Why visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore?
According to Chippewa Indian legend . . . “Long ago, in a land that today is Wisconsin, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. They swam and swam, but soon the cubs tired and lagged far behind. Mother bear finally reached the opposite shore and climbed to the top of a bluff to watch and wait for her offspring. But the cubs drowned. Today “Sleeping Bear,” a solitary dune in Michigan, marks the spot where mother bear waited. Her hapless cubs are the Manitou Islands.” Aerial photo of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore courtesy of the National Park Service. The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is yet another place in Michigan where we can see evidence of the amazing power of ice, wind, and water. This area is extremely dynamic and unlike most places geologic changes can be seen within a human lifetime. Landslides have sent tons of sand plunging into Lake Michigan twice in the last hundred years, while trees are constantly disappeari
