Northern Express - May 03, 2021

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NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • may 03 - may 09, 2021 • Vol. 31 No. 18 Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 1

“We’ve worked so hard ... but we’re not going to save their lives.”

3rd annual

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Legendary

Dishes of Northern

Michigan

Why the World’s Water Scarcity Matters Here, Now

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Where to eat now Fresh-Air H ear F rom L ocaL N urses oN tHe F roNt L iNes oF coViD NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • december 07 - december 13, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 48

Feasts

Essential Toys • The Mob Up North • Sleeping Bear Turns 50 • Outdoor Music • Virtual Art

The under-30 brewers shaping our beer future Lagers as the Czechs intended Kilts, Kaboom, and a tale of two Irish twins

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • july 27 - aug 02, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 30

Great Lakes.

Greater Flower.

The state’s best cannabis, now open for Rec sales in Petoskey, Mack City and Honor.

Visit Lume.com for our menus.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • june 17 - June 23, 2019 • Vol. 29 No. 24

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NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • march 09 - march 15, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 10

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • june 08 - june 14, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 23

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • march 15 - march 21, 2021 • Vol. 31 No. 11

good good good good good good good good good good good

things things things things things things things things things things things

are are are are are are are are are are are

coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming. coming.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • november 30 - december 06, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 47

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+ 3 PRIMARIES TO WATCH

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Also inside: Holiday Entertaining Hot List • Must-see Movies • Chef’s Recipes • Retail Woes

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Old-Fashioned Family Resorts Vintage Cocktails The Assassination of Beaver Island’s King

TRADITIONS NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • july 06 - july 12, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 27

Purer Michigan.

The state’s best cannabis, now open for rec sales in Petoskey and Mack City.

10% off all orders during opening week. See Lume.com for menus.

The Dance of Eagle Spirit Daughter of Sleeping Bear Hunter on the Run Thanksgiving Weekend 2.0

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • november 09 - november 15, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 44 Northern Express Weekly • nov 09, 2020 • 1

letters Love what we’re doing here? Disagree with something on these pages? Share your views by emailing a quick letter to the editor: info@northernexpress.com A Few Rules: • Keep your letters civil and 300 words or fewer, one per month • All letters will be edited for clarity • Some letters or portions will be omitted due to space or issues with questionable facts/citations, privacy, publication in other media, etc.

• Include your full name, address, and phone or email • Note: Only your first name, first initial of last name, and city will be published.

We are temporarily suspending publication of letter authors’ full names.

Kudos Just wanted to say that Stephen Tuttle’s [April 19 column regarding Guantanamo Bay], “Wrong and Expensive,” was excellent.

Steve L., Traverse City More Poll Workers, Not Poll Watchers Like JoEllen R. of Petoskey [“Do the Job Before the Bills, GOP,” in the April 26 issue’s Letters), I too, was an election worker. I wholeheartedly agree with her assessment on the safety of elections, and I wonder, were any election officials consulted before the Michigan bills were drafted?

In Maryland, I was an election worker — including chief election judge — for more than a decade. When we moved to Michigan permanently last year, I worked the primary and general elections.

I had a poll watcher stand less than a foot behind me, not wearing the mask appropriately, and talking frequently.

Having more poll watchers isn’t the issue; having more poll workers is. We willingly work long hours to ensure our friends and neighbors — no matter what their political leaning — can safely and securely cast their ballots.

Like JoEllen, I shudder at the thought of sending my driver’s license (or other) information. She is correct that the voter file already has enough information so the poll worker can determine if the person is really who they are. If not, the chief judge can help.

I also agree with the need for more time to process mail-in ballots before election day and more early voting and drop-off opportunities. We need to make voting

Jana G., Honor Study Up on Education What experience does Hal Gurian bring to “Reforming Michigan Schools” [Guest Opinion, April 26]? Well, he reads Bridge Michigan, a right-leaning publication that is allied with The Mackinaw Center for Public Policy, and he is a retired retailer in the greeting card business. So, nothing.

He claims that teacher pensions are to blame for low achievement in education.

Blame the teachers. Not a new idea. He states that pension costs continue to grow annually.

True, as does the cost of living, inflation, food, and college tuition. The federal minimum wage, however, hasn’t risen.

I agree that for-profit education, aka Michigan’s charter schools, is a bad idea.

I wonder how much the DeVos family has destroyed Michigan’s public education.

While the Massachusetts Education Reform Act has positive results, why are politicians and charter advocates on the commission to guide the schools? What about curriculum specialists? Social

workers? Psychologists? Right-wing folks decry government and espouse liberty and freedom; so why have politicians on a board controlling the reform? People who have actually worked in the public school know what needs reforming. Not greeting card retailers.

Judy C., Traverse City Steep Price Leelelanu taxpayers pay a heck of a lot for Will Bunek’s “leadership” of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners. In 2020, as chair of the board, he received $23,766 for salary, per diem, travel expenses, and health benefits. This compares to the average cost of $12,852 for the services of each of the three Democratic commissioners and one Republican commissioner, Melinda Lautner.

But, for all this money, Commissioner Bunek, on multiple occasions, chose to waste commission time spreading disinformation about Covid-19 and the effectiveness of vaccines while continuing to ignore health department guidance by refusing to wear a mask. Over the course of the last several years, Commissioner Bunek also wasted an inordinate amount of the time of his fellow commissioners, the county clerk, the administrator, and other county employees, as well as the public, by pushing his personal, inherently divisive religious beliefs that prayer and abortion should take precedence over legitimate county business, such as confronting racism. Are we getting the leadership we pay for?

CONTENTS features The Clock is Ticking......................................10

What 250K Buys in Northern Michigan..........14 The Other Market Shortage..........................16 American House Wood Fired Pizza................18

columns & stuff Top Ten........................................................5

Spectator/Stephen Tuttle...............................6 High Notes (sponsored content)......................7 Opinion.........................................................8 Weird............................................................9 Guest Opinion..............................................13 Dates........................................................21 Nitelife........................................................24 Advice.....................................................25 Crossword..................................................25 Astrology.....................................................26 Classifieds...............................................26

Jay S. Johnson, Empire Township

coming may 10 spring restaurant guide

express

NORTHERN

HIT SEND!

easier and not harder.

The 2020 election was one of, if not the, most successful elections as far as getting more people to vote safely and securely, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

Restricting access is a small-minded and fearful reaction to that election.

Let your elected officials know that these bills solve no problems. And let your local clerks and election people know that you appreciate their efforts to safeguard our elections.

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Northern Express Weekly is published by Eyes Only Media, LLC. Publisher: Luke Haase PO Box 4020 Traverse City, Michigan 49685 Phone: (231) 947-8787 Fax: 947-2425 email: info@northernexpress.com www.northernexpress.com Executive Editor: Lynda Twardowski Wheatley Finance & Distribution Manager: Brian Crouch Sales: Kathleen Johnson, Lisa Gillespie, Kaitlyn Nance, Michele Young, Randy Sills, Todd Norris, Jill Hayes For ad sales in Petoskey, Harbor Springs, Boyne & Charlevoix, call (231) 838-6948 Creative Director: Kyra Poehlman Distribution: Dave Anderson, Linda Szarkowski, Sarah Rodery, Randy Sills, Roger Racine Matt Ritter, Gary Twardowski Listings Editor: Jamie Kauffold Contributors: Amy Alkon, Rob Brezsny Ross Boissoneau, Eric Cox, Jennifer Hodges, Michael Phillips, Steve Tuttle, Craig Manning, Janice Binkert, Meg Weichman

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KEEPING THE TASTE ALIVE

SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Keep your letter to 300 words or less, send no more than one per month, include your name/address/phone number, understand it may be further edited. That’s it.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN’S WEEKLY • may 11 - may 17, 2020 • Vol. 30 No. 19 Photo courtesy of Providence Organic Farm & CSA in Central Lake

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Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 3

this week’s

top ten LITTLE GALLERIES, LITTLE ARTWORKS Art everywhere for everyone. That’s the concept of the Little Free Galleries in Frankfort. The brainchild of Oliver Art Center, it stemmed from a similar effort in Seattle, artists displaying small works in an enclosed cabinet protected from the elements. Two locations — Oliver Art Center and Century 21 Northland — opened prior to the scheduled May 1 debut, with the Benzie Shores District Library location following. Based on the Little Free Libraries concept, patrons are welcome to view the art, then take a piece home if they wish. They can return it or pay it forward by leaving something of their own. Brian Iler, associate director at the center, said the response from the community has been tremendous, with works of sculpture, fiber arts, and paintings donated by members of the area’s artistic community. The gallery is selling packets of art supplies with mincanvasses for those interested in creating their own works for the galleries.

2 bottoms up

Silver Spruce’s Bicicleta

May 1 kicks off National Bike Month, and Silver Spruce Brewing is honoring it right. The Traverse City brewery, located just a few turns of the crank from the TART trail and easily reachable via the Eighth Street bike lane, has just tapped its Bicicleta beer. Available this month only, this session IPA is ideal for thirsty cyclists. It’s a low, pedal-friendly ABV (4.6%) that smells like spring, with dominant aromas of pine and fresh-cut melon, and tastes just as refreshing, with only a hint of palate-perfect bitterness, thanks to the brews dry-hopped origins (in which dry hops are dropped in after the wort is boiled, making for a less bitter, more aromatic IPA). Best of all, for every pint sold, Silver Spruce will donate $1 to Norte, supporting its mission to getting more kids on bikes. Have a kid that doesn’t have a bike? Egads. Make May the month you borrow one from one of Norte’s three bike libraries — in Traverse City, Elk Rapids, or Kalkaska. They’ll lend bikes to kids age 3 to 10, and it’s free and easy to borrow; all you have to do is show your driver’s license, and all your kid has to do is “promise to be awesome, to take good care of the bike, to ride it as much as possible, to be a positive Norte ambassador and to return it once [they have] outgrown it.” Fill out the bike library application at elgruponorte.org/library/card, then toast to the coming best summer on two wheels at Silver Spruce, 439 E. Eighth St. (231) 252-3552, www.silversprucebrewing.com

4 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

Downtown Charlevoix to Host (Second) First Friday A harbinger of spring, downtown Charlevoix’s April and May First Friday events welcomes families and friends for shopping, music, and a few extra activities — think: random prize giveaways, restaurant deals, and kid-friendly activities. The next one happens 3pm to 6pm Friday, May 7. Play Cornhole in Hoop Skirt and Van Pelt Alleys, take in a mini dance party on Bridge Street, and take advantage of the shops staying open just a wee bit later than usual — while offering some special deals. For complete event info, visit downtowncharlevoix.com or download the Life in Charlevoix mobile app. Covid-19 precautions will be observed and encouraged throughout downtown Charlevoix.

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Hey, watch it!

CRUEL SUMMER

From actress-turned-legit-producer Jessica Biel (The Sinner) comes a deliciously twisty and suspenseful mystery you didn’t know you needed. Cruel Summer is a high-concept story set in small-town Texas that timejumps across the summers of 1993, ’94, and ’95. It’s told from the dueling perspectives of two teen girls, the dorky and totally uncool Jeanette and the popular golden girl Kate, and how their lives cross in unexpected ways after Kate goes missing. Jeanette flourishes in the void of Kate’s absence, but when Kate returns, she alleges that Jeanette did something truly unfathomable. Has Jeanette been falsely accused, is she a sociopath, or is something more sinister going on? Uncovering family secrets and laying bare the pains of youth, its complex and layered approach to the characters elevates this addictive thriller above standard teen fare. On Freeform and Streaming on Hulu.

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Barry Jones of JonesCraft Timberworks

Stuff we love Take the Ultimate Mushroom House Tour It seems you can’t call yourself a Northerner unless you’ve taken a tour of Earl Young’s famous “mushroom houses” in Charlevoix. For those who haven’t — or have, and understandably want to learn more about the visionary behind them — don’t miss your chance to sign up for David L. Mile’s upcoming online presentation “Boulders: The Life and Creations of Earl A. Young in Charlevoix, Michigan, 1889–1975.”

Curator for the Charlevoix Historical Society, Miles has written 10 books Earl Young’s Half House, 1947. Courtesy NCMC. on Charlevoix’s history, produced two documentaries (one a 16-decade pictorial history of the town; the other an extensive overview of Earl Young’s creations), and participated in another about Young (“The Wizard of Boulder Park”), which was shown on Michigan PBS in 2016 and awarded a Michigan Emmy for Best Historical Documentary. Mile’s latest work, “BOULDERS,” the first biography of Earl Young, was honored in 2021 as one of the Library of Michigan’s 20 Notable Books of 2020.

During the author’s one-hour presentation, Miles will walk viewers through his book’s creation and Earl’s artistic development from the time of his first creation, 1919-1921, through the blossoming of his incredibly productive middle period, and on to the completion of his last work in 1973. Free and available through North Central Michigan College’s Lifelong Learning Club. Register for the 7pm May 17 event at www.ncmclifelonglearning.com

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Overworked Contractors Working Extra Hard to Help Save Local History

Given the booming housing market, builders these days are worth their weight in gold.

Some, like Barry Jones of JonesCraft Timberworks and local builder Kevin McCarty, are worth even more. With the help of many more volunteers and Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB), the two have played a critical part in restoring the oldest structure on the mainland of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Some backstory: The Kraitz Cabin, a small log cabin on Bohemian road built between 1856 and 1860, was thought to be a goner after a tree fell on the structure in 2014, and the cabin below quickly deteriorated, despite the park’s efforts to patch its roof. A true fix wouldn’t be quick, or simple; saving the cabin would require finding several logs to match the originals in size, material, and appearance. Enter local builder Kevin McCarty, who in 2015 offered PHSB some hemlock trees he was removing from a property. Turns out, they were exactly the size needed, so McCarty milled them. After volunteers rebuilt the loft floor, roof, and gable ends; removed the deteriorated floor; and redirected the drainage around the building, contractor Barry Jones recently began completing the last of the log replacements. Want to get golden, Pony Boy? The PHSB still needs volunteers this June to rebuild the cabin floor, chink logs, and rebuild windows. For more information, visit www. phsb.org or call (231) 334-6103.

tastemaker Yucatan Guacamole Whichever food scientists deemed the mighty monounsaturated-fat-filled avocado good for the human heart failed to take into account how cruelly it also toys with that organ. Sure, avocados reduce the risk of heart disease and curb inflammation.

But if you’ve ever known the joy of finding a bag of these much-coveted emerald gems at what looks and feels to be the perfect just-before-peak ripeness — then got them home, blinked once, and found their innards scarred by unavoidable amounts of brown spots and veins, you know all too well the devastation these ovate orbs can wreak. Before you risk another taco, do some justice to your Cinco de Mayo celebration: Shell out $7 for 12 ounces of squeezable certainty. Much like its genius airlock packaging, Yucatan Guacamole’s guarantee to stay green for two weeks is real. We tasted it — both spicy and mild were immensely flavorful and without weird additives or fillers — and we tested it (three squeeze packs in three months, in fact). And it is the best thing to happen to our thrice-weekly taco night since we learned Costco refunds bad avocados without requiring you to drive them back to the store. We found ours at Oryana West (3587 Marketplace Circle, in Traverse City) and various Family Fare supermarkets.

