Tag Archives: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Innisfree: Fondly Remembered Outdoor Camp, 1970-1988

by S. A. McFerran

Many school groups from Traverse City and Leelanau traveled to Innisfree, a camp for environmental education, on Pyramid Point within the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.  The program operated year-round within sight of the Manitou Passage, and the fifth- and sixth-grade student visitors would stay for four nights at the Camp.  Students were led on beach and wood hikes by a crack team of naturalists. In the winter, there were snow shoe hikes and ski trips. Canoe trips on the Crystal River was a staple activity as were “get lost” hikes.

Gus Leinbach and group, on a hill at Innisfree Camp, ca. 1970. Image provided by the author.

Gus Leinbach bought the camp in 1970 and started the Innisfree Project which was named after a William Butler Yeats poem by that name. Gus was an educator from Ann Arbor who set up the camp with the concept of self-direction for the campers and counselors. If you had an idea, a skill, and interest then you could form your idea, pitch it to a mentor or guide to help, propose it to the rest of the campers and get a group together to do what you wanted. There was a bike shed with tons of parts to work on building bicycles, an old car to learn how to fix engines, a frozen zoo of found animals that were preserved, and an old orchard with apples to pick. The kitchen always seemed to be open for campers to come in and help. It was a true community experience that offered endless possibilities to explore, create, invent, and express.

Gus and his wife Paula operated Crystalaire on Crystal Lake before establishing Innisfree. Camp Lookout “spun off” from Crystalaire and still carries on the tradition of self-directed camp life, where campers and counselors create their own inventive activities. Gus died in 1988, and Innisfree was sold and is still operated as “Camp Kohana.”

During the summers at Innisfree, trips were offered and campers traveled on bikes along the roads of Leelanau and to faraway places such as New England and Isle Royale. I have recently been in touch with Carolyn, my co-leader of a small group of campers to Isle Royale. We both still agree that it was the best trip ever.

Campers at Innisfree. Photograph provided by the author.

In the summer of 1984, we loaded the van with campers and equipment, and we were on our way to meet the ferry boat at Copper Harbor. The trip to the ferry gave us the opportunity to get a sense of the cast of characters within the group. Our first stop was on the Keweenaw Peninsula where I parked the van and made everyone hike up a giant hill to an old fire tower. I insisted that the view was worth it. Everyone was stiff from the long trip across the Upper Peninsula and needed to stretch their legs.

We ate delicious thimble berries along the trail, as I regaled the group with stories of the awesome view from the old fire tower. We got to the top and all we saw was a big block of cement with some metal pieces sticking out. The Forest Service had removed the tower. From that low point, on a high place, it was all downhill to Isle Royale.   

The ferry boat at Copper Harbor was surprisingly small. We loaded our backpacks and were off. Lake Superior was very rough that day and many in the group were sick. The water calmed as we approached Isle Royale, and were greeted by a blast of warm air. Camper Emily said: “It smells like pine air freshener!”

We were warned about foxes that would steal food by the Rangers as we unloaded our gear. Willy, a short boy from the Philippines, and Steven, a lanky Inuit, were captivated by the idea of seeing a fox. They rigged up an apparatus for tricking the fox as we set up camp at Rock Harbor.

1978 Isle Royale camping expedition by Innisfree campers. Photograph courtesy of Beth Leinbach.

After being splashed by the water of Lake Superior, it was surprisingly hot at the campground. Emily emerged from her tent and informed Carolyn and I that she had changed her mind about the trip. She demanded a helicopter. She wanted to go home. After some tears and anguish Emily was ready to listen. We explained there would be no helicopter and she was with us for the duration of the trip.

Somehow we had ended up with a large cache of frozen hot dogs. Everyone had eaten their fill so Steve and Willy decided that a hot dog would be perfect fox bait. While foxes stole food we informed Steve that he was not allowed to feed them due to park regulations. Not to be thwarted in his quest to see a fox Steve rigged up hot dog on a bungee cord on a string that he could pull just before the fox grabbed it. He was up all night swatting mosquitos and outfoxing the fox.

The water of Lake Superior is known for being frigid, but late summer sun beats down for long days on the inlets and coves of Isle Royale. The water there becomes delightfully swimmable. Large slabs of granite warmed by the sun made fine places for our group to rest after a plunge. The balance of our trip was spent hiking and swimming in Royale coves and inlets.

One afternoon, when we made it to camp on the early side, we decided to build a sweat lodge out of our tent poles and fly tarps. We were near the end of our week on Isle Royale, so by this time all the campers were pretty good friends and didn’t mind trying something new. We built a fire and found some upland cobbles to heat up.  We all got on our bathing suits and crawled into the makeshift lodge.  The hot rocks were placed in the center and we all sat and sweated until we couldn’t stand it anymore.  With lots of hollering, we all ran through the busy campsite and past the families quietly camping. As a group we all jumped off the dock into the deep Lake Superior water.  It was then I knew that we had changed the campers’ lives.

