Welcome to Coast Guard City U.S.A

An Independence Day tribute to Traverse City’s own defenders of life and law

One of the recent missions of Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City: Flying out to make repairs to the Stannard Rock Lighthouse, which stands in Lake Superior nearly 25 miles from the shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula — the farthest of any lighthouse in the contiguous United States.

By Craig Manning

The good news is easy to see along the west end of Grand Traverse Bay this week: After the 2020 summer that wasn’t, the National Cherry Festival has made its grand return to Traverse City this summer — as sure a sign as any that life is approaching “normal” again, and that the pandemic is nearly behind us.

The bad news: The uncertainty of a 2021 Cherry Festival means that organizers had to make some tough calls early on about what they could or could not reasonably plan for, which meant that certain festival fixtures — particularly the Cherry Festival Air Show — won’t be happening this year.

Historically, if there’s been a centerpiece to the Cherry Festival, it might just be the air show. Something about seeing and hearing (and feeling!) a cadre of jets and airplanes fly over Grand Traverse Bay, many exhibiting various acts of extreme death-defying daring, just screams “summer in Traverse City,” and has for many years.

That tradition will be back in 2022. For the first time since 2018, the Blue Angels are scheduled to make their return to the Cherry Festival; they’ll be here July 2¬–4, 2022. While you might have to wait a year for a proper Cherry Festival Air Show, that doesn’t mean you can’t catch glimpses of jaw-dropping aerobatic feats right here in northern Michigan. As home to one of two Coast Guard Air Stations on the Great Lakes, Traverse City regularly serves as a hub for intrepid rescue missions, Homeland Security matters, and even hurricane responses — all of which put crewmembers up in the air.

In lieu of the 2021 Cherry Festival Air Show that will never be, Northern Express worked with the Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City to recap some of the scariest, most challenging, and most impressive missions to launch from the local Air Station in recent memory.

FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND

The United States Coast Guard was first established by the U.S. Congress in 1790, at the request of then-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Known at its start as “the Revenue-Marine” — and headed up by Hamilton personally — the branch existed in the early days for one purpose: Collecting customs duties at American seaports. The branch changed its name, to “the Revenue Cutter Service,” in 1894, and in 1915, Congress merged it with the U.S. Life-Saving Service, thus creating the U.S. Coast Guard.

Air Station Traverse City was officially commissioned in November 1945, celebrating its 75th anniversary last year. It is one of two Coast Guard aviation units stationed on the Great Lakes, with the other in located in Detroit. Air Station Detroit handles missions on the eastern portion of the Great Lakes, including Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and part of Lake Huron. Air Station Traverse City flies missions on Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and the northern portion of Lake Huron.

According to Brandon Skelly, a Coast Guard lieutenant (junior grade) based at Air Station Traverse City, there are approximately 120 active-duty personnel stationed in Traverse City, “who do everything from fly and maintain the aircraft, to maintaining the buildings and property, ordering parts and supplies, and cooking delicious meals for the crew.” Central to the Air Station’s operations are a trio of Sikorsky MH-60T “Jayhawk” helicopters, which Skelly describes as “a Coast Guard-specific variant of the Army’s Black Hawk.”

What do Air Station Traverse City missions look like? Many, Skelly says, fall into the Coast Guard’s most “wellrecognized” mission category, which is search and rescue. In the past year alone, the Air Station Traverse City crew has responded to 120 search and rescue cases — “saving 26 lives and assisting 74 others … But we also conduct law enforcement, border security, and aids-to-navigation missions on a regular basis,” he adds. suited to northern Michigan’s harsh winter elements and long spans of open water. According to Skelly, they come equipped with “main rotor and tail rotor blade deicing capability and engine anti-icing capability, which makes them better suited for the winter environment up here,” as well as “longer fuel endurance and range [than some other Coast Guard helicopters].” At cruise speed, the Jayhawks can travel 125 knots, and can fly for five hours straight without having to refuel.

