{"id":8576,"date":"2012-10-26T21:01:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T04:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=8576"},"modified":"2012-10-26T21:01:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T04:01:04","slug":"walk-around-lake-michigan-loreen-niewenhuis-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/walk-around-lake-michigan-loreen-niewenhuis-did-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk 1000 Miles Around Lake Michigan? She Did It — Now I Don’t Have To"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Loreen
Loreen Niewenhuis trekked across a sandy beach between Ludington and Suttons Bay on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore late in May. Niewenhuis photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Walk around Lake Michigan . . . the whole thing. That was my plan. I\u2019d start in late spring and finish up in the fall. I\u2019d walk the perimeter of the beautiful Big Lake, as my brothers and I\u00a0 called it when we were kids, blogging all the way. And when I was done, I\u2019d write a book about it.<\/p>\n

That was the plan.<\/p>\n

Lucky for me, Loreen Niewenhuis beat me to it.<\/p>\n

\"Loreen
There was still some snow on the ground in March, when Loreen hiked between Union Pier and South Haven, Michigan. Niewenhuis photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I love Lake Michigan. To me it is an embracing, loving presence. I wanted to embrace it back by walking every inch of its perimeter, my feet in the water, cool waves lapping at my ankles.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d start on the Lake\u2019s eastern coast near Pentwater, where I, my mother and her mother had spent our girlhood summers. I\u2019d work my way south along the coast, head west to Chicago and north past Milwaukee, then across Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula, and south again to Pentwater, my home spot.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d circumambulate the Lake, clockwise Buddhist-style, breathing in the fresh lake air, the miraculously white beach sands of Lake Michigan under my feet. I\u2019d commune with beach grass and pine and oak forests, with sea gulls, lady bugs and monarch butterflies.<\/p>\n

There would be a couple of big cities to get through, of course \u2013 Chicago, Milwaukee. And there was the depressingly industrialized southern end of the lake at Gary, Indiana. But mostly it would be an idyll, just me and my lake.<\/p>\n

Years passed. I got busy with other projects. My fantasy and I, we aged a bit. In time, it dawned on me that beaches slope, and making the entire pilgrimage with one foot downslope from the other would do something awful to my ankles, knees and hips.<\/p>\n

Hmmm. Maybe I\u2019d bicycle around the lake instead. Or, better yet,\u00a0 drive. Spend the night in comfy B&Bs, and do a little walking during the day.<\/p>\n

\"loreen<\/a>
A blustery day in May between Muskegeon and Ludington, MI. Not the sunny shore I remember from my childhood summers on Lake Michigan. Niewenhuis photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My friend Nancy Crisp, an artist who lives in Traverse City, liked my walk-and-drive-around-the-lake idea. She volunteered to join me for a leg or two.<\/p>\n

But in the end, it was Nancy who shattered my around-the-lake dreams.<\/p>\n

She sent me an email. I\u2019d been scooped, she said. Somebody had written my book. The author was Loreen Niewenhuis. The book, \u00a0A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I ordered the book. I read it.<\/p>\n

Loreen\u2019s journey \u2013 and mine if I\u2019d actually had the misfortune to undertake it \u2013 was not a walk on the beach. It was a grueling 1,019-mile, 64-day trek broken into ten segments with extensive day- and week-long R&R breaks between.<\/p>\n

\"Loreen<\/a>
I pictured gentle sandy beaches all around the lake. Here a cliff bars Loreen’s way between Manitowoc and Milwaukee, WI, in August.\u00a0 Niewenhuis photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From March 16 to September 26, 2009, Loreen tramped through swamps, wetlands, forest thickets and industrial sites toxic with mercury, asbestos and PCBs. Also, a homeless camp and a sketchy neighborhood with a public service billboard that read, \u201cDon\u2019t shoot me, I want to grow up.\u201d She clambered over fallen trees. She scaled rock piers. She forded streams and staggered up sandy bluffs.<\/p>\n

She was chased by mosquitoes, house flies, horse flies, deer flies, and an imaginary cougar so real to Loreen that she walked backwards for a spell because she\u2019d heard that cougars attack their prey from behind, sinking their teeth into their victim\u2019s necks to paralyze them so they can be eaten without a struggle.<\/p>\n

Loreen did all that for you and me. And now I am thoroughly off the hook.<\/p>\n

\"Loreen<\/a>
Loreen approaches Chicago and the end of her journey in September. Niewenhuis photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I do not need to take a 1000-mile walk \u2013 forced march \u2013 around my not-so-benign-after-all Lake Michigan. Someone has done it for me \u2013 all 1,019 sandy, rocky, marshy, mosquito-ridden, sometimes pristine, often polluted, but always sublime miles of it.<\/p>\n

Loreen’s book is not a literary effort along the lines of nature books like Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek <\/em>or Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge<\/em>. But Loreen is a well-informed, passionate cheerleader for an endangered lake that needs all the help it can get.<\/p>\n

As for me, I found Loreen to be wonderful company on the trek I didn’t take.\u00a0 Thank you, Loreen.<\/p>\n

A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach: One Woman\u2019s Trek of the Perimeter of Lake Michigan<\/em>, Loreen Niewenhuis, Crickhollow Books, 2011, $16.95 paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note: Loreen is just now finishing up another adventure — a 1000-mile walk along the Great Lakes. And she’s blogging about it<\/a>. Have fun, Loreen! And . . . yet another woman has circumnavigated the lake — this one made news with her rowboat<\/a> recently.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Want to read about a real Michigan poet? Check out this post about “Jane Johnston Schoolcraft<\/a> and the Indian I Wanted to Be.”\u00a0 And check out plans for a kayaking route around the perimeter of the lake. And here’s a conference to discuss walking, biking, kayaking around the lake.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/a>
Loreen made the trek around Lake Michigan in ten segments.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"loreen<\/a>
Loreen’s current 2012 route along the Great Lakes. Niewenhuis graphics.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Loreen<\/a><\/p>\n

Walk around Lake Michigan . . . the whole thing. I\u2019d start in late spring and finish up in the fall. And when I was done, I\u2019d write a book about it. Lucky for me, Loreen Niewenhuis beat me to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[819,773,34,383,820,821,82,488],"class_list":["post-8576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-1000-mile-walk-on-the-beach","tag-author-profiles","tag-dont-miss","tag-lake-michigan","tag-loreen-niewenhuis","tag-nancy-crisp","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}