Gus and Big Pig, at Innisfree, undated. Image provided by the author.

After dropping off all of Steve, Willy, Emily and all the rest, Carolyn and I returned to Innisfree where the late summer band camp was underway.  The Big Reds were blasting fight songs out into the Manitou Passage and Big Pig was watching the band maneuvers from his sty near the football field.

The site where the Camp was on Pyramid Point is amazingly beautiful.  The high bluff above Lake Michigan was lined with trees to sit in and among and gaze at the sunset. And the beach below with the rustic waterfront was a wonderful place to play. But the real beauty of Innisfree was in the people.

S. A. McFerran is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School and has led six, 24 day wilderness courses in addition to an Antioch College Environmental Field Program. He has led outdoor programs for Northwestern Michigan College, Appalachian School of Experience, Group and Individual Growth and Traverse Area Public Schools. He worked as a naturalist and trip leader at Innisfree.

New Exhibits, Hands-on Fun and Walking Tours in September

Downtown Traverse City Historic Walking Tours Every Saturday

Don’t miss the Traverse Area Historical Society’s Downtown Historic Walking Tours! The tour will be offered every Saturday in September, starting at 10:30am.  The tour will last approximately 90 minutes.  Please meet  in front of Horizon Bookstore, 243 East Front Street, 20 minutes before the start time. The cost is $10 cash or check; with all proceeds benefiting the Historical Society.  Reservations (at 995-0313) are appreciated but are not necessary.

Oakwood Cemetery Tours Every Sunday

The Traverse Area Historical Society will conduct walking tours of Oakwood Cemetery at 4:00 PM on all Sundays in September and on October 2 and 9. The tours will focus on the unique history of the area and the early pioneers who began the process that led to the community we know today. The tours are geared towards an adult audience and last 1 ½ hours. The cost is $10 per person and all funds raised will benefit the programs of the Historical Society. Participants are encouraged to wear shoes suitable for hiking over uneven terrain. They should meet with docents on the sidewalk outside the cemetery at the corner of Eighth Street and Steele approximately 15 minutes prior to start time. For additional information call (231)941-8440.

Specific Dates: September 4, 11, 18, and 25; October 2 and 9

National Parks Continue Celebrating their History

Sleeping Bear Dunes, August 2011. Image courtesy of Rodney Campbell, https://flic.kr/p/aa2nva
Sleeping Bear Dunes, August 2011. Image courtesy of Rodney Campbell, https://flic.kr/p/aa2nva

Would you like to attend a star party, witness a shipwreck rescue reenactment, hear some excellent live music, and volunteer to help restore biodiveristy in our region? Then get involved with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the National Park Service as the celebrate 50 (for the Dunes) and 100 years of service to us! Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (like some residents of the Dunes), you’ve probably heard about the celebration, but with the winter months coming on, the last few days to enjoy our collective conservation history is upon us. Don’t wait!

Click here to see the calendar of events for September 2016

New Exhibits on TC Paralympian and Traveling at TADL, Woodmere

Join us on the 2nd Floor of the Woodmere Main Library, Traverse Area District Library, for two fantastic exhibits, never before seen in Traverse City:

Tommy Kelderhouse was a Paralympic athlete from Traverse City. Archery was just one sport he medaled in.
Tommy Kelderhouse was a Paralympic athlete from Traverse City. Archery was just one sport he medaled in.

Tommy Kelderhouse, 1970s Paralympic athlete and Traverse City son, is featured on several interpretive panels courtesy of Port Oneida Community Alliance and the Kelderhouse Family.  Tommy Kelderhouse was the great great grandson of Thomas Kelderhouse, founder of Port Oneida. Enjoy this piece of history, just in time for the Paralympic Games, beginning on September 7th in Rio, Brazil. This exhibit is in the primary display space to the right of the 2nd Floor Reference Desk.

Profuse thanks to the Port Oneida Community Alliance for the privilege of displaying Tommy’s work and achievements. Port Oneida Community Alliance is a nonprofit organization providing hands on opportunities for education, recreation, and celebration of historical knowledge, environmental stewardship, and sustainable agriculture that honor and perpetuate the legacy and community spirit of the resilient subsistence farmers who called Port Oneida their home.
Also, a brief exhibit on how passengers in Grand Traverse County fared on various modes of transport, from the 1850s to the 1920s. Learn more about Traverse City’s own auto manufacturer and more! This exhibit is immediately at the top of the stairs on the 2nd Floor.