The copters are also loaded with rescue equipment, ranging from a rescue basket, which can be lowered down from the helicopters so that survivors can climb aboard; to a dewatering pump, which is crucial for missions that involve sinking boats or other vessels that are taking on water.

Perhaps most importantly, the Jayhawks are ready to fly at (almost) a moment’s notice. A duty crew is on site at Air Station Traverse City 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and that crew “will be airborne within 30 minutes” of an alert, Skelly says, “pending any additional flight planning” due to factors such as weather or the specific challenges of the mission at hand. When a helicopter does need to take off for a mission, it’s typically manned by a crew of four: two pilots, a flight mechanic to operate the rescue hoist, and a rescue swimmer who is also a trained EMT.

THE MISSIONS

So, what types of missions have necessitated an in-the-air response from the Air Station Traverse City team as of late? Here are just a few:

Ice rescue on Sturgeon Bay

What happens when an entire village of ice fishing shanties breaks away from shore and goes for a ride on a gigantic ice floe?

That’s exactly what happened in Sturgeon Bay in Door County, Wisconsin in February.

When the search and rescue alarm went off at Air Station Traverse City on the morning of Feb. 4, reports indicated that 45 ice fishermen were trapped on the ice in the waters of Green Bay, stranded as a winter storm approached. Air Station Traverse City quickly dispatched not one, but two Jayhawk crews to Sturgeon Bay, where the situation proved to be worse than initially reported: The ice floe had drifted nearly two miles from land, and there were 66 ice fishermen stranded; not 45. Even worse, the ice fishermen were scattered across three different locations, on entirely different ice floes.

As Skelly tells the story, this particular mission required a substantial team approach. In addition to Air Station Traverse City’s two-copter response, Coast Guard Station Sturgeon Bay dispatched its airboats to the scene, and local fire departments and other first responder teams were there to lend a hand as well. While Traverse City’s crews started by lowering rescue swimmers down onto the floes “to start assessing the situation and hoisting the fishermen,” the crews pivoted to a different role once other first responders arrived.

“Since the [Jayhawk] puts down hurricane-force winds, the [Coast Guard Station Sturgeon Bay] boats were a better asset to safely get the survivors off the ice,” Skelly explains. “The last thing our crews want to do is blow a survivor across the slippery ice. The two helicopters remained on scene, vectoring in the airboats to each group of shanties to ensure everyone was accounted for and safely off the ice before the storm rolled in.”

Last summer, the Air Station Traverse City rescuers were called in to assist a quickly sinking boat in West Grand Traverse Bay.

Sinking boat on Grand Traverse Bay

If you were in or around the Grand Traverse Area last summer, it was hard to miss the headline: “32-foot boat sinks in Grand Traverse Bay.” On Friday, June 19, around 2:30pm, a speedboat with 10 people aboard began taking on water. The boat would ultimately sink in 250 feet of water, but there were zero deaths or injuries. That silver lining is in large part because an Air Station Traverse City crew was able to get all 10 people off the vessel and to safety before the boat disappeared beneath the surface — a successful (and speedy) mission that Skelly says was made possible largely due to serendipity.

“For this case, the duty crew was actually conducting a training flight in the local area when they heard the vessel communicating over Channel 16,” Skelly says. “The crew got an accurate position and lowered their rescue swimmer down to assist. The boat sank within nine minutes of the crew arriving on scene, but luckily, there was a Good Samaritan vessel in the area. The swimmer was able to transfer all of the survivors over to the Good Samaritan vessel and ensured that no one was in need of urgent medical care.”

In general, Skelly says the summer can be a busy time of year for local Coast Guard crews, with missions involving everything from boats in distress to injured hikers. While boats actually sinking in Grand Traverse Bay isn’t a common occurrence, Skelly cautions locals to be prepared for anything when they head out on the water.

