Leelanau.com’s

Top Five Features for 2018

Our top cover photo of 2018 was Lazy Days by Mark Smith, taken July 24th from the Leelanau Conservancy’s Clay Cliffs Natural Area. See lots more of Mark’s awesome photography at Downstreamer on Flickr!

Here’s our annual roundup of the top stories on Leelanau.com and the Leelanau(dot)com Facebook.

We hope you’ll become a fan of our page and if you’d like, you can use the form below to subscribe for alerts on new stories when they’re posted!

9 Bean Rows - Restaurant, Bakery & Farm
Bike Leelanau

1

Salmon at the Leland Dam…
The salmon were jumping like popcorn in the Leland River in Fishtown this fall. We caught three in this slo-mo video. Be sure to stay tuned to the end to see the little guy show them all up!

2

South Lake Leelanau Meteorite of January 28, 1879

In the Grand Traverse Journal, Richard Fidler related a forgotten tale of a meteorite that hit Leelanau County a hundred and forty years ago this coming January 28th. Click through for a long & excellent article with much more about meteorites and this incident as well as a lot of thinking on the author’s part about whether there might be a meteor under South Lake Leelanau & to see this photo (Lake Michigan Ice Light Time )from Ken Scott Photography bigger!

3

Leland Soccer Championship Scenes

The Leland Comets soccer team won the Michigan Division IV State Championship with a 1-0 victory over Ann Arbor Greenhills on November 2nd. Here’s a video with highlights from the celebration that includes a shot of the bus returning home shared by the Leland Chamber of Commerce.

4

Omena Mayor Election Candidates
We got up close & personal with some of the candidates in the Omena Historical Society’s 2018 Omena Mayoral Election. The election is a fundraiser for the OHS and this year it went viral, even making an appearance in People magazine! Congratulations to Sweet Tart the cat who beat out 13 dogs, a peacock, a chicken, another cat, and one goat!

5

Leelanau County is Michigan’s Most Expensive

The Detroit Free Press reported on a study from 24/7 Wall Street that found Leelanau County to be Michigan’s most expensive housing market with a median home price of $281,979. Surprised by this? Probably nobody on the Leelanau Peninsula!

2019

The top stories on our 2019 radar are the community takeover of operations for The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay (click for details including their open house from 2-4 PM tomorrow), and the #6 story from 2019: a move by Leland Township to abandon North & South Beach as public beaches. It’s unclear what the ruling will mean, but it’s clear that groups including Save Our Shoreline are making a push to roll back the 2005 Michigan Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of beach access to the high water mark.

Lake Michigan ... Life Ring by Ken Scott

Lake Michigan … Life Ring by Ken Scott