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 5

DO THE MATH For Traverse City area news and events, visit TraverseTicker.com

spectator

by Stephen Tuttle We’re making some progress against Covid-19, but if this were an athletic contest we’d still be behind.

VOTE VICKI OLSEN FOR CHERRYLAND BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2021

VOTING STARTS MAY 3RD

Nearly 10 percent of the country’s population, almost 32.5 million Americans, have been infected. We continue to assume that number is low, as not everyone, or even most of us, has been tested. We’ve already lost at least 576,000 of our citizens as we continue creeping closer to the record death toll of the 1918 flu pandemic.

Here in Michigan, we’re nearing 850,000 positive cases and 18,000 deaths. Those numbers have been accelerating of late; we were No. 1 in the country in new cases in the two weeks ending April 24, more than Texas and New York combined. Our death rate is about the 18th worst in the country.

Infection numbers in Grand Traverse County aren’t any more encouraging; we

Unfortunately, just about everybody who wanted to be vaccinated has now been vaccinated. Vaccines, once in desperately short supply, now go wanting.

According to research conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, those who have not been vaccinated break down into three basic groups: those who say “not yet,” those who say “not right now,” and those who say “not ever.” We somehow have to convince a majority of those folks to get their vaccination, or this damned virus will bedevil us for another year.

The first group is the most likely to receive the vaccine. They are not anti-vaxxers nor science deniers. If anything, they’d like a bit more science before they expose their upper arm to the needle. Their hesitancy is not without some factual basis. This was the fastest any vaccine has ever been created, it was granted only emergency approval by

The bad news is the variants are now ripping through our younger, mostly unvaccinated population. Although the mortality rate is lower, hospitals are filling with these patients, who are very, very sick. have more than 6,000 confirmed cases, a bit more than 6 percent of the entire county.

The country’s infection rate has now plateaued but at an unacceptably high rate; we’re still averaging north of 35,000 new cases a day.

The only real good news in all of this is that the death rate has declined. The overwhelming majority of our most vulnerable citizens have been vaccinated, have survived a bout with the bug, or have already died from it.

The bad news is the variants are now ripping through our younger, mostly unvaccinated population. Although their mortality rate is lower, hospitals are filling with these patients who are very, very sick. There is even some growing evidence younger victims are more likely to become “long-haulers,” those who are often afflicted with any of a wide array of lasting side effects from the bug.

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6 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

The solution to all of this is no different than it was from the very start: Wear a mask over your nose and mouth in public and keep your distance from each other. There is also the added bonus of two extremely effective vaccines and a third only marginally less so. To reach herd immunity, the experts tell us we need at least 70 percent of our population — about 230 million of us, at minimum — to have either survived being infected with the virus or to have been fully vaccinated. We still have a long way to go.

About half our adult population has received at least one vaccine dose, and about 84 million of us are fully vaccinated.

the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), and there have not been studies on the vaccine’s long-term effects because they haven’t existed for very long.

The second group is a bit apathetic, with a litany of excuses: going to the vaccine site was inconvenient, the bug isn’t really that bad, I don’t have any underlying conditions, I never get a flu shot, I might get one later, etc. There is still hope that, with some convincing, this group will get vaccinated.

Alas, the third group is most likely to achieve their immunity by getting sick though many of them still believe Covid-19 is a hoax. Others have been afflicted with a secondary infection we’ll call conspiracyitis.

They believe, among many other things, that masks cause cancer, the virus is a hoax, the vaccine is full of either live virus (no Covid vaccine contains live virus) or nanobots created by Bill Gates to control us.

Those people are what we call delusional, and we hope they get help.

There is also an emerging fourth group.

About 5 million people, or about 8 percent of those receiving their first shot, did not return for the second. Some thought they were sufficiently protected, some feared harsher side effects, some found a proper second dose unavailable when they should have received it. They need their second dose.

Here’s the thing: The odds of catching Covid-19 and dying from it are about 1 in 500; the odds of dying from an adverse reaction to any of the vaccines are about 1 in 100,000. The holdouts should just do the math.

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HIGH NOTES CANNABIS

THE NUANCE OF DISPENSARY REAL ESTATE There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding Traverse City’s medical provisioning centers, their lawsuit against the city, and their aspirations to sell adultuse (i.e., recreational) marijuana. Seems like a good time to look at how these circumstances track with the real estate, zoning, and planning requirements of the adult-use marijuana industry.

Dunegrass operates three adult-use dispensaries (in Manistee, Big Rapids, and Cadillac), with several other locations in various stages of development. An adult-use retail establishment is not some natural progression from a medical marijuana provisioning center, if for no other reason than the sheer volume of visitors at adult-use retail services. Our location in Manistee is licensed for both medical and adult-use, but over 95 percent of our visitors are adultuse customers, not medical patients.

This “intensity of use” puts a great deal of strain on a property (and staff). Adequate space, effective floor plan, operational plan, logistics, and parking are all critical elements to a high-traffic adult-use establishment.

Appointment-only medical clinics/provisioning centers with lighter traffic might not have the same challenges.

A city’s master plan and related zoning ordinance will have taken into account the idea of “use intensity” when laying out zoning districts for various uses, marijuana included. Industrial has more intensive use than commercial for example. Within the City of Traverse City, C-3 commercial zoning has more intensive use than C-2 commercial or Hotel Resort. Many municipalities in Michigan have considered such differences in propertyuse intensity when zoning for medical vs. adult-use marijuana. The recent 4/20 holiday brought hundreds of visitors to Dunegrass in a single day. The capacity to manage such surges are critical to a site as well as its operation.

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www.dunegrass.co 115 N Mitchell St. Cadillac Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 7

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8 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

opinion

by Barbara Stamiris

The 1950s were a heyday for civil engineering.

To connect Michigan’s peninsulas and fuel our growth, we built what was then the world’s longest suspension bridge and an oil pipeline in the waters below. The Mighty Mac is still the pride of Michigan. Under the watchful eye of the state’s Mackinac Bridge Authority, it has won awards for engineering and for preventive maintenance. In 2019 it became “the first fully instrumented bridge in the country using advanced wireless and self-powered monitoring technology” to prevent failure.

The oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac is a different story. Owned by a foreign oil company and mostly self-monitored, Line 5 has become a disaster waiting to happen. Experts have called the Straits

million for repeated safety violations by the EPA. In 2010, warning alarms were ignored for 17 hours while Enbridge Line 6B spilled a million gallons of oil. It cost Enbridge $1.2 billion to clean up 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River. By comparison, an accident in the Great Lakes could destroy 700 miles of shoreline and spill a million gallons of oil every hour.

Gov. Whitmer vowed to protect the Great Lakes. Because Enbridge’s Line 5 safety violations endangered them, she revoked its 1953 easement. She gave the company and state of Michigan six months — until May 12, 2021 — to develop a prudent decommissioning plan. Enbridge has announced it will defy her shutdown order,

Given its age, condition, and location, Line 5 has become the most dangerous pipeline in the U.S. while the amount of energy Michigan uses from it has diminished drastically. the worst place in the nation for an oil pipeline. Its volatile currents washed away Line 5’s bottomland support, requiring installation of remedial support structures in 2002. When the pipeline moved within the H-shaped supports, the pipeline’s safety coatings were scraped off — a new problem which Enbridge hid. Today, Line 5, which crosses a busy shipping lane, is suspended between 200 support structures, subjecting it to unanticipated vibration and bending stresses, as well as to anchor strikes.

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Given its age, condition, and location, Line 5 has become the most dangerous pipeline in the U.S. while the amount of energy Michigan uses from it has diminished drastically. Today, about 95 percent of Line 5’s oil and propane liquids go directly to Sarnia. Without adequate insurance from Enbridge Inc., Michigan bears the risk while the company earns $1 to $2 million each day Line 5 operates. Billion-dollar profits could be the reason Enbridge pushes Line 5 so far beyond its intended 50-year lifetime.

After 68 years, even Enbridge acknowledges that Line 5 must be replaced. It proposes building a new line in a tunnel below the still-functioning Line 5. Tunnel expert Brian O’Mara warns of an inferior design, inadequate boring samples, and potential sinkholes due to poor geologic conditions, which could lead to catastrophe.

Building a tunnel would not only endanger Line 5, it would commit Michigan to 99 more years of fossil fuels during a climate emergency. Michigan’s goal is to be carbon neutral by 2050; not to own an oil tunnel we don’t need. Furthermore, a tunnel for the four-mile Straits section of Line 5 ignores its remaining 641 land miles stretching across Michigan, where a million gallons of oil have spilled in 33 accidents already. Putting one new link in an old chain makes no sense.

Neither does ignoring Enbridge’s track record. In 2020, Enbridge was fined $6.7

instead suing to keep Line 5 operating until the tunnel is completed — a project estimated to take 5–10 years. If Line 5 is allowed to operate while its future is litigated, delay becomes a lucrative strategy for Enbridge.

With so much at stake, Enbridge advertising uses fear not fact. It falsely represents how Michigan will suffer if Line 5 is shut down.

The tunnel jobs that Enbridge touts are temporary; few are for Michigan workers.

Michigan’s energy needs are not in jeopardy.

Upper Peninsula propane dealers have had time to prepare alternatives, and the Michigan Propane Security Plan protects against price gouging and safeguards consumer interests.

With a May shutdown looming, the Canadian government has joined the chorus opposing Whitmer and pressuring President Biden about job losses in Sarnia.

The governor needs citizen support — now.

In the unlikely event that the Mackinac Bridge failed, the Great Lakes would not be in danger. A failure of Line 5, however, would be devastating. Given the age and condition of the pipeline and Enbridge’s track record of violations, failure is likely.

Risking the world’s largest freshwater system for corporate profit dismisses the needs of the citizens of Michigan, the U.S., and the world — to whom these waters belong.

The Anishinaabek, whose land and water this was, believe that every decision made today must consider the next seven generations to come.

The water is not ours alone, but Michigan citizens are the ones who must protect it today, for tomorrow.

Barbara Stamiris is an environmental activist living in Traverse City. To join the citizen coalition against Line 5, see oilandwaterdontmix.org.

RACISM IS HAVING A MOMENT When it’s finally time to ...

guest opinion

DOWNSIZE

by Isiah Smith It pierced me to my core when I read the local news accounts of the racist Snapchat that several students from Traverse City Area Public Schools and other local school districts had exchanged messages on a “Slave Trade” Snapchat group, in which they posted racist, homophobic, antisemitic, anti-disability, and other hateful comments about fellow students.

The group assigned bid values to students of color and posted remarks including, “Let’s have another Holocaust” and “All Blacks should die.”

These were high school students who should have known better. But worse was the sense that the sins of past generations had been successfully bequeathed to a new generation as a part of their birthright. These kids seem to have been inculcated with the bellicose belief that they possess the birthmark of privilege that provides them with immunity from being held accountable.

I couldn’t help but wonder, “How did these kids learn these disreputable ideas? What moronic messages had they received at home?”

When it comes to questions of race, I tend to be a bit of an optimist. I am practically duty-bound because I am the black half of a mixed marriage, with a biracial daughter and triracial grandchildren. To not believe that relationships between the races are improving would be unbearable, an unspeakable horror that would disturb my every waking hour and compromise my sleep. Added to that is the curious fact that I spend most of each year in Traverse City, where nonwhites hardly register on the scale. It’s not exactly Washington, D.C., or Miami, the last two stops on our sojourn.

In comparison, Miami and D.C.’s populations are amongst the most diverse in the nation.

When family members question my decision to leave America’s melting pots for what can only be described as America’s salad bowl (in a salad bowl, disparate vegetables resist being mixed. Tomatoes, by and large, stick to tomatoes; so do cucumbers and lettuce), I answer with great alacrity and false confidence, “Because all of America belongs to all Americans!”

Traverse City is gifted with an abundance of natural beauty: beaches (who knew?), dunes, islands, cultural artifacts, and a surfeit of musicians, artists, writers, and other creative types. It sometimes seems that playing the guitar is a prerequisite for living in Traverse City! Who in their right mind wouldn’t choose to live here? Well, there is the weather, but let’s table weather discussion for another time.

When we migrated from the D.C. area, Barack Obama was president. Two years later, an overtly brazen racist xenophobe

with misogynistic tendencies took the oath for the highest office in the land and proceeded to denigrate the entirety of certain cultural groups (and before being elected, bragged about sexually assaulting women). He referred to the whole of the African nations as “shithole countries.”

He belted out bigoted bellicose speeches that would make George Wallace and Bull Connors blush. Yet millions of Americans are still enthralled with him; religious leaders proclaim him a gift from God. Bigotry had staked its last defiant stand against the nation’s soul and refused to go gently into that dark night and the dust bins of history.

Jason L. Riley’s opinion piece in the April 28 issue of the Wall Street Journal argued that “Race relations in America are better than ever.” Riley writes: “A big part of the problem is that the political press has never come to grips with Donald Trump’s election in 2016. The media did not anticipate it, refused to accept it, and have been willfully misinterpreting the reason for it.”

Me thinks Riley doth protests too much. An African American Republican apologist, he scoffs at the notion of “systemic racism” and “unconscious bias.” By viewing Trump’s election through the prism of race, he acknowledges, perhaps unconsciously, that the recent explosion of racist incidents in this country are related to him. Riley thereby damns Trump by associating him with the rise of racial animus. All U.S. security agencies consistently reported that racist attacks against Black, brown, and Asian Americans significantly increased under Trump. One wonders whether he would be this sanguine if his own biracial kids had been affected by the blatant display of racism in the Traverse City high school?

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In 1955, James Baldwin traveled to a small Swiss village in order to finish a novel that stubbornly resisted being written.

But there, he produced a beautiful essay, “Stranger in the Village” detailing his experience as being possibly the only black person to visit the village. I offer you the last paragraph of the essay: “ ... the history of the American Negro problem is not merely shameful, it is also something of an achievement. For even when the worst has been said, it must also be added that the perpetual challenge posed by this problem was always, somehow, perpetually met. It is precisely this blackwhite experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today. This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”

America is well on its way to becoming a majority nonwhite nation. And, as Martin Luther King Jr. warned: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Isiah Smith, Jr. is a retired government attorney.

