Sleeping bear dunes7/3/2023 ![]() By the 1800's pioneers began to settle in the area, not for the dunes but for the lush virgin forest that covered them. For thousands of years the dunes were a place of wonder known only to the local indians. In the centuries that have followed erosion has continually ground down the Michigan shore and the prevailing westerlies have taken all that debris and piled it into the towering dunes we see today.Īlmost since the ice retreated the dunes have been inhabited by man. As the land rebounded from the weight of the ice and the rains fell the Great Lakes formed. When the last of the ice retreated north some 11,800 years ago it left behind numerous depressions and basins. During the last Ice Age the state was covered in glaciers up to two miles thick. Michigan owes much of its landscape to ice. ![]() It is a land of contrasts, and that to me is what makes this place so appealing. On the exposed dunes the summer heat can be unbearable while in the winter northwest winds deposit 150+ inches of snow on the park. Away from the harsh winds of the lakeshore, forests of beech and maple cover rolling hills and surround small glacial lakes. ![]() Along the lakeshore sand dunes rise up to 450' above the water. The park contains 106 square miles of some of the most varied and unique terrain in Michigan. The lakeshore encompasses 35 miles of Lake Michigan shore along Michigan's "little finger," the Leelanau Peninsula, as well as the two wilderness islands of North and South Manitou. Today the towering dunes of Sleeping Bear are forever protected within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the faithful mother bear." -Chippewa Indian Legend Too tired to continue, the two cubs drowned within sight of the shore. Mother bear reached the shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. The bears swam or many hours, but eventually the cubs tired and lagged behind. The Legend of Sleeping Bear "Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were drivin into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire.
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