“This case definitely highlighted the importance of life-jacket usage,” Skelly says. “Emergencies can happen quickly on the water, and this case could have turned out much differently.”

Another piece of good news surrounding this particular case? Last September, a team of local divers was able to recover the 32-foot boat from the bottom of the bay, removing it — and potential pollution risks — from the water for good.

One of the TC teams assisting victims of the hurricane in Mobile, Alabama. BEYOND THE GREAT LAKES Clearly, Coast Guard crews with a helicopter and a hoist are more dynamic than you might have initially thought. Beyond the above stories and examples, Skelly says Air Station Traverse City crews are sometimes deployed to the Gulf Coast to assist with hurricane disasters, are trained to handle “vertical surface” search and rescue missions (such as getting climbers off the sides of cliffs or large dunes), and are sent out to Great Lakes freighters to do medical evacuations in the event of injury or illness. Local Coast Guard servicemen and women are even trained in “urban search and rescue,” which could entail hoisting people out of building windows in the event of a disaster.

It’s all hard work, Skelly says, and all made easier when the people in need of rescue or assistance are prepared themselves.

“Life-jacket usage, dressing for the water temperature, checking the weather frequently, and having a reliable means of communication in an emergency are all incredibly important,” Skelly says. “We’ve seen it happen time and time again, where someone’s life jacket or wetsuit saved their life.”

Repairs at remote lighthouses, like the Isle Royal Lighthouse, shown here, are an integral part of the Coast Guard’s work.

LIGHTING THE WAY ON THE GREAT LAKES

One specific type of Coast Guard unit is an Aids to Navigation Team (ANT), responsible for servicing buoys, day boards, lighthouses, light stations, and other key navigation markets throughout the Great Lakes.

While not nearly as dramatic as search and rescue missions, ANT missions are crucial for protecting life on the waters around Michigan. ANT missions are also work that needs to be done on a surprisingly regular basis. Just recently, Skelly says Traverse City-based ANT teams have had to service lights at the Lansing Shoal Light (located near Beaver Island), the Isle Royale Light (found on Menagerie Island in Lake Superior), and Stannard Rock Lighthouse (another Lake Superior light that, thanks to its status as the North American lighthouse situated farthest from land, is sometimes referred to as “the loneliest place in North America”).

“Some of the remote lighthouses in the Great Lakes are only accessible via helicopter hoist — especially if the weather conditions are too rough for the specialized boats that the ANT teams use,” Skelly said. “If a lighthouse needs new batteries or other repairs, the Air Station will partner with the Coast Guard navigation team to hoist their members and equipment down to the light to service it.”

“For some of these missions, the helicopter can land nearby to let the members walk to the lighthouse,” he adds. “For others, such as Stannard Rock and Lansing Shoal, the helicopter needs to hover with the rotor arc above the top of the lighthouse itself, while the flight mechanic lowers the ANT team members onto the small platform below. Once they fix whatever needed to be fixed, the helicopter will move into position to hoist them back up to the aircraft.”

CANADIAN KAYAKER RESCUE

The crews at Air Station Traverse City aren’t just responsible for monitoring local waters, or even just watching domestic waters. On the contrary, Skelly says the Coast Guard crews that reside in the area are also charged with regularly patrolling the border between the United States. Those stationed locally even train with the Canadian Coast Guard, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and provincial police to ensure an effective coordinated response. From Pictured Rocks to the Soo Locks, those missions regularly take Air Station Traverse City crew members to some notable locales.

In May 2020, this United States/Canada collaboration resulted in Air Station Traverse City getting a call to assist with a rescue in Georgian Bay — part of Lake Huron that sits just over the Canadian border in the province of Ontario. Why? Because, as Skelly says, “Search and rescue is everyone’s business.”