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 9

Other Great Lakes states are also fighting Enbridge, particularly on its 340-mile Line 3 pipeline expansion project, which every day will transport 1 million barrels of tar sands oil across northern Minnesota on a route from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin. Tar sands oil is considered one of the most potentially damaging forms of oil because it is so dense and especially difficult to extract if spilled. It is also known to emit roughly 15 percent more carbon dioxide than conventional oils when converted to gasoline. Photo courtesy of Enbridge.

THE CLOCK IS

TICKING

You might know that Gov. Whitmer’s May 12 deadline to shut down Line 5 is days away, but did you know about Enbridge’s other pipeline fight across the water? Northern Express dives into Line 3, Line 5, ‘man camps,’ and the waves Native Americans and other citizens are making to evict Enbridge from the Great Lakes.

By Craig Manning “Shut Down Line 5 Pipeline.” “Keep Oil Out of the Great Lakes.” “No Tunnel.”

If you’ve driven around a northern Michigan neighborhood in the past five years, you’ve probably read these messages on a yard sign. They relate back to a seemingly endless battle between environmental conservationists and Enbridge, the Canadian energy company that operates an extensive pipeline system that runs underneath the Straits of Mackinac.

Critics of the pipeline say that the infrastructure is degrading, with every day bringing the Great Lakes closer to a potentially catastrophic oil leak. Enbridge argues that shutting down the pipeline would set off a domino effect, hindering energy availability and affordability for countless households and industries in the United States and Canada. The debate has raged for years, with everyone from Native American tribes to Michigan municipalities weighing in.

WHITMER RAISES THE STAKES On Nov. 13, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Director Dan Eichinger upped the ante in the Line 5 debate: The governor’s office announced that it had “notified

Enbridge that the 1953 easement allowing it to operate dual pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac to transport petroleum and other products is being revoked and terminated.”

Whitmer’s office argues that it has grounds to revoke and terminate Enbridge’s easement under Michigan’s “public trust doctrine,” a legal principle that effectively makes the waters of the Great Lakes a public good rather than the property of the state.

Under the public trust doctrine, the state has an obligation to protect public water resources “for the use and enjoyment of all.”

“The state found that the 1953 easement violated the public trust doctrine from its inception because the easement does not make the necessary public trust findings,” the press release noted. “Moreover, the state also found that the continued use of the dual pipelines cannot be reconciled with the public’s rights in the Great Lakes and the state’s duty to protect them. Transporting millions of gallons of petroleum products each day through two 67-year-old pipelines that lie exposed along the entire span of a busy shipping channel presents an extraordinary and unacceptable risk. The dual pipelines are vulnerable to anchor strikes, similar dangerous impacts, and the inherent risks of pipeline operations.”

Whitmer’s office also alleged that Enbridge has “repeatedly and incurably violated” the

10 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

terms of the easement agreement, which requires the company to “exercise due care in operating the pipelines.” Such due diligence requirements include making sure that the underwater pipelines “are physically supported at least every 75 feet” and are shielded by multiple layers of protective coating to prevent corrosion and damage.

ENBRIDGE FIGHTS BACK Under the action that Whitmer and Eichinger took in November, Enbridge was given a May 12 deadline to shut down Line 5 and cease operations in the Straits of Mackinac.

With that deadline just days away, though, oil continues to course through Line 5.

On Nov. 24, Enbridge fired back at Whitmer and Eichinger, announcing that it had filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan “seeking an injunction to stop the State of Michigan from taking any steps to prevent the operation of Line 5.”

“The attempt to shut down Line 5 interferes with the comprehensive federal regulation of pipeline safety and burdens interstate and foreign commerce in clear violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution,” Enbridge stated in a press release.

The release continued: “A federal agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety

Administration (PHMSA), is Enbridge’s safety regulator, not the State of Michigan.

In fact, only three months ago the safety of the dual pipelines was reviewed by our regulator and the pipelines were found to be fit for service. The state’s attempt to assume the role of safety regulator through its notice purporting to ‘terminate and revoke’ the easement is improper and unlawful.”

For its part, Enbridge maintains that it has met “all obligations under its agreements with the State of Michigan,” and argues that disrupting Line 5 would create shortages in propane, gasoline, and fuel – affecting heating of homes, gas prices, aviation travel costs, and more.

Six months later, Enbridge Spokesman Ryan Duffy tells Northern Express that the company is still locked in its battle with the state.

“The state has not shown that Enbridge is out of compliance with the easement agreement, and Line 5 continues to operate safely, as determined by PHMSA, the safety regulator of interstate pipelines in the United States.” Duffy said. “The [Whitmer] administration and Enbridge are engaged in court-ordered mediation. Enbridge favors the mediation process and believes it is an opportunity to resolve issues. We take it seriously and are optimistic the process will enable the parties to address key matters in

dispute and to find common ground.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has argued that the issue is a state’s rights matter and should be decided by a state court rather than a federal one. She’s been joined on that front by 15 attorneys general and two governors of other states, who jointly filed an amicus brief in April stating that, “Despite federal safety regulations for pipelines, states are free to exercise their public trust powers to determine whether and where pipelines may cross their sovereign lands.”

The bottom line? Line 5 might yet be shut down, depending on the outcome of mediation, on further court battles between Enbridge and the state, and on whether U.S. District Judge Janet Neff grants Nessel’s request to have the case sent back to a Michigan court. In the meantime, Michigan residents should expect the May 12 deadline to lapse without any move from Enbridge to shut down Line 5.

THE PARALLEL BATTLE: ENBRIDGE LINE 3 In Michigan, the debate over the 1,098mile Line 5 — and of Enbridge’s ultimate plan to replace the pipelines under the Mackinac Straits with a new one encased in a protective concrete tunnel is Enbridge’s core claim to fame. In truth, though, Line 5 constitutes just one piece of the Enbridge pipeline system, which moves crude oil from the Athabasca tar sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to dozens of oil refineries throughout Canada and the midwestern U.S. Line 5 is not the only part of that system causing controversy.

On the contrary, in Minnesota, environmentalists are currently fighting a similar battle over Line 3, a 1,097-mile stretch of pipeline that runs from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. (Line 5 hooks into Line 3 in Lake Superior and runs through Wisconsin, under the Mackinac Straits, and through Lower Michigan, to Sarnia, Ontario.) Just as Enbridge is looking to construct a new pipeline and tunnel under the Straits for Line 5, the company is also in the midst of a pipeline replacement project for Line 3. The $4 billion effort will replace 13 miles of pipeline in North Dakota, 337 miles in Minnesota, and 14 miles in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin and North Dakota segments of the replacement project are done; the Minnesota phase began construction in December.

Enbridge claims the replacement of Line 3 is necessary “to maintain our high

safety standards, reduce future maintenance activities and create fewer disruptions to landowners and the environment, and restore the historical operating capabilities of Line 3.”

In Minnesota, tensions over Line 3 are so high that Enbridge has reportedly paid approximately $750,000 to cover law enforcement costs related to the pipeline construction — most of them pertaining to protests. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) mandated that Enbridge pay these costs to a “public safety fund” as a contingency of the commission’s decision to approve the pipeline project. The PUC has said its intention was to make sure that Enbridge — not taxpayers — would shoulder any extra law enforcement costs created by the replacement. However, some critics of the pipeline project have argued that the arrangement encourages public law

of Minnesota has any plan to deal with it.

The good news is that the Ojibwe tribes are standing up, and a lot of landowners, county commissioners, and mayors are getting increasingly concerned about who’s going to be liable for Enbridge’s mess.”

“Once the replacement pipeline is operating, the existing Line 3 will be thoroughly cleaned, disconnected, and deactivated,” Duffy said of Enbridge’s decommissioning plans. “Segments under roads and waterways will be capped, sealed, and in many cases filled with gravel so they don’t cave in or carry water. We’ve used this same method across the country when deactivating a pipeline. Our current deactivation-in-place plan represents a longstanding industry best practice that has been recognized by regulators in other jurisdictions as representing the best environmental outcome.”

“It’s still not cleaned up,” Bird said of the Kalamazoo River spill. “People are still sick and dying. [Enbridge] were vastly under-insured to deal with the problem.

When they actually settled the lawsuits, it didn’t even touch the harms that were left behind. enforcement to act like private security – obliged to protect Enbridge’s interests rather than operate in a neutral fashion.

One of the loudest critics of the PUC safety fund — and of the Minnesota Line 3 project in general — is Winona LaDuke, the co-founder and executive director of Honor the Earth. A Native American nonprofit, Honor the Earth seeks to “create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities.” The organization is helping lead Minnesota’s Line 3 protest movement, arguing that the project Enbridge has billed as a “pipeline replacement” is actually just a plan to build a brand-new pipeline and abandon the old one.

“The company says that they will take care of [the decommissioned pipeline],” LaDuke has said. “But it is not clear that there is any liability from the Enbridge corporation. The worst part is that neither the United States government nor the state

“Enbridge feels landowners themselves know what is best for their circumstance,” Duffy continued. “As a result, we will work with private landowners to remove the old Line 3 in areas where they determine that to be the best outcome, pending permit approvals. Not surprisingly, in conversation with landowners, we have already heard that many prefer not to disturb their property, and [want to] leave the deactivated line in place.”

PAST PATTERNS, FUTURE RISK Despite Duffy’s assurance that Enbridge will follow environmental best practices in laying the old Line 3 to rest, critics of the company say Enbridge’s track record speaks louder than its promises. In 2017, the National Wildlife Federation estimated that there had been 29 known spills along the expanse of Line 5, releasing more than one million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids into the ecosystem.

Enbridge is also responsible for the biggest inland oil spill in U.S. history — a

Line 3 isn’t as old as Line 5 — Line 3 was built in the ‘60s — but in 2014 Enbridge itself cited the corrosion of Line 3’s pipes as one of the reasons it wanted to add a new pipeline corridor (pictured), which would extend farther south across northern Minnesota, crossing water, wetlands, and wild rice beds. Photos courtesy of Enbridge.

record the company set in 2010 when Line 6B spilled 1.2 million gallons of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

Local indigenous activist Holly T. Bird says that, more than a decade later, Michigan residents are still paying the price for Enbridge’s “atrocious handling” of the Kalamazoo River Spill. Bird is the co-executive director of Title Track, a northern Michigan nonprofit with a mission of “engaging creative practice to build resilient social-ecological systems that support clean water, racial equity, and youth empowerment.” She is also a private practice attorney in Traverse City and a supreme court justice for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians.

“It’s still not cleaned up,” Bird said of the Kalamazoo River spill. “People are still sick and dying. [Enbridge] were vastly underinsured to deal with the problem. When they actually settled the lawsuits, it didn’t even touch the harms that were left behind. So we already know that they don’t stand behind their word, as far as being a safe pipeline and taking care of it when a spill happens. People need to remember that their bottom line is money, not trying to take care of the people of Michigan. They don’t have any vested interest in that, except to protect their own investment. Their bottom line is extractive resource energy sourcing and finding the least expensive way to do that. And that is why they’re piping oil through Michigan in the first place: it’s a shortcut is to save them time and money.”

THE ‘MAN CAMP’ PROBLEM Beyond environmental concerns, Bird notes that pipeline projects have a track record of bringing drugs, violence, sex trafficking, and other criminal activity to the communities they pass through — with indigenous populations, particularly Native women, often becoming collateral damage.

“You get these camps where potentially thousands of male workers come to profit from an oil boom, whether it’s building a tunnel, or building a pipeline, or because there’s a specific oil base there,” Bird explained. “They don’t have an investment in that community. They come in to make

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 11

money, and potentially stay for a while, and then they leave and go back home. They don’t have their families around them, and so they might be lonely, they might be bored. There’s a great deal of drug use, there’s a great deal of alcohol use, in and around these camps. And then going along with that, there is the victimization of women who are available to them.”

One frequently cited example of the oil industry’s “man camp” problem is the North Dakota Bakken oil boom, which began in the mid-2000s and peaked in 2012. While the boom helped drop North Dakota’s unemployment rate to the lowest in the U.S. for much of the Great Recession, it also created huge populations of transient workers in rural communities – particularly around the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, which encompasses some of the most productive oil-producing land in the state.

A study of the oil boom showed an 18.5 percent increase in violent crime in North Dakota’s oil boom counties between 2006 and 2012, compared to a 25.6 decrease in counties that weren’t being targeted for oil and gas extraction. In Bakkan regions of North Dakota, the incidence of unlawful sexual conduct and aggravated assault increased 44.8 percent and 70.1 percent, respectively, from 2006 to 2012, compared to declines of 6.7 percent and 4.4 percent in non-Bakkan regions.

The Berthold Reservation, which saw its population temporarily balloon by 3070 percent over the course of the Bakkan oil boom years, was hit particularly hard: in 2012, tribal police reported “more murders, fatal accidents, sexual assaults, domestic disputes, drug busts, gun threats, and human trafficking cases than in any year before,” per The Atlantic.

Bird is worried that similar spikes in violence could plague rural northern Michigan communities — especially indigenous communities — were Enbridge given the green light to build a new tunnel underneath the Straits. Already, she says natives have been ignored in dealings with Enbridge, given that northern Michigan tribes have treaty rights protecting their access to natural resources – including fishing on the Straits — that should have precluded the state from granting Enbridge’s easement in the first place. Were the state to allow Enbridge to proceed with new Line 5 projects in Michigan, Bird says it would jeopardize Native American women living in close proximity to the Straits.

“I think that the state even having any kind of an agreement with Enbridge is dealing with a company that has unclean hands,” Bird said, noting a February 2021 sex trafficking sting in Minnesota that led to the arrest of seven men – two of them Enbridge contractors. “We elected Whitmer and we elected Nessel because they hung a lot of their campaigns on getting rid of Line 5. We need to hold them accountable [to that].”

When asked about the Minnesota sting, Duffy tells Northern Express that Enbridge “has zero tolerance for all illegal and exploitive behavior” and that the “two individuals who formerly worked for our contractor” had their employment immediately terminated after their arrests. Duffy also says that Enbridge has “developed and implemented a Human Trafficking Prevention Plan in cooperation with several tribal and state entities,” and that the company assisted in the creation of a new sex trafficking awareness campaign in Minnesota, called “Your Call Minnesota.”

For her part, Bird isn’t convinced that the oil and gas industry can make the fundamental changes necessary to protect people, land, and environment. Abuse and harm, she says, are built into the industry’s very DNA. “These extraction industries, they treat the Earth like they treat women,” Bird said.

“They think they can own us, buy us, sell us, trade us, rent us, poison us, rape us, destroy us, and use us as entertainment. That very same mentality that they are using for this industry, it translates to the work that they do. And so anytime that our state is dealing with a company like that, they’re dealing against the public trust, and against the interests of the people of Michigan.”

