Most Popular Post from 2019

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

Here is the most-viewed post from 2019. Wintery photos from along Grand Traverse Bay:

Winter changes the Great Lakes.

Many people think that ice just forms on the top of the lakes, sealing the lower liquid for a time. It can do that, but it is also infinitely more creative. 

Water transforms, coats, blows, and freezes.

Below are a few photos taken on a single day along the shoreline of Grand Traverse Bay in Traverse City.

Just look at what nature created:

Frozen spray locked these milkweed seeds in place

Ice balls form around grasses and reeds along the shoreline...

...then the weight of the ice snaps off the reed and the ice ball floats away

Buddy ice mounds hanging out along the bayshore

Ice volcano

Melded ice balls locked in sheet ice

Monarch butterflies

Monarch butterflies are finally 

having a good year. 

Conditions this spring were favorable as the cloud of monarchs migrated north from their wintering grounds in Mexico into southern U.S. 

The summer was also easy on the butterflies as the next generations migrated into the northern states. Many thousands of them make their way into the Great Lakes basin.

MonarchWatch.org collects data and also sells milkweed plugs so concerned monarch fans can cultivate this important plant on their land.

Milkweed is the ONLY plant that monarchs will lay eggs on. It is the ONLY plant that the caterpillars of the monarchs will eat.

While hiking on Manitoulin Island, I saw the most beautiful milkweed plants: 

The amount of milkweed growing along the migratory path of the monarchs has been declining for years and has caused a huge drop in the number of monarchs.

Learn more HERE.

Milkweed Along the Lakeshore

Milkweed budding out

One benefit of hiking over a long period is that I have observed the progression of spring to summer with each step.  

One of the intriguing plants that grows along the edges of our Great Lakes is milkweed.  

It is rather unassuming as it pushes its leaves up and out of the sandy soil, but then buds form and finally burst into a globe of little five-pointed flowers.  

Many insects are drawn to milkweed, and some of them will fall prey to this hungry spider.

When they finally come into full bloom, the flowers give off a sweet and lively scent, drawing all sorts of creatures to the plant for life-giving nectar.  

The life cycle of the monarch butterfly is tied to milkweed.  The eggs they lay there hatch into caterpillars and these caterpillars feed exclusively on the milkweed leaves.  The "milk" of the plant is acidic and toxic to many creatures.  By feasting on the milkweed, the caterpillar and the butterfly it transforms into do not taste very good.  Most predators will avoid eating the monarch because of this.  

Blooming

The Lake in All Seasons

I began my Lake Trek on March 16, 2009, and finished on September 26, 2009. I began at the tail end of winter when there was still ice on the lake, and finished in the first days of the following fall as the first leaves were falling.



The lake changes with the seasons.

I saw it rage during a spring storm, and, in the final days of summer there was a day when it was inert without so much as a whisper of movement against the shore.

The animals and insects and plants changed as I walked the lake. They shed their winter coats, transformed from caterpillar to butterfly, and completed the eternal cycle of plant-flower-seed-death.

One connection of these cycles that was present on just about every segment of my adventure was the milkweed-monarch cycle. The empty pods from last year were at the beginning of my journey. Then, the new plants emerged and were feasted on by the monarch caterpillars as they struggled to produce their intricate blooms.









As the caterpillars bulked up for the change into creatures of flight, the milkweed dropped its flowers and set about, once again, making seeds to release in the fall and winter winds.