The rescue involved a hypothermic kayaker, who had managed to make it to shore after spending two hours in the frigid Georgian Bay waters. The kayaker survived that part of the ordeal — due in large part because he was wearing a life jacket and a wetsuit — but he wasn’t out of the proverbial and literal woods yet. When Canadian first responders reached the scene, they were unable to move the kayaker and get him to a higher level of medical care, due to challenges posed by the navigability of the rocky and forested terrain. It was an Air Station Traverse City Jayhawk that allowed rescuers to hoist the kayaker off the shoreline and transport him to a local hospital.

A still shot from video taken while rescuing the hypothermic kayaker in Georgian Bay.

It’s dirty work, but looking at the stomach contents of predator fish in lakes Michigan and Huron is helping MSU scientists determine whether the populations of fish predators and prey are out of balance, as some ecologists suspect.

GUTS

A group of scientists at Michigan State University set out to see what predators are eating in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Northern Express dives into the belly of these swimming beasts to find out what the scientists learning so far, and what it means for our fisheries.

By Craig Manning

Next time you catch a fish, save the stomach: It might just hold the key to saving the Great Lakes fishery.

That’s the message that researchers at Michigan State University (MSU), along with a cadre of other collaborators, have been trying to relay to recreational anglers throughout Michigan and Wisconsin since 2017. The research, dubbed the “HuronMichigan Predator Diet Study,” is analyzing the stomachs of predatory fish caught in Lake Michigan or Lake Huron, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of how fish diets are changing — and what those changes might mean for the future of the Lake Michigan and Huron fisheries.

Brian Roth, Ph. D., is an associate professor with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at MSU, and a fish ecologist whose areas of expertise include “aquatic food web ecology” and “trophic interactions between native and invasive species.”

Since 2017, Roth has been leading a team of graduate and undergraduate students at MSU who work together to track and analyze stomach contents of predator fish collected from Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. While the research project includes funding or assistance from a slew of different entities — including the Michigan Sea Grant, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Wisconsin DNR, the United States Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians — Roth says most of the actual analyzing of fish stomachs is happening in labs at MSU.

“The overarching impetus for the study has to do with the fact that, over the past several years, there's been some concern about prey levels in Lake Michigan,” Roth explains. “There's some concern that the predator and prey may be out of balance [for fish populations]. That may or may not be the case, but it was recognized that, in order to determine their balance, we needed to look at what those predator fish are eating.”

The best way to see what predator fish are eating? Take a look inside their stomachs. For the past four years, MSU and its research partners have been urging recreational anglers in Michigan and Wisconsin to save the stomachs of the predator fish they catch. Species of interest include lake trout, brown trout, steelhead trout, chinook salmon, Atlantic salmon, Coho salmon, pink salmon, and walleye. Looking at the stomachs of these fish can provide useful information about their diets, which could in turn offer early clues about future population fluctuations.

For instance, Roth notes that population numbers of alewife — a baitfish he describes as “the most favorite prey of most of these predators” — “crashed” in Lake Huron in the early 2000s, with the lake’s chinook salmon population following suit soon after. While chinook remain low in abundance in Lake Huron, they’re also still a huge part of the commercial fishery for Lake Michigan. By studying predator fish diets in both lakes, researchers could potentially spot early signs that Lake Michigan is following the arc of Lake Huron.

“The purpose of making sure to include Lake Huron is that it offers a really stark contrast to Lake Michigan,” Roth said. “So [the study] is kind of a twofold thing. First, we need to make sure that predator and prey are in balance in Lake Michigan. And the other thing is to learn about how predators support themselves in the absence of alewife — or the near absence of alewife — as they do in Lake Huron.”

So far, Roth and his team have amassed a database of over 14,000 diet samples. Analyzing those fish stomachs has yielded a few notable takeaways.

First, Roth says alewives “still dominate predator diets” in Lake Michigan – good news for the lake’s populations of chinook, coho, and other species that depend on a strong base of alewife to eat.