Opponents (shown Opponents totoEnbridge’s Enbridge’sLine Line3 3expansion expansion shareabove) many share the same that opponents Linethe5 of themany sameof fears that fears opponents of Line 5ofdo: do: the potential for spills that would destroy precious potential for spills that would destroy precious water water resources, wetlands, ancestrallands. lands. Although Although resources, wetlands, andand ancestral much largely much of of the the negative negative attention attention on on Line Line 55 focuses focuses largely on the on its its direct direct risk risk to to the the Straits, Straits, where where four four miles miles of of the 365-mile northwest 365-mile pipeline pipeline are are located located underwater, underwater, northwest Lower onshore Lower Michigan’s Michigan’s Watershed Watershed Council Council says says the the onshore portions greater, portions of of Line Line 55 pose pose just just as as much, much, ifif not not aa greater, risk Watershed risk to to Michigan’s Michigan’s waters. waters. For For instance, instance, the the Watershed Center crosses Center reports reports that that in in the the Upper Upper Peninsula, Peninsula, Line Line 55 crosses 16 of 16 tributaries tributaries within within 99 miles miles of of Lake Lake Michigan Michigan — — 11 11 of those northern those less less than than 44 miles miles from from the the lake. lake. In In the the northern Lower Little Lower Peninsula, Peninsula, Line Line 55 crosses crosses the the Indian Indian River, River, Little Sturgeon and Sturgeon River, River, Pigeon Pigeon River, River, and and Upper Upper Black Black River River and traverses inland traverses within within aa few few miles miles or or less less from from many many inland lakes, Map lakes, including including Paradise, Paradise, Burt, Burt, Mullet, Mullet, and and Douglas.

Douglas. Map courtesy courtesyof ofEnbridge.

Enbridge.

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Schemes Police in Naples, Florida, are looking for a woman identified only as “Rosalia,” a self-described witch who is suspected of swindling more than $100,000 from at least 10 victims. Authorities were first alerted to the scam on March 14 when a man called to report that Rosalia had disappeared with $29,500 of his money, according to a police report. The man said he had responded to a flyer advertising Rosalia’s “witchcraft services,” WBBH-TV reported. She allegedly told the man she saw something “dark” in his future and gave him three eggs to put under his bed as he slept. When he brought them back the next day, she waved the eggs over his head and face, then opened them to reveal one filled with blood, one with needles and a third with worms, according to the report. She instructed the man to bring her all the money he had so she could bless it and multiply it at her temple in Fort Myers, promising to return it the next day, police said, but Rosalia hasn’t been seen since.

Police have identified more victims in the course of their ongoing investigation.

Sign of the Times A family-owned patisserie in Veresegyhaz, Hungary, is offering its customers sweet relief from COVID-19 angst with colorful layered mousses, each topped with a decorative syringe. The Sulyan family’s special desserts are colored with jelly toppings representing the different COVID-19 vaccinations available in Hungary: citrus yellow for AstraZeneca, darker yellow for Sinopharm, green for Pfizer, orange for Sputnik V and blue for Moderna, Reuters reported. “Anyone can try these,” said confectioner Katalin Benko, and “the only possible side effect would be a little smile on their face.”

Going Out in Style Mourners at Phil McLean’s funeral in Wellington, New Zealand, first gasped, then laughed as his coffin, shaped like a giant cream doughnut, was brought into the chapel, the Associated Press reported on April 15. McLean had designed the special coffin with his cousin, Ross Hall, owner of Dying Art, a business in Auckland specializing in custom coffins. Over the last 15 years, Hall has fashioned a sailboat, a firetruck, a chocolate bar and Legos, among others. McLean’s widow, Debra, said her husband had considered himself a connoisseur of cream doughnuts, and the coffin “overshadowed the sadness. ... The final memory in everyone’s mind was of that doughnut and Phil’s sense of humor.” For himself, Hall said he had planned a red box with flames on it, but he changed his mind to a clear coffin, with him wearing nothing but a leopard-patterned G-string. “The kids say they’re not going,” he said.

People With Issues Edward and Cheryl Patton of Lake View, New York, tried for three years to identify who was throwing used paper coffee cups -- some with cigarette butts inside -- on their front yard nearly every night, but they could never get a good look at the minivan as it drove by. Edward began keeping records of the littering and collecting the cups,

eventually filling 10 garbage bags, reported The Buffalo News. They even installed a surveillance camera, but it wasn’t until neighbors set up a stakeout and captured the license plate number that the mystery was solved. On April 18, police set up their own stakeout and pulled over Larry Pope, 76, a former co-worker of Cheryl’s whom she had had disagreements with. Pope was charged with harassment and throwing refuse onto a roadway. The Pattons said the littering has stopped since his arrest.

It’s Good To Have a Hobby Bearsun is the name Jesse Larios, 33, of Los Angeles gave to the teddy bear character he created in 2016 and fashioned into a human-sized Bearsun suit. On April 12, Larios decided to have a fun adventure walking from Los Angeles to San Francisco dressed as Bearsun, a journey of more than 400 miles. Mountain passes and road construction have made the trip slower than he expected, reported CNN Travel, and it’s no luxury excursion: Bearsun sleeps wherever he finds himself at the end of the day and gets food at gas stations. “I’m like a puppy, I guess,” Larios said. “I just see something and I chase after it.”

Mistaken Identity The Krakow (Poland) Society for the Protection of Animals responded on April 14 to a report that a suspected iguana was stuck in a lilac tree outside a residential building, only to discover a discarded croissant instead. “People don’t open windows because they’re afraid it’s going to enter their house,” the caller told the group. United Press International reported the animal rescue agency was forgiving.

“It’s better to check and be pleasantly disappointed ... than not react, which can sometimes lead to a tragedy,” the group posted on its Facebook page.

Sightings Detectives from the New Jersey State Park Police were dispatched on April 9 to a site in Wharton State Forest to examine a device found on the forest floor. The “UFO Detector Site” was determined to be safe

by K-9 officer Prime, and officers had no trouble “disarming” the unit by unplugging headphone wires from the block of wood and soup can they were plugged into. It wasn’t clear who had left the object. On Facebook, park police noted, “Although humankind and the visitors to New Jersey’s state parks appreciate an extraterrestrial warning device like this, we should not be finding them in our state parks.”

Least Competent Criminal Cordell Coleman, 33, was arrested for public intoxication on April 14 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was held until about 2:30 the next morning. When he was released from the Polaski County jail, Coleman took the first car he came across: an unmarked Little Rock Police Department SUV that had been left unlocked. The Smoking Gun reported that police tracked the car to an apartment complex about 10 miles away, where Coleman was found in the car. He was brought back to jail and charged with felony theft, this time in lieu of $25,000 bond.

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Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 13

What $250K buys you in Northern Michigan Right Now (Does it even buy you anything anymore? )

By Ross Boissoneau Anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention to real estate in the past year knows that since the opening of business last spring, sales have absolutely been on fire.

That trend actually goes back a few years, with home sales rebounding since the end of the Great Recession, eventually hitting record levels in 2019. That was in part because so few homes had been built during the recession, and the building industry by 2020 was still nowhere near catching up to demand. According to the National Association of Realtors, there were 18.2 percent fewer homes available for purchase in June 2020 than the year before.

The insufficient supply of new homes coupled with a scarcity of those in 10- to 20-yearold range pushed prices upward.

Couple that with historically low interest rates and a strong economy, and 2020 was poised to be a year of skyrocketing sales prices. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, shuttering all businesses.

The effect was akin to putting a cork in a bottle.

Pressure mounted when many of people around the state and nation, newly untethered to office workplaces and able to work virtually, fled urban areas for comparatively wideopen spaces of places like northwest Lower Michigan, where the inventory was already low.

So when businesses reopened, the top came off, and the real estate industry exploded.

Which brings us to spring 2021. A time of year when the region’s industry might normally just be starting to percolate, sales are already strong across northwest Lower Michigan. They would be stronger still if there were more homes available, but inventory is not replenishing as quickly as sales are being made — and so prices continue to escalate.

So what can you get for $250,000 these days? In the most desirable areas — in or near downtowns like Traverse, Petoskey, or Boyne City — admittedly, not much. So we opened the parameters to provide a sampling of some of the sweetest available properties we could find around the region listed between $225,000 and $275,000. One note: While all were active listings at the time of writing, the volatile state of the market means that might not be the case by the time you read this.

9988 Pickerel Lake Road, Petoskey MLS #460355 $269,900 Hope that lots of wood is knot a problem for you. This four-bedroom log home features knotty pine ceilings and trim throughout. More wood? How about hardwood floors, a wood stove with cultured stone surround, and a fenced back yard surrounded by pine trees.

Minutes from Camp Petosega, the Pickerel Lake boat launch, snowmobile trails, hiking, and cross-country trails.

3771 Wequas Road, Gaylord MLS #201811042 $255,000 If it’s lakefront living you’re seeking, this may be the place. This three-bedroom home offers 100 feet of Wequas Lake frontage. With ¾ of an acre, grounds festooned with perennials, and plenty of wildlife, it’s the perfect escape to nature. Indoors, the remodeled home offers an open floor plan and a cozy setting featuring a wood-burning stove with a two-story brick hearth.

1581 Arbor Lane, Manistee MLS #21011777 $262,000 This four-bedroom family home is near shopping, Munson Hospital Manistee, and Big Al’s Pizza. What’s not to love? Minutes from downtown and Lake Michigan. The home features oak trim throughout, a gas fireplace, and a glassed-in sunroom, plus a partially finished basement, and a spacious yard.

412 E Harris St, Cadillac MLS #1884779 $274,900 This restored Queen Anne Victorian dates back to 1885. But not to worry: It’s been updated and renovated, most recently in 2008, so it has all the conveniences Queen Anne herself never imagined.

Relax on the wraparound covered porch and enjoy the bountiful greenery surrounding it. Walk to downtown shops, restaurants, the library and Lake Cadillac. Four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and the added bonus room and garage look like they’ve always been there.

14 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

221 W Carpenter St, Charlevoix $237,000 MLS#:463689 Location location location? Well, how about a great neighborhood, right by the local ballfields, and near family-friendly spots like Pizza Hut, the Dairy Grill, Flap Jack and Andy’s Deli? It’s not too good to be true, it’s just really good. Fill the three and a half car garage with all the toys and enjoy this four-bedroom home on the south side of Charlevoix.

9571 S Nash Rd, Maple City $249,900 MLS #1886338 Going, going, gone? At the time of the listing, there was only one other home in all of Leelanau County in this price range. This three-bedroom ranch is on 1.5 acres, with a two-car attached garage and a separate two-car detached garage for all the family’s summer and winter toys. Central air, cable internet, and numerous flowerbeds full of roses, peonies, hydrangea, Rose of Sharon, and other flowers to brighten the days.

1006-1 Jefferson Ave, Traverse City $224,900 MLS 1884244 These rare Slabtown condos (two offered as of this writing) offer walking distance to the beach and downtown. Each of the two-bedroom homes boasts a small yard and private basement. Historic brick construction, wood floors on both main level and upstairs, even a fireplace (could be converted to gas), all in a quiet, high-demand area.

1571 Dorena Dr SE, Kalkaska $269,000 MLS #1885950 A peaceful setting in paradise just east of Eden, err, Kalkaska, this fully renovated and updated four-bedroom ranch is located in a desirable subdivision. Two vehicle garage and full basement, bonus room perfect for a nice home office or playroom, and decks in front and back.

19643 Pine Woods Dr, Lake Ann $265,500 MLS#:1886283 Just 20 minutes from everything Traverse City has to offer, but removed from all the hustle and bustle. This Lake Ann home offers a picture-perfect wooded setting with a large yard. Inside, it features an open floor plan, cathedral ceilings and a beautiful kitchen island, with a wood stove for cozy days and nights when the air is crisp.

11934 Homestead Rd, Beulah $225,000 MLS#:1885593 Want to get away from it all while still being close to – well, most everything? This may be just the place for you. Minutes to Crystal & Platte Lakes, rivers, hiking trails, and Crystal Mountain Resort & Spa. A quick drive to Traverse City, and right around the corner from St. Ambrose Cellars. This three-bedroom country home is on five acres with plenty of room for outbuildings. Giddyup — yep, horses are allowed.

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 15

Faith Tanner

Juan Carbonell

The Other Market Shortage: Appraisers Increased regulations, en-masse retirements, and tough licensing requirements are stymying the supply of appraisers in one of the hottest real estate markets in Up North’s history.

By Ross Boissoneau What is a house worth? That’s an important question and, many times, a loaded one. The answer: It depends who’s asking. Is it the seller? The buyer? Is it part of a divorce settlement, or maybe part of a trust? And what about the size and condition of the house, its amenities, its location? Then there’s the state of the market.

All those elements go into determining the true value of a home. It’s the job of a licensed appraiser to sort it all out and provide an unbiased valuation.

“What is a home worth begs the question, what is your definition?” said Juan Carbonell, of Carbonell Appraisal in Traverse City. “Is it on a tax basis? Then I need the IRS definition of value. If mom died and it’s in a trust, I need to get the appraisal for the trust.”

Mary Jane Dewey-Canfield, branch manager and loan officer at Mortgage 1 in Cadillac, said the unbiased part is crusial to fairness and consumer and lender protection. “Years ago, you could pick whoever appraiser you wanted. Now lenders can no longer do that,” she said.

A PERFECT STORM Since the 2008 banking meltdown and the subsequent implementation of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and

Consumer Protection Act, lenders today must go through an appraisal management company (AMC). Only AMCs can select state-licensed or state-qualified appraisers to valuate properties and deliver appraisal reports to lenders, ensuring the appraisal process is fair to all parties.

In this current market, however, sales left and right have led to an ever-tightening inventory of available homes, resulting in quick sales with multiple offers. At the same time, low interest rates are driving a refinancing boom. The end result is that as hard as it may be to determine a home’s value, it may be more difficult to find an available appraiser.

“This is about as far behind as I’ve ever been,” said Bob Schaafsma of Quadrant Northwest Appraisals, in Cadillac. “I’m a month out.”

“We do have a shortage” of appraisers, agreed Faith Tanner. She is a certified residential appraiser at Appraising Residential Real Estate of Suttons Bay. She said the biggest reason is low-interest rates, which are driving both sales and refinancing.

“I’ve never seen a market like this. I’ve never appraised as many million-dollar homes as in the last year. Those people typically don’t have mortgages, but the refinancing … every lender is inundated, so it’s hard.”

Carbonell is optimistic the pressure of the

16 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

current situation will ease off. “It’s cyclical.

I’ve been doing it since 1991. I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, but it goes up and down.

Right now there aren’t enough appraisers, but there’s recent times when there have been too many,” he said. When interest rates increase, and the refinancing boom peters out, he believes the supply of and demand for appraisers will even out again.

