A Giant Copper Beech

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

My book tour took me to Milwaukee last month. 

There I met with my editor and also revisited an old friend, this massive copper beech tree near the shores of Lake Michigan.

My editor, Phil Martin, and the beech tree

The plaque reads:

"Wisconsin's Largest European Copper Beech Tree (Fagus Sylvatica Purpurea)

The European copper beech tree was first introduced to North America in the 1700s. It is estimated that this tree was planted in the mid-1800s, which would place it on the family farm of the pioneering Estes family.

In the year 2005 the tree measured:

Trunk Circumference: 180 inches

Height: 61 ft.

Spread: 71.5 ft.

This tree is truly a giant!

Perimeter Project becomes a book

 Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee originally commissioned photographer

Kevin J. Miyazaki

    to create a modern portrait of Lake Michigan.

He decided to drive around the lake, taking portraits of the water and of the people along the shoreline.
What emerged, as Mary Louise Schumacher, art and architecture critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says, was a 
"A wonderfully perceptive interrogation of landscape, portraiture, cartography, and place."

Kevin J. Miyazaki at the Perimeter installation at the Haggerty Museum

A wall of human portraits faced a wall of lake portraits 

Celebrating the opening of Perimeter with Miyazaki 

I was honored to be a subject of this project and to attend opening night.

The project has now evolved into a lovely selection of these portraits in book form published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

The book

Many shots of Lake Michigan are included

Amy Lukas and Mary Catterlin -- who traversed the perimeter of the lake in a dugout canoe that they made -- are featured

Kids at Lake Michigan 

Workers on the Mackinac Bridge

Police chief and park ranger

My portrait and quote about Lake Michigan

The vast waters of Lake Michigan

Heartfelt congratulations to Kevin on this lovely book. For more information and to order a signed copy of your own, click HERE.

Lake Effect Interview

Thanks to Susan Bence 

of 

WUWM, Milwaukee Public Radio,

for this interview she recorded as we walked along the shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.

Click HERE to listen.

Tales From Book Tour in Wisconsin

The book tour took me to Wisconsin 

this month where I had several events.

The first was at the 

Schlitz-Audubon Nature Center (SANC)

in Milwaukee 

where I gave a lecture on the Great Lakes.

Immature bald eagle at SANC

 This is a wonderful center located right on Lake Michigan!

Jean introduces me to the crowd

 I then headed up the Door Peninsula, taking time to visit the

Cana Island Lighthouse.

Cana Island Lighthouse

 Then I headed to Washington Island where I had the unusual task of delivering copies of my new book to the bookstore there,

Islandtime Books, because my new book was backordered!

A very special delivery!!

I didn't have my car on the island, so I loaded them into the basket of a rented bike and paddeled them to the store. This store hosted me for a signing while I was on the island.

Columbine in bloom

Owner Kathleen Dixon at Islandtime Books, Washington Island

Baileys Harbor bookstore!

My final event in Wisconsin (for now) was at Novel Ideas Books on the Door Peninsula. What beautiful country up that way, and warm, friendly, "book" people!

Anyone curious about why my backpack was along for the tour...?

Perimeter: Photographs by Kevin J. Miyazaki

The intersection of long-distance hiking and fine art photography doesn't happen too often, but when it does...WOW.

Meeting up with the artist, Kevin J. Miyazaki, at the opening

When Kevin J. Miyazaki contacted me last summer about being part of his photography project commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, I was intrigued. 

I met Kevin in the lakeshore town of Saugatuck, Michigan, where he told me more about the project. He was attempting to create a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan through images of people connected to the lake: residents, beachgoers, scientists, dock and iron workers, environmentalists, artists, fishermen, ferry captains, boat builders, and more.

And when he searched for people with connections to the lake, my name came up. He asked me to bring all of my hiking gear along for the portrait:

Portrait by Kevin J. Miyazaki

 Kevin sifted through the hundreds of portraits he took on his drive around the perimeter of Lake Michigan. He also took hundreds of images of the lake and sky.

