Happy INDIE Holidays

I visited many indie bookstores today in Southwest Michigan as they were gearing up for Small Business Saturday.

The Nature Connection in Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo's indie, Kazoo Books

Great Lakes books at Kazoo Books

 Kalamazoo has chosen 

The Living Great Lakes 

by Jerry Dennis as their Community Read for 2015. 

Great choice!

Great indie in St. Joseph

AND, I was able to visit Lake Michigan 

on this wintery day.  

Snow dunes...

Lake Michigan!

Lake Michigan in motion

Yep. This is my lake.

South Haven's Black River Books

Reader's World in Holland

Support your local indies on Small Business Saturday AND all year long!
All of these stores will take part in the May 2015
 pre-release of my upcoming book.

The Invasive Round Goby

There are many invasive species in our 

Great Lakes. The majority of them were transported here in ballast tanks of ships from freshwater ports all over the world.

One of these recent hitchhikers is the Round Goby native to central Eurasia. They arrived in the 1990s and in less than a decade had spread to four of the five Great Lakes.

Water snakes are loving this fish...for dinner. Since Gobies tend to just sit on the rocks on the bottom of the lake, the clever water snakes sneak up on them and grab them by the head.

They then drag them to land and swallow them whole. I captured this "revenge on invasive Gobies" struggle on Manitoulin Island.

And, no, the Goby doesn't look too happy about it.

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and Great Lakes speaker. She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has written three books about the Great Lakes [A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach *a Heartland Indie Bestseller*, A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk *winner of the Great Lakes Great Reads Award*, and A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Island Adventure]. To learn more about her work, or to book her as a speaker, go to http://LakeTrek.com

Handfuls of Manitoulin Island

While on Manitoulin Island -- the largest island in the Great Lakes basin -- I found many fascinating fossils and stones:

Crinoid and quartz

This last one is a fossilized sponge

Manitoulin Island is the largest island in the 

Great Lakes. This is one of the many islands I explored for my upcoming book.

Video Highlights from my Great Lakes ISLAND Adventure

Here are some highlights from my third 

Great Lakes odyssey exploring the 

islands of our magnificent Great Lakes.