Schaafsma said he sees two main reasons for the shortage of appraisers now: “Every time there is a downturn, the regulatory agencies’ answer is more regulations. They also stepped up the requirements” to qualify as an appraiser, he said. The result was a number of appraisers left the field, many of them among the most experienced. “Almost one-third said, ‘Enough,’ and retired.”

despite growing up watching his father work and the fact that he’s coming up on two years in the field himself, he’s still not licensed to go out on his own as an appraiser. To qualify as an appraiser, you must complete 75 hours of classroom time, then work directly with a licensed appraiser for 1,500 hours — and then gain another 75 hours of classroom experience.

Then you’re qualified … to take the licensing exam. And the opportunity to sit down for that isn’t immediate either.

“I’ve been here full-time since July 2019,” Joe said. He’s completed all required classes and field hours but is still awaiting the opportunity to take the exam, which he applied for in October and isn’t scheduled to take until May. “It’s a long process,” he said.

COMPLICATING MATTERS More stringent regulations and the subsequent clearing out of so many longtime appraisers have created a dearth of knowledge and experience that gags up the machinations of the market. There isn’t much hope that large classes of apprentice appraisers are coming in to replace them.

Real estate appraising is simply not an easy business to get into, said Dewey-Canfield: “An appraiser has to go through a lot of education and time.

Exhibit A might be Schaafsma’s son Joe. He is following in his father’s footsteps, but

WORK PERKS So while this might seem to be a good time to get into the business, don’t expect to jump into the business and hang out a shingle anytime soon. But if you do, you’ll not only be a highly sought-after professional — chances are good you’ll enjoy the work.

Never routine but reliably challenging, appraisal work uses both sides of the brain, something Tanner said she loves most about it. “It’s analytical, with number-crunching, but you also go out in the field,” she said.

“Appraising is a great profession, and I absolutely love my job.”

Bob Schaafsma said he, too, likes the fact that the job takes you into homes to walk through and measure them, as well as seeking other similar homes to which they compare.

Carbonell equates it to detective work. “I look at properties Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I sit in front of a computer, researching, analyzing.

This morning I wasn’t clear how much lake frontage a home had. It’s an odd-shaped lot, and there was conflicting information,” he said. Using old tax maps, descriptions, tax records, and plat maps, plus additional metes and bounds descriptions, he was finally able to come up with what he believes to be the correct amount of frontage, which allowed him to calculate the value of the home.

For those who gravitate to challenges

and enjoy the detective aspect of the job, appraisal work is especially fulfilling Up North. Tanner told Northern Express that her daughter is an appraiser downstate, where there are many more houses built around the same time, with the same plan, on the same size lot. Here, not so much.

“You have to find three to six recent sales that are similar,” she said. When they’re bigger or smaller, older or newer, you have to analyze them to determine where the house being appraised fits in. And the comparable homes sold — the comps — have to be within the past six months to be valid.

All that means it’s neither an easy nor a quick job, which means that, as hard as it may be, those looking to get a home appraised simply have to wait their turn.

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STATE LICENSED REAL ESTATE APPRAISER • Complete 150 hours of approved prelicensure appraiser education, including 15 hours in a National USPAP course.

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Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 17

AMERICAN HOUSE WOOD FIRED PIZZA A taste of Italy in Elk Rapids Many Siren Hall fans initially mourned the fact that the popular Elk Rapids seafood restaurant morphed into American House Wood Fired Pizza in December 2020. But they soon realized that since owner-chef Michael Peterson — one of northern Michigan’s most respected culinary professionals — is still at the helm, change can be good, too.

By Janice Binkert The interior of the building that formerly housed Siren Hall hasn’t changed much since it became American House Wood Fired Pizza, except for the removal of several tables and booths to allow for social distancing and a few warmer and themeappropriate elements, the most obvious of which is certainly the very large and very warm — nay, hot — custom-built, brick and red-tiled, freestanding Marra Forni pizza oven that dominates one corner of the dining room.

Handcrafted by an Italian family-run enterprise in Beltsville, Maryland using proprietary core materials from Italy, it is a real showpiece, and the pride of American House owner-chef Michael Peterson, who is happy to give a demo. “It’s all computerized,” he says excitedly. “The oven is a combination of gas and wood, so that’s the gas firing up. And see that wheel? It actually moves, rotates. We cook the pizzas at about 825 degrees, and when we are putting them in — it can accommodate six to eight at a time — we can control how fast the wheel loads.

One time around, and the pizza’s done, in just two-and-a-half to three minutes.”

Peterson says that ideally, he likes to have three people operating the oven during peak service times: one forming the dough, one arranging the toppings, and one monitoring the baking, taking the pizzas in and out.

INSPIRATION FROM NAPLES The pizza dough is made ahead in the kitchen and ferments in the fridge for four days before it’s ready to use. “We make

anywhere between 80 and 120 balls at a time,” says Peterson, “weighing them out to about nine or ten ounces each, which makes about a 12-inch pizza. We do a Neapolitanstyle, which originated in Naples, Italy. It has a thinner and a bit crispier bottom with a puffy rim, both charred in some spots. Our red sauce is just very good quality canned whole tomatoes, which we puree with sea salt. That’s it — nothing else. We don’t cook it.

When we want other flavors, like fresh garlic, onion or herbs, we just add them as topping ingredients.” So why Neapolitan pizza? “I think because it was a style of pizza that just spoke to me,” says Peterson. “I love it when I go to New York and can get it — that little bit of smoke flavor and the charred crust.”

Even Peterson agrees that it’s quite a leap from Siren Hall’s seafood and fish specialties to pizza. And he gets a lot of questions about that, too. He says the reason for the change was a combination of things. “One thing is that after you’ve been doing the same thing for so long, it gets a little old.”

Peterson started working in restaurants when he was 14. Later, he trained in classical cuisine at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and in Paris, and was just 24 when he opened his first restaurant, Spencer Creek, in Alden. Seven years later, he opened Lulu’s, in Bellaire, which he ran for 13 years.

By 2020, he had been operating Siren Hall for another 13 years. “It has been a great run, but also a long haul — not just for me, but also for Clif Wilson, my sous chef, who has been with me for 24 years, and Mindy Bisson, our general manager, who has been working with us for almost 20 years.

Another thing was that Siren Hall was quite a machine to operate, and then this past year with the pandemic, but also the ongoing labor shortage, it kind of made us start thinking that we needed to simplify things.”

Peterson recalls one evening last summer, when after finishing another 15hour day in the kitchen, he and his sous chef were winding down outside on the patio having a drink — a rare occasion. “Our usual shift was early mornings into early afternoon, but this past summer, with major staffing issues, we often had to work right on into the night. I was really tired, and I just looked at him and said, ‘Clif, we’ve got to do

18 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

something different.’ Because I knew he was tired, too. And he said, ‘You know, we have always talked about wanting to do pizza …’ and I’m like, ‘So let’s do it!’ We both needed a change. American House Wood Fired Pizza was the answer.

And with that, another question pops up: Didn’t some people think it was a bit audacious to open this restaurant right next door to Elk Rapids’ legendary Chef Charles Pizza? “Oh yeah, we’ve gotten that for sure.

But you know, the funny thing is that we always had a pizza on our Siren Hall menu, except that we didn’t have our high-tech oven then. Actually, I went over to [owner Charles Egeler] before I ever started anything and said, ‘Hey, Chuck, I’m thinking about doing this.’ And you know, he was all for it. Now he comes in here and gets a pizza almost every other week. Anyway, he’s got a different style, you know, and people who love Chef Charles and his pizza will still go there for it.”

AN ODE TO THE GRATEFUL DEAD One of the first things you might notice on the menu are the catchy names Peterson has given the pizzas. And if you are a “Deadhead” like he admits he is, you will

clockkwise from top left: Artist Kevin Burdick created this mural inside American House, painting it almost entirely with spray paint.

It’s based on an old photo of Elk Rapids’ Main Street but “updated” with the names of all of Chef Michael’s restaurants on the storefront awnings.

Franklin’s Tower Mediterranean Salad

instantly recognize that all are named after Grateful Dead songs. “We wanted to keep a couple of our pizzas really simple, because everybody loves a margherita-style pizza (cue “I Need a Miracle”) or a pepperoni pizza (cue “Ripple”), but then we like to play with the others a little bit, giving them some more unexpected toppings that combine great flavor with great texture.”

That would describe Big River (parmesan mornay sauce, mozzarella, blackened shrimp, tasso ham, charred tomatoes, and crispy Brussels sprouts) and Big Boss Man (tomato sauce, mozzarella, grana padano, meatballs, and basil). “I’ve always been a fan of meatball pizzas, and we make a really good meatball from scratch so that one was a no-brainer,” he says. Franklin’s Tower (basil

Fuel for the pizza fire.

pesto, mozzarella, grana Padano, chicken, tomatoes, and spinach) is another pizza in that category. “I love making pizzas, because you can be so creative,” says Peterson. “It’s like an artist’s canvas, and you can paint whatever you want on it.”

The new venture still has a full bar, and although American House is quite pizzafocused now, they do offer several other menu options. In the entrées section, there are some familiar items that hearken back to Siren Hall, including fish and chips (beerbattered cod with herb remoulade and creamy coleslaw), steak frites (seared beef tenderloin tips with bordelaise sauce, shaved Brussels sprouts and bacon) and the houseground beef chuck burger (with bacon, aged cheddar, and pickles) as well as the vegan black bean chipotle burger (doublestacked black bean patties, charred onions, muenster cheese, and roasted tomato, with jalapeño mayo and tomatillo salsa) from the chef ’s Michael P’s line of specialty foods.

The Caesar and wedge salads have also made the leap to American House, but there is now a Mediterranean salad as well (romaine lettuce, roasted peppers, red onions, olives, pepperoncini, tomatoes, chickpeas and grana Padano, with croutons and green goddess dressing).

Peterson plans to do more pasta dishes in the future. “Recently I made a traditional pasta Bolognese as a special, and it was a big hit with our customers,” he says. Right now, the menu offers chicken parmesan (breaded chicken breast with marinara, mozzarella, parmesan, pepper and basil, served with egg pappardelle), ziti pasta (with roasted chicken, charred cauliflower, spinach, olive oil, pepper flakes, garlic, herbs and pecorino romano), and bucatini (with short rib-tomato ragu, rosemary ricotta, and grana Padano). “We want to start making fresh pasta here, too,” he says, “but for now, we are sourcing from a few companies that sell it right from Italy.”

HISTORY COMES ALIVE Peterson emphasizes that his aim was never to be an Italian restaurant. “We’re just trying to just make things a little simpler for us in all respects. I feel like I’m kind of getting toward the end of my restaurant career — not anytime soon, but I’m not going to open another restaurant after this — and I love Italian food and really enjoy making it.”

Whether it means to be an Italian restaurant or not, one wonders how and why the name American House was chosen for a place that specializes in pizza. Actually, the writing — or rather, the picture — is on the wall, literally. “So if you look at that mural up there (a large-scale vintage depiction of Elk Rapids in the late 1800s), do you see that building on the far right?” Peterson asks.

“That was the original structure built here

Chef Michael Peterson at the pizza oven.

on this corner in 1870, and it was called the American House Hotel. I just loved the name.

It had several other owners and incarnations over the next few decades, until it eventually burned down. And if you look at some of those awnings on the old buildings, you’ll see Siren Hall and Lulu’s Bistro and Spencer Creek. The mural was done from a real photo — that’s how the town’s main street looked back then, although of course not with those names on the awnings. I had the artist, Kevin Burdick of Scraps Designs, slip that in when he came to paint it for the new restaurant.

He did it all with cans of spray paint. He did a little bit of airbrushing, but most of it is literally spray-painted — it’s amazing.”

Peterson says that the American House menu will change seasonally. “We’ve got our spring menu now, and we’ll do our summer menu soon. And then we’ll switch gears again for our fall/winter menu. But there are of course things that will stay on there all the time. We really love what we do, and we’re trying to do the best we can, perfecting the simplicity of our dishes and respecting their classic origins while having fun with it all. We just want people to come in, sit down, relax and enjoy that. We want to be perceived as casual and approachable. I have never done anything like this before, so it was a learning experience for sure, which is what life is about, but I was able to figure it out, and I’m really happy with the product that we have now. Honestly, we’ve had only positive feedback. And that makes me feel like we did the right thing.”

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---------------------STREAM MONITORING TRAINING: 9-11:30am, Grass River Natural Area, Bellaire. Twice each year, GRNA monitors several sites along the three major streams running through the natural area to assess the health of the waterways. Every year, new volunteers are trained to help collect this data & contribute to keeping GRNA’s creeks healthy.

If you’re interested in learning how to collect this data, please pre-register by email to Emily@ grassriver.org. grassriver.org

---------------------FREE ART WORKSHOP WITH ILLUSTRATOR BRIANNE FARLEY: 10am. Held via Zoom. In “No Buddy Like a Book,” characters travel to the top of Mt. Everest, outerspace, & a fantastical jungle.

Make a jungle of your own while Farley shows you how to paint colorful paper, cut it into simple shapes, collage & add drawings on top. Extra art supplies will be on hand at the Leelanau Township Library & Leland Township Library for pick up. Free. zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMsf--srj0tHNIG0OHS7CtL4U7Nxt3KmPg4

---------------------GREAT LAKES CLEANUP: 10am, City of Traverse City Volleyball Beach. Hosted by The Watershed Center. gtbay.org/events/greatlakes-cleanup

---------------------GREAT LAKES CLEANUP: 10am, Keith J. Charters, Traverse City State Park Beach. gtbay.org/events/great-lakes-cleanup

---------------------SIDEWALK BOOK SALE: 10am-2pm, Alden District Library. Books, audio books, DVDs, music CDs & puzzles. 231-331-4318.

---------------------GLEN LAKE RESTAURANT WEEK: April 23 - May 1. Held in the greater Glen Arbor area.

Enjoy an array of menu options “from French Fries to French Cuisine” with these confirmed participants: Art’s Tavern, Blu, Cherry Public House, La Becasse and Western Avenue Grill.

Look for a special 3 course, prix-fixe Restaurant Week Menu (dinner & some offering lunch) to range in price point from $25-$35. facebook. com/eatglenarbor

SCOOBY DOO-WOP TWO-WOP: 11am, 1pm & 3pm. Mashup Rock & Roll Musical presents a sequel to their Scooby Doo-Wop, a live, drive-in theatre adventure. This Covid-safe performance allows for the audience to stay safely in their cars while they enjoy live dance & performance & get to be a part of the mystery by solving puzzles & clues through their smart phone. Limited spots are available & must be reserved in advance.

