Lake Michigan Backroads: Your Guide to Wild and Scenic Adventures in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana - Softcover

Domm, Robert W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 076032980X ISBN 13: 9780760329801

Publisher: Voyageur Press, 2008

Synopsis

Here are 19 backroads drives around Lake Michigan, showing you the grand lake as never before in this richly illustrated exploration of the Great Lake’s history, culture, ecology, and natural beauty. The big blue inland sea--the only Great Lake entirely within U.S. borders--appears here in all its natural diversity. These day trips take you to the ancient forests and vast sand dunes of Michigan and Wisconsin and on beautiful backroads in Illinois and Indiana. Lake Michigan Backroads conducts readers through the lake’s varied landscapes and seasons, pausing at popular and little-known destinations for a look into life on the lake then and now.

Here are the shining blue waters plied by the Chippewa and Menominee, by the Jesuits and the voyageurs, and by countless immigrants seeking a new life. And here, in brilliant photographs and historical images, in anecdotes and thoughtful text, are their stories, inextricable from the story of the Great Lake itself. Lake Michigan Backroads speaks eloquently of remarkable natural resources and great promise, of immigration and trade, of devastating storms and human calamity, and of the people and their love of the lake. And their story plays out against Robert Domm’s exquisite images, which evoke the lake’s greatness through its days of calm and of stormy fury, the play of sunlight on its surface and the sweep of its shore in both autumn finery and the restless ice of winter.

About this title

About the Author

Michigan native Robert W. Domm is an outdoors writer and photographer specializing in fine art images of the Great Lakes region. He is the author and photographer of Lake Michigan Backroads and Backroads of Michigan, and his images have appeared in many publications, including Sierra, National Wildlife, and Outdoor Photographer. He lives with his wife in Rives Junction, Michigan. www.rdommphoto.com

From the Back Cover

The beauty of coastal sand dunes, the historic grace of lighthouses, the charm of fishing villages--these and more are explored in Lake Michigan Backroads, a colorful guide to 23 scenic drives around the big lake. Taking you to secluded and urban areas alike, the drives vary anywhere from 2 to 150 miles in length, making this book ideal for planning a day trip or weekend getaway.

From backdune forests celebrated for glorious fall color displays to urban centers rich in museums and parks, Lake Michigan is bounded by stunning natural wonders and cosmopolitan communities. This essential guidebook reveals the lake's many allures--wilderness islands, freshwater springs, shipbuilding towns, and white sand beaches--all waiting to be explored.

Illustrated with beautiful color photography and intriguing historical images, Lake Michigan Backroads leads you to the soul of Lake Michigan, beyond the common tourist attractions.

Robert W. Domm is an outdoors writer and photographer specializing in fine art landscapes of the Great Lakes region. He is the author and photographer of Backroads of Michigan, and his images have appeared in many publications, including Sierra, National Wildlife, and Outdoor Photographer. He and his wife live in Rives Junction, Michigan.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

One evening, I walked from the campground at Michigan's Fayette State Park through a stand of cedar trees and down to the beach. Even though the distance was short, the light was fading quickly in the thicket of trees, so I made mental notes of landmarks along the way to guide me back up to my campsite. Ahead through the trees, the sky above Bay DeNoc glowed in the muted pastels of twilight.

The beach at this part of Fayette State Park consists of low shelves of limestone rock, broken into tablets several inches thick and of various sizes like a field of shattered tombstones. A favorite pastime for beachgoers is to use the natural building blocks to construct stone forts, houses, and castles or to simply pile the flat stones as high as they can. I chose a spot with an unobstructed view of Bay de Noc and sat on a natural stone bench facing the water. The stone was warm to the touch, still holding the heat from the fading afternoon sunshine.

As it often does, the lake breeze had diminished with the setting of the sun, and with the calm, the water of the bay had stilled to a murmur of wavelets that quietly splashed on the shore. Sitting in the hushed, warm air, I had the sensation of looking out from the back of an immense auditorium toward a lighted stage on the horizon. Above, the backlit clouds glowed like a painted ceiling, and the black, restless water in front of me rustled like a crowd waiting in the darkness of the theater. Even though I sat in a place that was once home to a bustling nineteenth-century factory, and a campground full of RVs, tents, and trailers was less than a hundred yards behind me, I could sense the vastness and remoteness that is still a part of Lake Michigan.

Wild and isolated places still exist around Lake Michigan. In the heavily urbanized southern part of the lake, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Michigan's Warren Dunes State Park provide an oasis of nature just a short drive from Chicago and Gary, Indiana. On Lake Michigan's eastern shore, state parks near Saugatuck, Silver Lake, Ludington, and Mackinac have preserved pristine dunes and quiet forests. Near Frankfort, Michigan, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore holds 72,000 acres of wilderness in reserve, protecting wildlife habitat and providing a place to experience truly wild country. Along Lake Michigan's northern coast, the towns and villages are separated by miles of undeveloped shoreline and state and national forest land. Lake Michigan and its vast watershed contains many valuable natural resources, but perhaps the most valuable resource is the emotional connection that people have with this unique and beautiful body of water.

The words and pictures found in this book can only begin to illustrate the wonders that lie around the shores of Lake Michigan. In that light, I offer Backroads of Lake Michigan as a map from which you may plot your own course of discovery. Beautiful and interesting places abound around the shores of this Great Lake, and each one invites you to explore them with all your senses.

Edition details

• Publisher: Voyageur Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 076032980X
• ISBN 13: 9780760329801
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160