In the exhibit space at the Haggerty Museum of Art, he covered one wall with portraits, and the other with the images of Lake Michigan. 

The effect is stunning. The diverse people with their various connections to the lake look at you from one wall, and the lake gives movement and depth to the opposite wall. 

These images speak to each other, and there is always something new to discover as you stand in the midst of Miyazaki's work.

My mom (right) and my sister, Leslie (center), travelled with me to Milwaukee for the opening of the exhibit

How cool is that?

My mom (Left) and sister (Right)

The catalogue from the exhibit includes quotes from people photographed

  My quote:

I am magnetically drawn to that place where water meets the sand. 

There's something about that edge. 

I feel as if I've "clicked in" when I walk it. 

It is along the shores of Lake Michigan that I return to center myself, to contemplate life, to think the long, unbroken thoughts that modern life interrupts.

Me and my lake!

The photographer with his work

The exhibit will be at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, through May 19 of this year. After that, there are plans for the exhibit to travel, so I'll post that information when it is available on my Facebook Author Page (please "Like" it to get updates).

THE PERIMETER PROJECT

I had the great pleasure of meeting the photographer 

Kevin J. Miyazaki yesterday in Saugatuck, Michigan.  

He is making his way around Lake Michigan over two weeks.  The Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee has commissioned Miyazaki journey.  He is searching for people connected to Lake Michigan.

Kevin J. Miyazaki, Photographer

From Miyazaki's statement about the project:

When completed, I hope to have a collection of portraits which represent Lake Michigan in human terms - in the faces of people spanning its 1600 miles of shoreline - whose lives are connected and enriched by the presence of this beautiful body of water.

Some of the Portraits for the PERIMETER PROJECT

I am honored to be included in this project.

The exhibit will open at the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee in January 2013.  

Here's the photo of me that will be included in the exhibit!

Learn more about Miyazaki's work and the Perimeter Project HERE and HERE.  

Tales from the BOOK TOUR...part 9

The book tour took me to NW Michigan and then across the lake to Wisconsin in July.

I had the great pleasure of being hosted by the 'Book & a Dinner' book club on the shores of Hess Lake. What a great group of women, and the food was all Lake Michigan-themed!!

Thank you to Cindy and her great group of friends for the fantastic discussion, many laughs, and delicious, Michigan-themed dinner!!

Quagga Mussels

I've been reading a lot lately about the quagga mussel. This filter-feeding bivalve is native to the Ukraine and was transported into the Great Lakes in a ship's ballast water. It was first seen in Lake Erie in 1989. Since then, the quaggas have populated all five of the Great Lakes. Since then it has spread to the Mississippi River, to waterways in Colorado, and even as far as California.

As with any species transported into an ecosystem where it has not been before, the invader often has a competitive advantage. This is because it there may not be natural predators to keep the invader's population in check.

Transported over to the Great Lakes and dumped into these deep, phytoplankton-rich waters, the quaggas multiplied and spread.

It is now estimated that there are 900 TRILLION quaggas
in Lake Michigan.

Seriously. They number in the HUNDREDS of TRILLIONS, and they are crashing the lake's ecosystem.

Read more about this crisis HERE.

And here's one of the most comprehensive articles I've ever read on dealing with invasive species. It was in a recent issue of Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel.

Publishing Contract SIGNED!

It's official!

I just returned from Milwaukee where I met with my publisher, Crickhollow Books, and signed a contract for the book about my Lake Trek adventure. The image to the left will be the cover of the book.





I'm excited to be working with Mr. Phil Martin, my editor and publisher. Below is a photo taken of us after our celebratory dinner in Milwaukee.

Mr. Martin shares my love of Lake Michigan and he even took time away from his work to walk with me for a few miles south of Milwaukee on the last segment of my journey.





It has been a second adventure to write the book and to find a good 'home' for it in the hands of Mr. Martin. He's able to move quickly to get the book published, and it will be available everywhere in the spring.

Revisiting the Lake Trek: Segment 10!