The show will begin at the Old Town Playhouse, TC parking lot & then will move to one other location. $32 per car. mashuprockandrollmusical. com/scooby-doo-wop-two-wop

----------------------

may

01-09

send your dates to: events@traverseticker.com

GREAT LAKES CLEANUP: 2pm, Old Mission Lighthouse Park. gtbay.org/events/great-lakescleanup

may 02

sunday

“BIRDS & WORDS” NO. 2: 10am. A virtual experience celebrating the art & culture of the winged wonders around us every day that will be streamed on Zoom & Facebook Live & archived after. Collaborators at The Boardman Review, Here: Say Storytelling, & The National Writers Series each helped to curate a one-time only gathering of writers & guests from across the northern Michigan region. Follow along as birding expert, Nate Crane of Rare Bird Brewpub returns to host live bird watching & listening interludes from Michigan Legacy Art Park at Crystal Mountain, part of the Sleeping Bear Birding Trail. Free. michiganlegacyartpark.medium.com/birds-words-experiment-continues-insecond-edition-fdc9ef358396

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------PREVIOUSLY LOVED BICYCLE NEIGHBORHOOD YARD SALE: 11am-3pm, Norte Wheelhouse, GT County Civic Center, TC. Buy a bike, sell a bike. elgruponorte.org/yardsale

---------------------GREAT LAKES CLEANUP: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------SCOOBY DOO-WOP TWO-WOP: (See Sat., May 1)

may 03

monday

NORTHERN MICHIGAN HIV SUMMIT: 10am, Thomas Judd Care Center, TC. Thomas Judd Care Center hosts speakers on current topics regarding HIV treatment, prevention, & other related topics. Continuing education credits are offered. Keynote speaker: Cleve Jones - activist, lecturer, & author of “When We Rise.” Each registrant will receive a complimentary signed copy of Jones’s book.

Free; registration required. munsonhealthcare. org/services/hiv-aids/hiv-aids

Join Downtown TC merchants as they host artists in their shops during the Downtown Art Walk, Fri. and Sat., May 7-8 from 4-7pm. Check out interactive community art activities from partners at Crooked Tree Arts Center, Arts for All, and the Dennos Museum Center. Pick up a walking guide at all participating locations. downtowntc. com/downtown-art-walk SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1)

----------------------

er will come to your car window for a one-on-one interview. crystalmountain.com/event/job-fair-2

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SOCIAL HOUR: 6pm, TruFit Trouser Building, courtyard. TCMasks. Presented by Arts for All of Northern Michigan. Held in person! Masks required. Snacks & beverages will be provided as well as a collaborative art project. RSVP. form.jotform.com/211124739935155?mc_ cid=10c7312b5b&mc_eid=31c0d0fd7e

BALANCE IS THE KEY TO REDUCING YOUR FALL RISK!: Noon. Online presentation

by Jeff Samyn, PT, OCS, CSCS. Register. ncmclifelonglearning.com/event-4242629

DRIVE THROUGH JOB FAIR: 2-6pm, Crystal Mountain, Thompsonville. Join Crystal Mountain for your chance to interview with hiring managers for available summer jobs. Applicants are encouraged to apply online prior to attending the Job Fair. Applicants will drive to Lot “L” near the Loki Chairlift, where a member of the Human Resources team will greet you in your vehicle. Once they have verified that you’ve applied online, they will direct you to a parking spot where a hiring manag-

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may 04

tuesday

2001 NW MI ARTS & CULTURE VIRTUAL SUMMIT: 9:30am-3pm. NW MI Arts &

NOW HIRING ALL POSITIONS

Seeking fun and ambitious people to join our team and earn a summer bonus of $1000 or $1200!

Caring work environment, high income potential, and benefits (insurance, dining discounts, profit sharing & vacation pay).

Flexible hours * Full or Part Time

Please aPPly in Person at any location or online at magnumhosPitality.com

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 21

HAPPY HOUR DRINK SPECIALS Tues - 4-8pm: The Pocket Mon March 16- $5 martinis, $5 domestic beer pitcher, $10 craft beer pitcher.

FROM OPEN-6PM 9pm-1am: Kung Fu Rodeo Hours Mon-Thurs 2pm-11pm

noon-11pm in the can night - $1 domestic, Wed - Get itFri-Sun

TO-GO OR DERS AVAILABL E 231-2524157

01-10

Sun-Thurs Noon-10pm Fri/Sat Noon-11pm (kitchen open noon-9pm) closed Wednesdays

DRINK SPECIALS (3-6 Monday-Friday): $2 well drinks, $2 domestic drafts, $2.50 domestic bottles, $5 Hornitos margarita

craft- w/DJ JR Mon$3May 3rd -jukebox

Thurs -$2 off all drinks and

Tues$2May 4thdrafts - Openw/DJ MicRicky Comedy Labatt T Wed Mayof5th Ricky Tat $8 (2-8pm) Fri March 20 - Buckets Beer- DJ starting $2 domestic drafts $3 craft drafts Happy Hour: The Chris Michels Band& Then: The Isaac Ryder Band from 7:30-11pm.

Fri May 7th - Wax Sat May 8thSunday - Don March Swan &22The 4 Horsemen KARAOKE ( 10pm-2am) Sun May 9th - Karaoke

may

• 4-6PM TUES RLIE CHA NE GOLF O ING AIS FUNDR NT EVE

Sat March 21 - The Isaac Ryder Band (No Covers)

DAILY FOOD SPECIALS (3-6pm): Monday - $1 chips/salsa Tuesday - $1 enchiladas Thursday - $5 hot pretzels w/ beer cheese Friday - $5 fried veggies (cauliflower or mushrooms) e tertainm Patio en -9:30) (6:30

941-1930 downtown TC check us out at unionstreetstationtc.net

nt

Fri May 7th - Project 6 Sat May 8th - The Pocket

221 E State St. downtown TC

Culture Network is hosting its 2021 regional summit via Zoom. Artists of all disciplines, arts & cultural organizations, creative businesses, community builders, planners & stakeholders are invited to participate. Recovery, resiliency & reshaping are key themes with discussions, demos & hands-on tools & strategies. Free for members; $20 nonmembers. nwmiarts.org/ annual-summit

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VIRTUAL CONNECTING WOMEN LUNCHEON: “Removing the Lids”: Conquering obstacles for explosive growth. Presented by Jennifer Paffi. Held via Remo. $20 Gaylord Area Chamber of Commerce members; $25 nonmembers. Register. Networking at 11:30am; presentation at noon. gaylordchamber.com/ events/details/connecting-women-virtual-removing-the-lids-4854

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------AAUW TC LAND BACK THROUGH BIRTHWORK: 5:30pm. Virtual event. The May speaker will be Angie Sanchez & the title of her talk will be “Land Back Through Birthwork.” Angie is a graduate student at MSU in the geography department & a member of the GT Band of Ottawa & Chippewa. She will be speaking about her work to increase breastfeeding in the Native community. Free. traversecityarea-mi.aauw.net

---------------------TCNEWTECH PITCH EVENT: 6-7pm. Held online. For startups, investors, innovators, & those who love new ideas. Each presenter will be allowed 5 minutes to present their business or new technology & 5 minutes of questions from the audience. The audience decides which startup will receive the $500 cash prize by voting via text. The audience is made up of technology-minded people & consists of programmers, IT staff, people looking for opportunities for their tech company, tech companies looking for staff, individuals looking for an investment opportunity, start-up founders looking for investors, & tech geeks that just like learning about new ideas. Watch via the TCNewTech Facebook page or YouTube Channel.

Free. tcnewtech.org/pitch

CAREER

----------------------

COMFORT GREAT

Help keep seniors safe at home.

may 05

TRAINING

PAY BENEFITS

Elevating the Human Spirit

™

866-929-9044 comfortkeeperstc.com

22 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

A RESILIENT GARDEN: 6:30pm. A virtual meeting of the Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan. Robin Smillie will present a program about tough plants that can withstand insects, pests, disease & environmental challenges. MGANM members, free; non-members, $5 donation. MGANM.org

wednesday

NORTHERN MICHIGAN BIKES TO SCHOOL DAY: Join students, parents, teachers & staff around the region by modeling a great way to get to school - by biking there. elgruponorte.org/theme_ event/school/?mc_cid=3a0b357c9e&mc_ eid=df24b9efb4

---------------------TIP OF THE MITT SCORE OFFERS FREE WEBINAR: 9am. “Understanding Quickbooks Online.” Featuring David George, CPA. A part of the Petoskey Chamber Business Builders Series. Register. score.tfaforms. net/17?EventID=a105a000006v27d

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------STORY ADVENTURES: 11am. Join the Petoskey District Library & TOPOnexus for a short outdoor story time at the library labyrinth, followed by a mini walking adventure that takes you out & about town. Use your senses to explore four themes that make Petoskey special – water, rocks, trees, & town. Ages 3-5. Siblings welcome. 500 E. Mitchell St., Petoskey. Free. petoskeylibrary.evanced.info/signup/EventDet ails?EventId=9151&backTo=Calendar&startDa te=2021/05/01

10 WARNING SIGNS OF ALZHEIMER’S: 7pm. Online program. Held in partnership with The Alzheimer’s Association®. Register. Free. ncmclifelonglearning.com/event-4228911

may 06

thursday

DREAM TO GALLERY TALKS: Noon, Charlevoix Circle of Arts. Kim Richelle: Journey of the Fool. Kim brings visitors through the Journey of the Fool, the tarot display, while discussing the subconscious explored through the historic symbolism of the tarot deck.

Free. charlevoixcircle.org

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) FREE WEBINAR ON HUMAN EXPLOITATION & HUMAN SMUGGLING: 4pm. Sponsored by Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center. Register. Free. eventbrite.com/e/letstalk-human-trafficking-w-carly-bentley-tickets-1 43741279035?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

---------------------WALLOON LAKE READS: THE NICK ADAMS STORIES: 7pm. Featuring “Company of Two” with Katherine Palmer, adjunct instructor of English at NCMC & English teacher at Boyne City High School. Held via Zoom. Register. walloonlakemi.com/grab-a-book-and-join-walloonlake-reads-the-nick-adams-stories

may 07

friday

DOWNTOWN ART WALK: 4-7pm, May 7-8. Join Downtown TC merchants as they host artists in their shops.

Check out interactive community art activities from partners at Crooked Tree Arts Center, Arts for All, & the Dennos Museum Center. Pick up a walking guide at all participating locations. downtowntc. com/downtown-art-walk

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------62ND ANNUAL MESICK MUSHROOM FESTIVAL: May 7-9. Today includes the Mushroom Contest, 20th Annual Blessings of the Jeeps, carnival, Co-Ed Softball Tournament, Ping-Pong Ball Drop, Friday Night Street Fair & more. mesick-mushroomfest.org/schedule.html

---------------------MADE IN CHEBOYGAN CRAFT SHOW: 127pm, Washington Park, Cheboygan. Join over 20 vendors each month for a weekend of arts, crafts & shopping. Free. facebook.com/madeincheboygan

may 08

saturday

DOWNTOWN ART WALK: (See Fri., May 7)

--------------

62ND ANNUAL MESICK MUSHROOM FESTIVAL: May 7-9. Today includes the Co-Ed Softball Tournament, Money Hunt, Hobby-Craft Show, MMF Grand Parade, Mesick Bulldog Marching Band Concert, Mesick Mushroom 5K “Glow in the Dark” & more. mesickmushroomfest.org/schedule.html

---------------------27TH SUE DEYOUNG/JUDY EDGER MEMORIAL BREAST CANCER WALK & RUN: 9amnoon, East Park Pavilion, Charlevoix. $30 entry fee to receive an event t-shirt. walkruncure.org

---------------------MADE IN CHEBOYGAN CRAFT SHOW: 9am-3pm, Washington Park, Cheboygan. Join over 20 vendors each month for a weekend of arts, crafts & shopping. Free. facebook.com/madeincheboygan

---------------------SPRING ART MARKET: (See Sat., May 1) ---------------------THE VILLAGE TAG SALE: 10am-6pm, The Village at GT Commons, TC. An indoor sidewalk

sale held in the Mercato. thevillagetc.com/thevillage-tag-sale

750 words; maximum 1,000 words. tceconclub. com/traverse-city-econ-club-essay-contest

IRIS FOLDING CLASS: 11am, Interlochen Public Library, Community Room. Adults learn the craft technique of iris folding using strips of colored paper to form a design. Class size limited. Sign up required: 231-276-6767.

ICEMAN COMETH VIRTUAL TRAINING CHALLENGE: Ride 500, 1,000, or 3,000 miles to prepare for the 2021 Bell’s Iceman Cometh Challenge presented by Trek. Each distance will have its own exclusive Strava Club for tips & support, with all entrants eligible for prizes each month. Runs March 5 - Oct. 30. Registration ends Sept. 30. $25. registericeman.com/Race/ Events/MI/TraverseCity/IcemanComethChallen ge#eventGroup-7424

------------------------------------------SCOOBY DOO-WOP TWO-WOP: (See Sat., May 1)

---------------------GOPHERWOOD CONCERTS PRESENTS ROOT DOCTOR: 7pm. Streamed online. This award winning Michigan based blues & soul band has released half a dozen albums to date. There have been personnel changes over the years but James Williams & Freddie Cunningham have remained consistent. gopherwoodconcerts.org

may 09

sunday

62ND ANNUAL MESICK MUSHROOM FESTIVAL: May 7-9. Today includes the Co-Ed Softball Tournament, Antique Car Show & Cruise, carnival & more. mesick-mushroomfest.org/schedule.html

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---------------------BLOOMS & BIRDS: WILDFLOWER WALK: Tuesdays, 10am-noon, Grass River Natural Area, Bellaire. Go for a relaxing stroll on the trails with GRNA docents Julie Hurd & Phil Jarvi to find & identify the beautiful & unique wildflowers. grassriver.org

---------------------DISABILITY NETWORK MEN’S GROUP: ZOOM MEETINGS: Mondays, 10am through May 24. disabilitynetwork.org/events

----------------------

DISABILITY NETWORK PEER ADVOCACY GROUP: ZOOM MEETINGS: Thursdays, 2pm through May 27. disabilitynetwork.org/events

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SCOOBY DOO-WOP TWO-WOP: (See Sat., May 1)

DISABILITY NETWORK WOMEN’S GROUP, SHARING HERSTORY: ZOOM MEETINGS: Mondays, 11am through May 24. disabilitynetwork.org/events

THE ACCIDENTALS “TIME OUT” VIRTUAL EP RELEASE SHOW: 8pm. Featuring five artists in-the-round. The Accidentals are joined by Dar Williams, Tom Paxton, Kim Richey, & Maia Sharp. Tickets: $25; tickets with VIP Q&A + Merch Bundle: $100. cityoperahouse.org/node/386

DISABILITY NETWORK’S QUARANTINE COOKING: Held via Zoom on Tuesdays at 2pm through May 25. Learn how to prepare & cook food using different adaptable tools, making cooking accessible for all. disabilitynetwork.org/ events

-------------------------------------------

ongoing

TRAVERSE CITY UNCORKED: Featuring self-guided tours of more than 40 area wineries while offering incentives, hotel discounts & a chance to win prizes. The event will feature a digital passport where guests can check into Traverse Wine Coast locations throughout the month of May. With five check-ins they are eligible to choose from an Uncorked t-shirt or TC wine-related gift items. The passports can be redeemed at the TC Visitor Center. Guests staying at participating hotels will also be entered to win a wine-themed TC vacation. The winner of the TC Uncorked grand prize will be announced in early June.