“Some Traverse Heroes”

By M.E.C. Bates

[This story was taken from Along Traverse Shores, by M.E.C. Bates and Mary K. Buck, Traverse City: the Herald office, 1891]

We were sitting on Prospect Hill [ed. note: Prospect Hill is located near Glen Arbor on the Homestead Resort property] watching the sun go down, –my friend, the school teacher, and I.

I think in all this Grand Traverse region there is perhaps no finer view than that from Prospect Hill.  Before us lay Lake Michigan, its wide blue expanse stretching on and out as far as the eye could see, till it merged into sky at the horizon line, behind which the sun, a glowing ball of molten fire had just dropped, leaving all the west a golden sea.  Ten miles or more out but looking as if within rifle shot, lay the Manitous, like emeralds in a crystal setting.  Hitherward lie the great waterways for all the craft that seek the Straits from the westward, or the Lake Michigan ports and Chicago from the eastward.  Clear and distinct, near at hand, or so far away as to be only ghostly outlines, were the white sails of numerous barks bound up or down.  Two great propellers with black plumes streaming from their smoke stacks, saluted each other with short, hoarse whistles, as they passed between the islands and the mainland.  Far out, dim murky lines lying against the sky told of other boats bearing their loads of gay summer travelers to the great city “at the head” or to the pleasant resorts beyond the northern horizon.

To the southeast Glen Lake, a mighty mirror set in forest crowned hills, and two smaller lakes reflected as faithfully blue of sky and green of wooded slopes.  Thriving farms dotted the shores or hid behind the gaps in the forest walls cut by stalwart arms of the pioneers who here have hewn out for themselves happy homes.

From out Glen Lake issued Crystal River, rightly named, slipping away to the beach of yellow sand on the shores of old Michigan, stopping to coil itself into many shining loops, lingering under arches of fragrant cedar, where in the dim green light, in dark pools of ice cold water, speckled trout hide under ferny banks—out of the shadow into the sun, and then back into the shadows again,–under rustic bridges, past the old red grist mill and so down to the shining sands where the waves lap the shore with musical murmur.

From our lofty perch we looked down on the tops of a ragged fringe of scrub pines and oaks that lay between the sand of the beach and the base of Prospect Hill.

“I do not wonder you love your “home by the silver sea’, so well:” I said.  “The half was not told me.  This must be the true lotos land, –the land of dreams—the land ‘where it is always afternoon.’  I could stay here forever.”

“But it is not always afternoon,” she said, “nor are the days all halcyon summer days.  I could tell you stories of wild storms, of wreck and ruin,–yes of heroic deeds such as you read in books, and that thrill your soul with thoughts of knightly emprise till you sigh for the olden days when men were indeed men, not knowing that there are heroes still whom we meet in our daily walks, only our eyes are dim and we do not know them for the knightly souls they are.”

“So? Perhaps that is true.  Tell me a story of your Traverse knights.  A bit of romance in this dull work-a-day world will indeed be refreshing.”

She clasped her slender hands across her knees, and looked far out on the misty lake, while a thoughtful light came into her pretty eyes.

“I never sit here as we do this evening, and looking out over the great sand dunes of Sleeping Bear, but I think of one wild Autumn day when the schooner Phelps went ashore on the bar below

“It was a night in late November in 1880.  The wind blew in a gale from the southwest, lasing the water into foam, the great rollers coming in with almost two hundred miles of unbroken sweep.  The schooner tried to gain the lee of the Manitous, and at the same time shun the sand reefs of Sleeping Bear, where many a good ship has laid her bones.  Suddenly the wind shifted to the northwest.  The sky was thick with blinding snow and she began to drift at the mercy of the wind.  They dropped their anchor but it fouled; they drew it and tried again.  This time it caught; the ship swung stern shoreward and bow out, trailing anchor, and drifting slowly toward the sand bar.  The great waves pounded against her sides with terrific blows.  The deck broke away.  The rigging fell over the side, forming a network through which the water seethed and foamed, dashing the broken deck high above the prostrate spars only to fall in the black gulf below.  One by one the crew were overcome and perished in the freezing water.  Only three were left, crowded on the bow above the mass of wreckage—the mate, the wheelsman and a sailor, a boy of nineteen.  They clung to the frail support till the boy, impatient at the situation, crossed the awful chasm, and tried to detach a portion of the floating deck.  At first he worked manfully, then slower and slower till he fell freezing on the deck.

“In the blinding storm the day broke,–the hours passed on and it was not till afternoon that the wreck was discovered from the shore.  The alarm was given and soon all the inhabitants of the little village of Glen Arbor, a short distance up the beach, were gathered on the shore.  Some one ran for a team of stout farm horses and a huge pound net boat, a great, flat-bottomed affair, cumbersome even in mild weather, was moved from the fish houses down by the village.  It was a perilous venture, and he who went took his life in his hand, but in an instant a crew had volunteered.  Strong hands launched the boat.  Through the tremendous surf, half way to the wreck, and they were swamped, and their boat coast back like a child’s toy.  They were all ice and chilled to the bone, but soon they launched their boat again, four of the first crew going out, and a slender young fellow with nerves of steel and muscles of iron under his fair skin took the stern oar in place of the fifth.