This segment spanned the final 102 miles between Milwaukee and Chicago. It took me 6 days to hike.


A crowd gathered at the end of Navy Pier to greet me at the end of my Lake Trek of 1,000 miles. I'll always cherish that moment when a cheer went up as I reached the end of this adventure. A huge thanks to friends and family and people who just love Lake Michigan who celebrated the completion of my Lake Trek.

Note: You may want to press the 'play' button, then pause it and let it completely load before resuming play. This will allow it to play smoothly.

You can find all videos from the Lake Trek on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/lniewenhuis

Revisiting the Lake Trek: Segment 9

This segment spanned the 91 miles between Manitowoc and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It took me 5 days to hike, and was some of the most rugged lakeshore I encountered on the entire trek. This stretch also had the largest algae blooms (clodophera) I had ever seen on the lake.

I walked the first day of this segment alone, but was then joined for the remainder by my college friend Stephanie ('Stew') Lyon. Lois, from Sheboygan, also joined us for the morning of the second day. Stephanie's cousin Dave joined us for most of the last day. It was wonderful to hike with friends at my side.

Note: You may want to press the 'play' button, then pause it and let it completely load before resuming play. This will allow it to play smoothly.

You can find all videos from the Lake Trek on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/lniewenhuis

Segment 10 Day 1 Milwaukee->Oak Creek 14 miles

High of 70 degrees.

Monday, September 21






I took the Lake Express ferry from Muskegon to Milwaukee to begin the final segment of my Lake Trek.









I was joined for the first few miles by Phil Martin (in last photo), a friend (and writer/consultant/publisher) who lives in Milwaukee. He showed me Wisconsin's oldest copper beech tree, a massive specimen planted in the mid-1800s.

Milwaukee has lovely parks and paths along its waterfront, so the hiking was easy this first day of the last segment. The leaves were beginning to change and to fall this last full day of summer.

Lake Trek to come full circle September 26

I leave home on Monday (September 21) to begin the tenth and final segment of my adventure. From the 21st to the 26th, I'll walk the shoreline between Milwaukee and Chicago.

I'm taking the ferry across the lake one last time to begin this segment.

It will be strange to see the Chicago skyline growing larger as I approach from the north. When I began this adventure back in March, there was still ice in the harbors and on the east side of the lake. As I walked those first miles -- south from Chicago, then east across the bottom of the lake -- I watched the Chicago skyline get smaller and then reduce to toy-size across the water. It was a very visual way to know how far I had gone over the five days of walking that first segment. This time, the skyline will begin as a hazy suggestion of buildings on the horizon and grow to towering skyscrapers as I enter the city.

I have always loved Lake Michigan, and this year has been my time to fully explore this amazing body of water and the communities along its edges. This last segment will bring me full circle in my adventure. I will not have a computer with me as I cover these final miles, so I will post photos when I return home after completing my '1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach.'

Thank you for coming along on my adventure.

Segment 9 Day 5 Concordia University->Milwaukee 21 miles

High of 63 degrees.

August 30




The final day of Segment 9 stretched from Concordia College in Mequon down to the banks of the Milwaukee River in downtown Milwaukee. We began the day at the Schlitz-Audubon Nature Center , a fantastic organization dedicated to the enjoyment of nature and the education of youth about the environment (all photos above are from the center). Bob Bailie (in top photo), marketing director, gave us a tour.

Over 35,000 school aged kids visit the center each year. In addition, they have one of the few nature preschools in the nation on site. Stephanie and I were joined by Dave Hoover, President of the Board of Directors for the center (and Stephanie's cousin). He was our intrepid guide all the way to the river, then Stephanie and I returned to the center and finished the 7 miles up to Concordia University.

The lake was riled up this day and the waves covered much of the beach that would have normally been exposed heading south to Milwaukee. This led to the three of us 'mountain goating it,' that is climbing on rocks and scurrying up the bank to escape the waves. We were elated whenever we came across a walkable stretch of beach.

I felt like we were emerging from the wilderness as we made our way onto the park-rich shoreline of Milwaukee.