Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National lakeshore is going all-out to celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service.
Sleeping Bear is a breathtaking symphony of water sky and towering sand dunes on Lake Michigan shoreline near Traverse City, and has been part of the national park system since 1970. It is a 64-mile curve of sweeping maritime vistas, miles of perfect freshwater beaches, forested wilderness islands and miles of hiking trails.
For more than a year, park personnel have been holding events to mark the NPS Centennial, and those efforts are moving into high gear with the approach of Founder’s Day on Aug. 25.
“Even our regular events will have a centennial theme this year,” says lead park interpreter Lisa Griebel. “We’re trying to reach that next group of park visitors, supporters and advocates with a whole series of outreach programs involving schools and other groups.”
Music and entertainment will punctuate the season thanks to this year’s special Find Your Park Concert Series, held alternately in the Platte River or D.H. Day campground amphitheaters.
On May 28, Centennial themes will predominate at the annual Glen Haven Days celebration in the historic maritime village of Glen Haven and it’s nearby Life-Saving Station. Park rangers and volunteers will coordinate hands-on activities that will bring Great Lakes maritime history of the early 1900s to life.
The two-day Port Oneida Fair in August is a perfect fit for the NPS Centennial, since the former German-American farming community north of Glen Arbor was at the peak of its activity when the Park Service was getting started. All its usual features – from harvesting and baling hay and learning traditional home crafts to watching teams of oxen and horses at work – are well-suited to imaging life in 1916. This year’s fair is being held Aug. 12-13.
One of the most rapidly-growing phenomena in recent years has been the increasing interest in the national lakeshore’s monthly “star parties”. Since Sleeping Bear has almost no light pollution from nearby towns and cities, it’s become a popular venue for presentations of the night sky, often focused on planetary sightings, meteor showers and other astronomical events.
In honor of the NPS Centennial, this year’s biggest celestial event is an all-day Astronomy Festival set for July 23.
The Big Day of the year, however, is Aug. 25 – Founder’s Day – which commemorates the day when President Woodrow Wilson signed the “Organic Act” establishing the Park Service to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wild life therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.