“Again they battled with the waves, rising on the crests only to be hurled into the chasms.  They neared the vessel, reached the bow where the sailors clung, eagerly watching their movements.  The waves dashed against them, the wind roared around them, the snow blinded them, till human endurance could stand no more, and they were driven back, foot by foot.  The poor fellows on the wreck saw their rescuers leave them, and begged for help in the most piteous tones.  Reaching shore the brave men, wet to the skin and stiff with ice went for dry clothes, then once more made an attempt to reach the wreck, as it was certain the sailors could stand it but a few moments more.  This time they moved down the beach and started out obliquely with the tide.  Wilder than before, the blinding snow squalls beat upon them.  When almost at the wreck, fearful breakers, too powerful to pull against, drove them back in spite of their greatest efforts.  The cries of the sailors when they saw them lost ground were heart rending.  They renewed their efforts and soon were alongside.  They moved up to the floating mass of tangled rigging and loose boards, where they clung to a spar, thus steadying their boat, while one of the men, the mate, tried to cross the heaving wreckage.  He reached a long spar, and putting his arms around it, crawled painfully forward, while the waves surged and beat over him constantly.  At last he reached the boat and was helped in.  Next the wheelsman made the attempt.  He crossed a third of the spar then stopped and could come no further,–he clung helplessly with his bare hands and it seemed as if his life must be lost.  In the boat below, an old sailor from many-harbored Maine, rose from his seat, stepped into the jostling mass of rigging and wreck, made his way to the perishing man and brought him back in safety.  A few moments more and the surf was passed—the shore reached at last.

“All these brave men are the possessors of gold medals awarded them by the government at Washington, for their heroism.  Said I not well there are knightly souls who walk among us to-day?”

“I think, my dear,” I said, “that one of these brave Traverse knights was your hero.  Have I not guessed right?”

She glanced at me over her shoulder, half archly, half shyly, while a deeper flush rose to her cheeks.

“We must go home,” she said; “the dew is falling.”

We rose from our seats, and hand in hand, to help each other down the steep descent, took our way to the distant farm house, from one of whose windows a bright light shone out like a star to guide us on our path.

_______________________________________________________________________

We can compare the account described in Some Traverse Heroes to the actual event as reported to the editor of the Grand Traverse Herald, November 27th, 1879 edition (The shipwreck occurred on 20, November of that year).  At the outset we can see that M.E.C. Bates got the date wrong: it was not November of 1880 but a year before.  There are a few other discrepancies—the wreck was discovered early in the morning, not at noon, two persons were saved, not three, and the rescue crew did not appear in an instant (it took a while to get two rescuers to risk their lives).

M.E.C Bates was correct when she said members of the rescue crew received medals for their bravery.   John Blanchfield, William A. Clark, W.C. Ray, Charles A. Rosman, and John Tobin were awarded Gold Lifesaving medals on April 8, 1880 by the combined agencies of the Coast Guard, US Lifesaving Service, the Lighthouse Service, and the Revenue Cutter Service.

Even with occasional errors in the telling, Traverse Heroes is included here for several reasons.  The description of the view from Prospect Hill is charming and reminds us of a panorama we can enjoy to this day.  The language M.E.C. Bates uses in her descriptions recalls the florid prose of the era.  It is refreshing to immerse ourselves in it as a change from our present style of rock-solid nouns and boldly stated verbs.  Finally, she expresses the lofty values of her day as she talks about knightly gallantry, even providing a glimpse of the modesty of young women of the time when they are confronted with the possibilities of love: Upon being found out for having a love interest in one of the rescuers, the teller of the tale displays a flush in her cheek.  The newspaper article itself expresses the editor’s opinion that the event reminds us of the “chivalry and knightly deeds” of old.   The framing of the story as a tale of gallantry in both article and story is probably not a coincidence: M.E.C. Bates was married to Thomas T. Bates, the editor of the Grand Traverse Herald.

shipwreck.top

 

shipwreck.bottom

The story is not yet told.  In 2014 timbers from a shipwreck were uncovered by low Lake Michigan water levels.  Were they remnants of the W.B. Phelps?  We don’t know for sure, but the location fits perfectly.

Richard Fidler is co-editor of the Grand Traverse Journal.

Timbers, possibly from the W.B. Phelps shipwreck. Image courtesy of Dr. Mark Holley, Northwestern Michigan College, 2014.
Timbers, possibly from the W.B. Phelps shipwreck. Image courtesy of Dr. Mark Holley, Northwestern Michigan College, 2014.