap stories and enjoy a drink of choice. Participants will also receive a copy of the book “Martin Reef, Lightship to Lighthouse” by John Sellman.

• Time: 9:30 AM –3:00  PM
• Guide: Dan Reelitz
• Limit: 12, pre-registration is required.
• Cost: $75 (includes coffee and lunch

For more information or to register for this trip, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website. 

This workshop is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series. 

Smartphone cameras allow us to easily capture what we see — but people are often disappointed with their images. This hands-on workshop will put any skill level on a direct path to becoming a photography “genius” of lectures, field trips, and the wonders of the digital darkroom. Dinner is provided and timed so you can attend the monarch butterfly talk before we head out for a final photo session to capture the golden hour of sunset.

Your instructor Sue Bakkila. Half the year, Sue runs a small design and photography agency in Grand Rapids, and the other half, she runs Woods & Waters as a kayak guide. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Aquinas College with majors in Geography, Communication Arts, and Studio Art. An avid photographer (who shoots with a Nikon, Fuji, DJI, and iPhone), she loves stopping to take a picture. Or twenty. 

Time: 1:00–9:45 PM  (sunset is 9:20 PM)

Limit: 16 participants, pre-registration required.

Cost: $75 (includes dinner)

For more information or to register for this event, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website. 

This workshop is part of the Aldo Leopold Festival – Adventure Day Trip Series. 

Les Cheneaux welcomes you to celebrate the legacy of Aldo Leopold — one of America’s most influential naturalists — during our festival, June 1st – June 5th, 2022. Activities include paddling excursions, orchid and wildflower tours, birding trips, presentations, and many other nature-based activities. Experience the woods and water that formed Leopold’s early impressions of the natural world as we honor the mark he made on conservation and the environment.

The cost for a Festival Pass is $45 per person, children 17 and under are free! Due to the popularity of this event, pre-registration is required for ALL participants. To register, visit the Aldo Leopold Festival website.

View and download our online festival program.

Whitefish Point is known the world over as one of the great migration hot spots for many songbirds, waterfowl, and raptors — and you’ll spend a near-peak-migration day exploring the hawk watch, water bird shack, and songbird-filled woods. Whitefish Point Bird Observatory staff will discuss some of the amazing research and discoveries made here, and after lunch we will visit spruce grouse and crossbills habitats.

This adventure is guided by Elliot Nelson,  an Extension Educator for the Michigan Sea Grant Extension. His role is working with coastal communities and businesses in the Eastern Upper Peninsula to apply science-based knowledge to address Great Lakes, Lake Superior, northern Lake Michigan, and northern Lake Huron issues. He obtained his M.S. in Biology with MSU and M.S. in Natural Resources and Environment with the University of Michigan.

Limit: 12 participants. Cost is $75.00 per person.

For complete details and to register visit the Aldo Leopold Festival Website

The City of Grand Rapids proclaims Never Give Up Day

This August 18, the City of Grand Rapids proudly joins community members celebrating Never Give Up Day and has proclaimed August 18, 2022, as Never Give Up Day. 

Never Give Up Day is a global celebration day focused on cultivating a mindset of determination. The mayoral proclamation signals the city’s role in recognizing the importance of never giving up and invites its citizens to make this day a springboard for awareness-raising actions. Never Give Up Day provides a common platform for health and social care providing associations, NPO’s, charities, sports teams and businesses in their efforts to establish a call to action.

Many philanthropic causes have dedicated awareness months or days to hold their call to action or fundraising, but few can engage so much attention, touching so many hearts, and connecting so many people to the same degree as Never Give Up Day. The day not only applauds people for reaching their goals but also supports those who are still trying to achieve their goals.

Never Give Up Day is a day we convince ourselves and the world that we are strong, determined and able to achieve our goals. Whether it is reaching your dream or fighting illness. Whether financial foes cause you stress and despair or relationship tension negatively impacts your emotional and physical health. Whether it is hard to get over someone you’ve lost or hard to do when you’ve been let down and left out. Whether today signals the beginning of a new battle or another milestone being celebrated, Never Give Up Day is a perfect day for acknowledging the resilience and determination of all those who never give up

The biggest weekend of the summer in Frankfort will begin on Friday, August 19 when Art Fair exhibitors will be in Market Square Park providing a preview of their art for purchase from 1pm – 7pm. The Frankfort United Methodist Church will host their annual Pulled Pork Picnic and also that evening, there will be a Concert in the Park at Mineral Springs Park at 7pm.

On Saturday, August 20, the 46th Annual Frankfort Art Fair will continue where over 150 artists will be displaying their work from 10 AM – 4 PM in Market Square Park on M-22.

Also on Saturday, the Collector Car Show is back and will be held in Mineral Springs Park in downtown Frankfort. Registration begins at 8 am and presentation of awards after the judging at 1:30pm.

The Benzie Bus FREE shuttle service is available from 10am – 4pm. NO PETS will be allowed into Market Square Park on Friday or Saturday.

This event is coordinated by the Frankfort-Elberta Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by their Corporate Premier Sponsors: Dinghy’s Restaurant & Bar, TC Tourism, State Savings Bank, Graceland Fruit, West Shore Bank and Curtis Insurance.

For more information please call the Frankfort-Elberta Area Chamber of Commerce at 231-352-7251 or email fcofc@frankfort-elberta.com