Second, fish diets often follow a “seasonal progression,” indicating fluctuations throughout the year in the types of prey that is available, or that predator fish go for. For instance, Roth notes that lake trout samples collected earlier in the season indicate a diet heavy in goby. That trend held true for both Lake Michigan and Huron, but diet patterns diverged from there depending on the lake. In Lake Michigan, lake trout collected later in the season showed signs of a more alewife-dominated diet. In Lake Huron, where alewife numbers are low, lake trout have shifted their later-season habits to span “a whole diverse range of fish species.” Roth says rainbow smelt appear to be the preference for Huron lake trout in the latter parts of the season, but that “otherwise, they’ll eat kind of whatever’s in front of their face.”

“That seasonal progression was somewhat of a surprise to us,” Roth said. “But it's really consistent. We see the same things, more or less, year after year. And that’s an interesting contrast to chinook salmon, which are kind of eating one thing — alewife — at all times, no matter where they are.”

Some of the Great Lakes fish species, in other words, might be more immune to the loss of alewife (or other specific baitfish) than others.

Beyond providing brand-new information about fish diets, Roth says his team’s study should help the Michigan DNR make important decisions on fish stocking programs. Each year, the DNR rears fish like walleye, trout, salmon, pike, and sturgeon

and releases them into water bodies in and around the state. That stocking process is complex and variable, with the DNR looking at a slew of different factors to determine which fish to stock where, and in what amounts.

One key part of the fish stocking equation is balance. The DNR will try to avoid overstocking fish in certain water bodies so as not to bring about too much pressure on the food chain. The HuronMichigan Predator Diet Study, by providing clearer trend data on predator fish, should act as a useful tool for maintaining this balance. Roth believes that, once the study is completed, it will have “really important management implications” for the DNR’s fish stocking program.

If there’s bad news for the project, it’s that it’s running out of time. The research is funded by a five-year grant from the Michigan Sea Grant. Since that grant period began in 2017, the Huron-Michigan Predator Diet Study is — barring additional funding — in the midst of its final research year. That this final year comes on the tails of 2020 is especially unfortunate, Roth says, given the many ways that COVID-19 stalled the project last year.

“We were unable to access our lab, where we actually analyze the stomach contents, for about six months,” Roth explained. “Even after that, we could only have a certain number of people in the lab at a given time. And we weren't able to go out and actually collect stomachs, either. One of our main mechanisms to collect them is to attend fishing tournaments, because it represents a pretty substantial concentration of efficient fishermen. We were unable to attend tournaments up until about August, when usually we'd be out in April.”

The result, Roth says, is that the project doesn’t have nearly as much data to work with as he would have hoped.

“[Our 14,000 samples], that number really seems bigger than it is,” Roth continued. “That’s 14,000 over five years, and once you start splitting that — both among years and within our sampling framework — it’s not a lot. We’re supposed to get 30 individual samples per species, per month, per statistical district. Statistical districts are essentially small divisions of space on each lake. And we rarely hit our targets. So when you start looking at these trends on finer scales, they start to break down. For example, I can't tell you what happens for Atlantic salmon in Saginaw Bay in April, because we just don't have those samples. Maybe people caught that Atlantic salmon, but we didn't get those stomach samples, and so we can't tell.”

Luckily, if you fish, you can help. The Huron-Michigan Predator Diet Study will gladly accept fish stomachs for the aforementioned predator species, so long as they were caught in Lake Michigan or Lake Huron. Anglers interested in helping the cause can learn more at michiganseagrant. org/diet.

While the research is intended to discover what kinds of prey fish are being consumed, it’s also revealing that some predators are ingesting more than just fish.

ARTS FESTIVAL

SUMMER 2021

Chicago • Aug 3

Harry Connick, Jr. and his Band: Time To Play! • Aug 10

Jake Owen • Aug 26 Buddy Guy with Robert Randolph & The Family Band • Aug. 29

Old Crow Medicine Show with Special Guest Molly Tuttle • Aug. 28 Foreigner • Aug. 14