---------------------ROSÉ ALL MAY WITH LEELANAU PENINSULA WINE TRAIL: For an advance ticket purchase price of $35, ticket holders can enjoy a 3 oz. glass of rosé at each of the 21 participating wineries in an event-themed souvenir glass. mynorthtickets.com/events/rosall-may-5-1-2021

---------------------ACCEPTING BOAT AUCTION DONATIONS: Maritime Heritage Alliance is now accepting donations of watercraft & nautical gear for the upcoming June 5th Boat Auction & Garage Sale.

Call to schedule: 946-2647 or visit online. maritimeheritagealliance.org/annual-boat-auction

---------------------VIRTUAL 2021 BAYSHORE MARATHON REGISTRATION: Featuring a marathon, half marathon & 10K. Register. Event held on May 29. bayshoremarathon.org

---------------------ESSAY CONTEST: The Economic Club of Traverse City is accepting entries for its annual essay contest. This year’s essay question is: Should the government, at any level, spend taxpayer dollars for early childhood (birth to kindergarten) programs? Discuss the costs & benefits to society of such programs as Head Start, early child development, home visitation, nutrition counseling, etc. First place award is $1,500; second place is $1,000. The contest is open to all high school juniors & seniors in the five-county Grand Traverse region. Deadline to enter is May 1. Essays should be a minimum of

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---------------------FANTASTIC FRIDAYS: A weekly celebration of students walking & rolling to school in northern Michigan. They are fun community actions to encourage elementary & middle school students to actively move themselves to school. Park & Stroll option: Do you live too far from school to walk or bike? Or, maybe you don’t have a safe route to school from home? You can still participate. These routes allow you to park a short distance from your school & walk or roll the rest. elgruponorte. org/fridays

---------------------GENTLE YOGA CLASS: Tuesdays, 9am, Interlochen Public Library. Hosted by Leah Davis.

Bring your own mat, water bottle & towel. Donations appreciated. interlochenpubliclibrary.org

---------------------MISS ANN’S ZOOM STORY HOUR: 11am.

Presented by Interlochen Public Library. Held via Zoom. Weekly themes & craft supplies provided. Meeting ID: 876 3279 3456. Pass Code: storyhour. For more info call: 231-276-6767.

---------------------PEEPERS PROGRAM: Tuesdays, 10-11am, April 20 – May 18. Boardman River Nature Center, outside, TC. Presented by the Grand Traverse Conservation District. For ages 3-5. Includes stories, crafts, music & discovery activities. Pre-register. natureiscalling. org/events

---------------------YARN THERAPY: GET HOOKED: Tuesdays, 11am, Interlochen Public Library, Community Room. Bring your own project. Class size is limited. 231-276-6767.

---------------------BELLAIRE WINTER FARMERS MARKET: Held on Fridays from 10am-2pm. Located at both Bee Well & Terrain in downtown Bellaire.

---------------------BOYNE CITY INDOOR FARMERS MARKET: Saturdays, 9am-noon through May 15. City Hall Lobby, Boyne City. petoskeyarea.com/eventdetail/boyne-city-indoor-farmers-market-1

---------------------SARA HARDY DOWNTOWN FARMERS MARKET: Saturdays, 7:30am-noon, May 1 Oct. 30. The Wednesday market begins the first Weds. in June. Held in parking lot “B” at the southwest corner of Cass & Grandview Parkway in Downtown TC. The farmers mar-

ket will take place on the ground floor of the Old Town Parking Deck during the National Cherry Festival. dda.downtowntc.com/farmers-market

WE BELIEVE AND WHY”: Runs through May 29 at Charlevoix Circle of Arts. This exhibit explores the path to why we believe what we believe through the mythological illustrations & writing of Charlevoix artist Kim Richelle. charlevoixcircle.org

----------------------

art

COMEONCOMEONCOMEON: Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts, Manistee. Jef Bourgeau’s canvases are “big, blunt, clumsy fragments of color and rumpled, spinning geometrics.” Runs April 23 - May 21. Open Fridays from 4-6pm & Saturdays from 12-3pm. ci.ovationtix.com/35295/production/1044645

---------------------“DON’T MISS THE BOAT”: Harbor Springs History Museum. Presented by the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society. This exhibit highlights the historic ferries of Little Traverse Bay & features original watercolors & giclees by local artist William Talmadge Hall. Runs through the summer of 2021. Hours: Tues.Sat., 11am-3pm. harborspringshistory.org/ history-museum-exhibits

---------------------CAAC’S 2021 VIRTUAL YOUTH ART SHOW: The Cheboygan Area Arts Council announces its second annual Virtual Youth Art Show. It will be hosted on the Cheboygan Opera House website & promoted online & around town. The CAAC brings work from over 100+ youth art students each year.

Homeschoolers & students from Bishop Baraga, Cheboygan Area High, Middle, & Elementary schools are displaying their best work.

Check out the 2021 Virtual Youth Art Show online starting May 1. To submit artwork, fill out this form: https://bit.ly/3aadQKX. Questions? Email Lisa at lisa@theoperahouse. org. theoperahouse.org/2021/03/29/caacs2021-virtual-youth-art-show-opens-may-1st

---------------------BLOW UP II: INFLATABLE CONTEMPORARY ART: Runs through May 16 at Dennos Museum Center, NMC, TC. This exhibit explores the imaginative ways that air is used as a tool to create large-scale sculptures. The artists translate everyday materials & imagery into largerthan-life, yet nearly lighter-than-air art. Curated

by Carrie Lederer & organized by Bedford Gallery at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, CA. dennosmuseum.org

----------------------

CALL FOR ARTISTS: Artists’ submissions will be considered for participation in “Artists for Wings of Wonder.” This exhibit/fundraiser will be comprised MAINLY of invited artists, many of whom are indigenous artists, members of Project Civilartzation & a handful of artwork from artists who submit work for consideration. Deadline for submissions is Aug. 1. higherartgallery. com/calls-for-art?utm_campaign=76e0e3f8783d-4933-886f-8bca34912c32&utm_ source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=eb482774c704-42f1-b837-d0ffd856d02c

---------------------100 DAYS OF CREATIVE EMPOWERMENT: Held every Mon. through May 3 from 5:30-7pm.

A live online class. Register. Each week a local artist will share their skills to ignite your creativity. Engage in painting, iPhone photography, comic book creation & more. gaylordarts.org

---------------------CONCERT OF COLOR - WORKS BY RICHARD STOCKER: Old Art Building, Leland.

Over 25 of Stocker’s paintings will be on display, & the artist will be on site four days each week coloring his own handmade ink designs.

Stocker’s coloring pages will be available for purchase, & anyone interested is welcome to join a coloring session. The show is open & free for public viewing from April 26 - May 14, 10am–4pm, Mondays through Saturdays. oldartbuilding.com

---------------------PRINTMAKING: Jordan River Arts Council, East Jordan. Exhibit runs through May 1. Gallery is open Saturdays & Sundays from 1-4pm or by appointment made through the JRAC. Email: jordanriverarts@gmail.com. jordanriverarts.com

---------------------“DREAM TO REALITY: EXPLORING WHAT

CROOKED TREE ARTS CENTER, PETOSKEY: - EGAN FRANKS HOLZHAUSEN: NEVER THOUGHT TWICE: Runs through June 26 in the Atrium Gallery. All works were made with upcycled materials, including old paintings discarded or abandoned in a community studio, scrap wood, & leftover paint from other projects or one-off samples from big box stores. crookedtree.org/event/ctac-petoskey/eganfranks-holzhausen-never-thought-twice - A LAND’S CONSERVANCY: RECLAIMING NATURE: Runs through June 1. Over the past year, Harbor Springs photographer Raymond Gaynor has been documenting the Little Traverse Conservancy’s Offield Family Viewlands.

Gaynor’s images capture the way nature conserves itself through a process of growth & rebirth. crookedtree.org/event/ctac-petoskey/ lands-conservancy-reclaiming-nature-raymond-gaynor - GREAT: REFLECTIONS ON THE GREAT LAKES: This exhibition asks Great Lakes-area artists to share original works of art that reflect on the theme “Great.” Juried by artist Susan Moran.

Runs through June 1. crookedtree.org/event/ ctac-petoskey/great-reflections-great-lakes

---------------------- CROOKED TREE ARTS CENTER - PETOSKEY’S ANNUAL YOUTH ART SHOW: The artwork created by students in the Char-Em ISD & homeschool students in Charlevoix & Emmet counties will be on display online through Fri., June 11. crookedtree.org - “KIDS ON COMMUNITY”: Youth artists were invited to submit artwork in response to the theme of “Community.” Fun, thoughtful & creative interpretations by Michigan youth (grades 3 - 12) are included in this online image gallery.

Runs through June 30, 2021. crookedtree.org/ event/ctac-petoskey-ctac-online/kids-community-online-exhibit - THE COLLECTIVE IMPULSE - ONLINE EXHIBIT: Runs through Aug. Featuring the work of artists Ruth Bardenstein, Jean Buescher & Susan Moran. The three artists met in Ann Arbor &, over time, have nurtured both personal & creative connections. They regularly share & critique one another’s work & together visit gallery & museum exhibitions. The exhibition was hosted at the Crooked Tree Arts Center Petoskey from Sept. 21 through Dec. 18, 2020.

This online publication shares work from the exhibition. crookedtree.org/event/ctac-petoskey-ctac-traverse-city-ctac-online/collectiveimpulse-online

---------------------GLEN ARBOR ARTS CENTER, GLEN ARBOR: - A CELEBRATION: THE PAINTINGS OF AMY L. CLARK-CARELS: Runs May 3 - Aug. 31. Featuring many paintings of local landmarks — from Alligator Hill to interior scenes from the historic Sleeping Bear Inn. glenarborart.org - MINI MASTERPIECES: Outdoor exhibit. Tiny works will be hung on trees along the GAAC’s gravel walkway from Lake Street to the gallery & in the GAAC’s Grove behind the building. This self-guided experience runs through May 26.

Mini Masterpieces are 3” x 3” canvases illustrated & painted by children in Leelanau County. glenarborart.org - MANITOU MUSIC POSTER COMPETITION - CALL FOR ENTRY: The Glen Arbor Arts Center is accepting submissions of original paintings for its 2022 Manitou Music poster competition.

The deadline for online submissions is Sept.

16. Open to all current GAAC members. Each year, the GAAC selects an original painting for this limited edition poster. It is sold through the GAAC & at selected shops & art galleries in Leelanau County. glenarborart.org/artist-opportunities/manitou-music-poster-competition - CLOTHESLINE EXHIBIT CALL-FOR-ENTRIES: The Glen Arbor Arts Center is moving art outdoors. The Clothesline Exhibit,

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 23

July 24 – Aug. 27, is an open-air exhibition of small work. This year’s theme, Wild Friends, challenges makers of all skills to create an unframed painting, drawing, photograph or collage on a single, 5” x 7” sheet of paper around this theme. Each work will be placed in a sealed plastic envelope & pinned to a clothesline in front of the GAAC building at 6031 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor. The Clothesline Exhibition may be viewed 24/7, rain or shine. For info on submitting an entry to the Clothesline Exhibit, go to GlenArborArt.org/ ARTISTS. Deadline for submissions is July 6.

231-334-6112. glenarborart.org/artists/callsfor-entry/clothesline-exhibit-call-for-entries - CALL-FOR-ENTRIES: EVERYDAY OBJECTS EXHIBITION: Runs Aug. 27 – Oct. 28.

Online applications for this juried show may be submitted through July 15. It is open to 2D & 3D objects in a wide variety of media. The GAAC is open Mon. through Sat., 11am–2pm. glenarborart.org/artists/calls-for-entry/everyday-objectsprospectus

- MEMBERS CREATE EXHIBITION: On display: 41 works in both 2D & 3D by northern Michigan artists & beyond. The online version of the exhibition is also available for viewing. Business hours: 11am–2pm, Mon. through Sat. glenarborart.org/events/exhibit2021-members-create OLIVER ART CENTER, FRANKFORT: - ANNUAL REGIONAL STUDENT EXHIBITION: Runs through May 7. oliverartcenterfrankfort.org/gallery-gift-shop/exhibition-calendar - CALL FOR ART: LITTLE FREE ART GALLERIES: Oliver Art Center will have Little Free Art Galleries in three places: Oliver Art Center, Century 21 Northland, & Benzie Shores District Library, all in Frankfort. Volunteers make art on a small scale & place in the gallery. Visitors may view the art, take the art, leave their own art, or make a monetary contribution via oliverart.org.

Frankfort’s Little Free Art Galleries will be installed & ready for art & visitors May 1. Oliver Art Center is currently accepting art for the galleries. oliverartcenterfrankfort.org

Deadline for Dates information is Tuesday for the following week.

“Jonesin” Crosswords "Ask Your Doctor"--they sound like prescriptions. by Matt Jones

JOIN THE CANNABIS TEXT ALERT CLUB!

24 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

ACROSS 1 “Dis or ___” (“You Don’t Know Jack” round) 4 Ozone depleter, for short 7 Brotherhood brothers 12 Obama’s first chief of staff Rahm 14 Fragmented 16 *“Feel the need to get in hot water? Ask your doctor if ___ is right for you.”

17 *“Are you managing your health under ‘New Rules’? Ask your doctor if ___ ...”

19 Our top story?

20 Things to pick 22 Film set in cyberspace 23 7, on a grandfather clock 24 Chime in 26 Prefix meaning “iron-containing” 27 Maritime patrol org.

29 *”Lack of unusual influences getting you down? Ask your doctor if ___ ...”

31 “Atlas Shrugged” novelist Rand 33 “And giving ___, up the chimney he rose” 34 Marlins’ MLB div.

35 In-browser programs 39 Tiny amounts 41 Conk out 42 Feast on the beach 44 Roman 1011 45 *”Do you need to reach higher in life? Ask your doctor if ___ ...”

48 Aquafina rival 52 Game show host Convy and Muppet ... well, we don’t get a last name 53 Gnocchi-like dumplings (from the Italian for “naked”) 55 “Who Let the Dogs Out?” group Baha ___ 56 “You’re in trou-bllle ...”

57 Poison lead singer Michaels 58 Barely enough 60 *”Want to feel like you did it your way? Ask your doctor if ___ ...”

62 *”Feel like the only way to be cured is by meat? Ask your doctor if ___ ...”

