Door Peninsula Wisconsin

     With the golden sunrise at his back, the eagle leaves South Manitou Island and flies west across the clear, blue-green waters of Lake Michigan to the Door Peninsula, a finger of land jutting into Lake Michigan's waters from Wisconsin's mainland.  He is tired after his fifty mile flight that took him over the 45 degree latitude; exactly halfway between the equator and the north pole.  He rests in a tree on the shoreline and his head turns slowly and he tucks it under one powerful wing while one great foot locks around a white pine branch.

     On the west side of Lake Michigan the Door Peninsula stretches 75 miles separating the big lake from Green Bay.  Native Americans and French trappers found the channel so treacherous for their canoes they named it "porte des morts" or death's door.  Today it is simply called the Door Peninsula.

     It's shore line has been carved into caves, arches and cliffs by the turbulent waters. The limestone is part of the Niagara Escarpment laid down in ancient saltwater seas.  Fossils embedded in the rock show what creatures lived long ago.  Today ancient cedars cling to the rock and the woods ring with birdsong. 

    The area is famous for its fish boils: whitefish steaks, potatoes and onions prepared over an open fire. 

     The eagle sleeps in the branches of a white cedar clinging to layers of limestone.

Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan

An American bald eagle scans the horizon from the top of Sleeping Bear Dune, the world's largest moving dune.  The eagle sees a ghost forest of dead trees where shifting sands had covered living trees and then as the sand shifted again, uncovered a stand of dead trees.

In back of the dunes an oak and aspen forest anchor the sand in place with their root systems.  There are deep ravines between the dunes.  A cougar hides in the shadows.

The eagle flies eight miles northwest toward South Manitou Island where he lands, feeds on a dead fish and rests for the night.

to be continued.

Chippewa Legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes

Sleeping Bear Dunes, are on Michigan mitten's little finger, the Leelanaw Peninsula.

164 feet above the shore, the highest dune, North and South Manitou Islands may be seen: the Chippewa called these islands the bear cubs. The Chippewa legend tells of a giant mother bear who swam across Lake Michigan from the opposite shore in Wisconsin to escape a forest fire. The mother bear told her cubs to follow her closely as she swam toward Michigan's shore, but the distance was too great for her twin cubs and they drowned within sight of the shore.

According to the legend, the Great Manitou, or Great Spirit of the lakes took pity upon the mother bear and changed her cubs into two islands when it saw her grief. Today she still looks over Lake Michigan; the shape of Sleeping Bear Dune is the shape of the great mother bear looking out toward her cubs who were changed into North and South Manitou Islands.

to be continued.