64 Milk acid

Deadline for Dates info Tuesday for the follow

65 Seven days from now 66 Nebraska senator Ben who voted to impeach in the February 2021 trial 67 ___ Equis 68 “Black-ish” dad

DOWN 1 “Done it before” feeling 2 Cremona violins 3 Gambit 4 Capital of the 21-Down Empire 5 Moroccan hat 6 Medical center 7 Age range for most high-schoolers 8 Heavy burden 9 Bucks’ org.

10 Out of ___ (askew) 11 Like some renditions 13 Rapa ___ (Easter Island, to locals) 15 Trivia quiz website that also offers pub trivia 18 Licorice-flavored seeds 21 See 4-Down 25 Kept inside 26 Former Army base in N.J. 28 Gadot of “Wonder Woman” 30 Scarfed, even more slangily 32 Barks sharply 35 Marinated Philippine dishes 36 Disinfectant ingredient 37 Kuala Lumpur’s ___ Towers skyscrapers 38 Provide table talk?

40 “What’s the ___?” (“So what?”)

43 ___ Reader (alternative digest) 46 Home of Odysseus and Penelope 47 Won on eBay, usually 49 Took an x-ray of, perhaps 50 Kendall or Kylie 51 Consumption 54 Cozumel y Mallorca, por ejemplo 57 Rite performed by a mohel 59 Dairy dweller 61 Some two-door Audi models 63 One of “Two Virgins” on a 1968 album cover

lOGY

MAY 03 - MAY 09

BY ROB BREZSNY

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus poet Vera Pavlova writes, “Why

is the word yes so brief? It should be the longest, the hardest, so that you could not decide in an instant to say it, so that upon reflection you could stop in the middle of saying it.” I suppose it makes sense for her to express such an attitude, given the fact that she never had a happy experience until she was 20 years old, and that furthermore, this happiness was “unbearable.” (She confessed these sad truths in an interview.) But I hope you won’t adopt her hard-edged skepticism toward YES anytime soon, Taurus. In my view, it’s time for you to become a connoisseur of YES, a brave explorer of the bright mysteries of YES, an exuberant perpetrator of YES.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): As Scorpio author Margaret Atwood reminds us, “Water is not a solid wall; it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, being like water will be an excellent strategy for you to embrace during the coming weeks. “Water is patient,” Atwood continues. “Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) In a letter to a friend in 1856, Sagittarian poet Emily Dickinson confessed she was feeling discombobulated because of a recent move to a new home. She hoped she would soon regain her bearings. “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself,” she quipped, adding that she couldn’t help laughing at her disorientation.

She signed the letter “From your mad Emilie,” intentionally misspelling her own name. I’d love it if you approached your current doubt and uncertainty with a similar light-heartedness and poise. (PS: Soon after writing this letter, Dickinson began her career as a poet in earnest, reading extensively and finishing an average of one poem every day for many years.)

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Now

is a favorable time to celebrate both life’s changeableness and your own. The way we are all constantly called on to adjust to unceasing transformations can sometimes be a wearying chore, but I suspect it could be at least interesting and possibly even exhilarating for you in the coming weeks.

For inspiration, study this message from the “Welcome to Night Vale” podcast: “You are never the same twice, and much of your unhappiness comes from trying to pretend that you are. Accept that you are different each day, and do so joyfully, recognizing it for the gift it is. Work within the desires and goals of the person you are currently, until you aren’t that person anymore.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian

author Toni Morrison described two varieties of loneliness. The first “is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion smooths and contains the rocker.” The second “is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own.” Neither kind is better or worse, of course, and both are sometimes necessary as a strategy for self-renewal—as a means for deepening and finetuning one’s relationship with oneself. I recommend either or both for you in the coming weeks.

PISCES (Feb 19-March 20): England’s Prince

Charles requires his valet to iron his shoelaces and put toothpaste on his toothbrush and wash all of his clothes by hand. I could conceivably interpret the current astrological omens to mean that you should pursue similar behavior in the coming weeks. I could, but I won’t. Instead, I will suggest that you solicit help about truly important matters, not meaningless trivia like shoelace ironing. For example, I urge you to ask for the support you need as you build bridges, seek harmony, and make interesting connections.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Created by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century, the Mona Lisa is one of the world’s most famous paintings. It’s hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris. In that same museum is a less renowned version of the Mona Lisa. It depicts the same woman, but she’s

unclothed. Made by da Vinci’s student, it was probably inspired by a now-lost nude Mona Lisa painted by the master himself.

Renaissance artists commonly created “heavenly” and “vulgar” versions of the same subject. I suggest that in the coming weeks you opt for the “vulgar” Mona Lisa, not the “heavenly” one, as your metaphor of power. Favor what’s earthy, raw, and unadorned over what’s spectacular, idealized, and polished.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In indigenous

cultures from West Africa to Finland to China, folklore describes foxes as crafty tricksters with magical powers. Sometimes they’re thought of as perpetrators of pranks, but more often they are considered helpful messengers or intelligent allies. I propose that you regard the fox as your spirit creature for the foreseeable future. I think you will benefit from the influence of your inner fox—the wild part of you that is ingenious, cunning, and resourceful.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “The universe

conspires in your favor,” writes author Neale Donald Welsch. “It consistently places before you the right and perfect people, circumstances, and situations with which to answer life’s only question: ‘Who are you?’” In my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, I say much the same thing, although I mention two further questions that life regularly asks, which are: 1. What can you do next to liberate yourself from some of your suffering? 2. What can you do next to reduce the suffering of others, even by a little? As you enter a phase when you’ll get ample cosmic help in diminishing suffering and defining who you are, I hope you meditate on these questions every day.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The poet Anne Sexton

wrote a letter to a Benedictine monk whose real identity she kept secret from the rest of us. She told him, “There are a few great souls in my life.

They are not many. They are few. You are one.” In this spirit, Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to take an inventory of the great souls in your life: the people you admire and respect and learn from and feel grateful for; people with high integrity and noble intentions; people who are generous with their precious gifts. When you’ve compiled your list, I encourage you to do as Sexton did: Express your appreciation; perhaps even send no-strings-attached gifts.

Doing these things will have a profoundly healing effect on you.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “It’s a temptation

for any intelligent person to try to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self,” writes author Donna Tartt. “But that is a mistake. Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational.” I’m sending this message out to you, Virgo, because in the coming weeks it will be crucial for you to honor the parts of your life that can’t be managed through rational thought alone. I suggest you have sacred fun as you exult in the mysterious, welcome the numinous, explore the wildness within you, unrepress big feelings you’ve buried, and marvel adoringly about your deepest yearnings.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Science writer

Sharman Apt Russell provides counsel that I think you should consider adopting in the coming days.

The psychospiritual healing you require probably won’t be available through the normal means, so some version of her proposal may be useful: “We may need to be cured by flowers. We may need to strip naked and let the petals fall on our shoulders, down our bellies, against our thighs. We may need to lie naked in fields of wildflowers. We may need to walk naked through beauty. We may need to walk naked through color. We may need to walk naked through scent.”

the ADViCE GOddESS Dear In Headlights

Q

: I’m a girl in my 20s. I recently started dating a guy I’m falling in love with. He invited me to a party to meet his friends, and I’m nervous. He’s “objectively” more attractive than I am (6-foot-2, brawny, and incredibly handsome) and very successful.

I’m attractive, but I see the looks women give him, and I can’t help but feel his friends will question why he’s interested in me.

I’m thinking of backing out of the party, but maybe I should back out of dating him entirely, given the pressure.

— Freaking

A

: The other guests are going to a party; as you see it, you’re on trial, and they’re the jury.

The invite: “Drinks, tunes, and executing the borderline attractive girl at dawn.”

Tell somebody you might end it with this guy because you’re afraid his friends will be all “Eew, why’s he with her?” and they’re sure to scold you that you shouldn’t care what other people think of you. They mean well, but this is ridiculous advice — akin to telling you not to get hungry. We evolved to be people who care what other people think. That’s built into our psychology, same as the urge that drives us to nab a burrito, which keeps us from passing out, dying, and being eaten by raccoons.

Successfully handling other people’s appraisals of you starts with throwing out everything most of us believe about self-esteem. I explain in “Unf*ckology” that this “I like me!” state we’ve been told to strive for “makes little functional sense. Psychology researchers and therapists far and wide failed to ask the ‘why?’ question that evolutionary psychology demands: Why would it be evolutionarily advantageous for you to like yourself -- for you to sit around saying, ‘I’m fabulous! Kiss the royal hand!’?”

What would’ve helped our ancestors survive and mate is other people liking them: respecting them, wanting to get it on with them, and sneaking them seconds on the bison frittatas. Accordingly, psychologist Mark Leary explains that we developed an internal monitoring system that tracks “the degree to which other people accept versus reject” us. Our resulting feelgood or feelbad (erroneously called “self-esteem”) is actually part of a three-part process: 1. Our perception of what other people think of us, which leads to 2. Feelings in us (from happy to fearful), which motivate us to 3. Maintain our social position or try to repair it.

BY Amy Alkon So, “self-esteem” is really “what other people think of us”-esteem — a measurement of our social standing — triggering emotions that drive us to preserve or fix it. In light of that, advice to “raise” your self-esteem makes no sense, because how you feel about yourself isn’t the problem, and changing that fixes nothing. (It’s like trying to feel better about your overheating car instead of putting water in the radiator.)

While being popular has many benefits, panicking at potentially being rejected made more sense when our survival in a harsh ancestral environment depended on our maintaining our social cred with a small, consistent band of people. We now live in vast cities teeming with strangers. If somebody in our social circle decides we’ve got adult cooties, we can pretty easily slide into a whole new social circle simply by hanging out at different bars.

So, your terror about meeting his friends — “LIFE OR DEATH, GIRLIE!” — is driven by psychology that’s seriously outdated: mismatched with our modern environment.

Recognizing this can help you put your yearning to be liked into a more modern perspective: Great when it happens but merely a major bummer, not a death sentence, if it doesn’t.

Lowering the stakes like this should be helpful because pressure to excel could cause you to overfocus on your performance. This can lead to clutching anxiety that impairs your ability to perform (“choking under pressure”).

Amazingly, research by Harvard Business School’s Alison Wood Brooks suggests a way to prevent choking is “reappraising” the pounding heart of anxiety as the pounding heart of excitement. Say to yourself repeatedly, “I’m so excited to go to this party and meet his friends!”

It should also help to approach the evening with a relaxed set of goals: 1. Having fun. 2.

Getting to know his friends. Because you’re with him, they’ll probably assume you’re special — which is surely why he’s with you.

(A handsome, high-status guy doesn’t get involved with a woman he finds physically and otherwise meh.) At the party, instead of trying really hard to be liked — a surefire way to be instantly unlikeable — ask people about themselves, and listen with genuine interest.

They’ll warm to you, probably without knowing why. Sure, some hearts might remain hardened, but it’s the rare person who’ll cut themselves off, mid-“me, me, me!” to pelt you with canapes and chase you out of the party with a broom.

Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 25

nitelife

may 01 - may 09 edited by jamie kauffold

Send Nitelife to: events@traverseticker.com

Emmet & Cheboygan BOYNE VALLEY VINEYARDS, PETOSKEY 5/1 -- Michelle Chenard, 2-6 5/8 -- Chris Calleja, 2-6

MAMMOTH DISTILLING, BAY HARBOR 3/6 -- The Real Ingredients, 6:309:30

Grand Traverse & Kalkaska

FANTASY’S, TC DJ MAMMOTH DISTILLING, TC 5/1, 5/8 -- Chris Smith, 7:30-10:30 THE WORKSHOP BREWING CO., TC 5/8 -- Ernie Clark & the Magnificent Bastards, 7

THIRSTY FISH SPORTS GRILLE, TC PATIO: 5/1 -- 1000 Watt Trio, 6:30-9:30 5/4 -- Charlie Golf One Fundraising Event, 4-6 5/7 -- Project 6, 6:30-9:30 5/8 -- The Pocket, 6:30-9:30

UNION STREET STATION, TC 10pm: 5/1 -- Speedball Tucker 5/2 -- Karaoke 5/3 -- Jukebox 5/4 – Open Mic Comedy 5/5 – DJ Ricky T 5/7 – Wax 5/8 – Don Swan & The 4 Horsemen 5/9 -- Karaoke

Otsego, Crawford & Central ALPINE TAVERN & EATERY, GAYLORD 5/1 -- Nelson Olstrom, 6-9

Antrim & Charlevoix MAMMOTH DISTILLING, BELLAIRE 5/1, 5/7 – Eric Clemmons, 7:3010:30

TORCH LAKE CAFÉ, CENTRAL LAKE Fri., Sat. -- Leanna Collins, 7:30

Send us your free live music listings to events@traverseticker.com

CRAVE, GAYLORD 5/8 -- Nelson Olstrom, 6-8

NORTHERN EXPRESS

CLAS SIFIE DS OTHER INTERLOCHEN SUMMER CAMP Housekeeper & Custodians $500 Bonus Opportunity Provide cleaning services for campus Valid Drivers Lic. pracilla. venhuizen@interlochen.org ________________________________________________ CRAFT & VENDOR SHOW! Crafters & Vendors from all over MI coming together! May 22 from 11am-4pm. The Ellison Place - Gaylord. First 50 people thru the door will receive a FREE goodie bag! Register as “going” on the event page to be entered into a $50 VISA giveaway.

See event page for details. www.facebook.com/ events/3986763108011656 ________________________________________________ MEIJER IS NOW HIRING ALL POSITIONS Responsible for delivering remarkable customer service by providing customers with exceptional product knowledge, efficient service and a friendly attitude. jobs.meijer.com ________________________________________________ NOW HIRING - COOKS Crystal Mountain is hiring Restaurant Cooks with premium and competitive wages based on experience. Enjoy great recreation benefits for our summer season. Year round opportunities available.

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26 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly

HAIRPORT SALON AND SPA: Licensed Nail Technician Full or Part-time Nail Technician. Hourly or booth rental. Competitive wages. Flexible schedule; weekends not required. Safe work environment. Paid Vacations. Retail sale bonuses. hairport.salonandspa@ yahoo.com ________________________________________________ NORTHWEST EDUCATION SERVICES (FORMERLY TBAISD) Northwest Education Services (formerly TBAISD) is hiring an Allied Health Instructor to join the team at the Career Tech Center! Visit our website at www.tbaisd.org for the application and full job description and apply with us today! ________________________________________________ SEEKING CANDIDATE TO SERVE AS WOODLAND SCHOOL DIRECTOR TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGANWoodland School, a tuition-free, K-8, public charter school, is seeking a candidate to serve as Woodland School Director. Candidates must be innovative and dedicated to educational excellence. Education administration certification is required and related experience is desirable. Position open until filled. Salary is dependent upon experience and advanced degrees.

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Northern Express Weekly • may 03, 2021 • 27

28 • may 03, 2021 • Northern Express Weekly