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The Labor Day bridge walk at the Mackinac Bridge is fairly famous. Did you know that there are several "not quite so famous" bridge walks all across Michigan? Many of the bridge walks taking place are through the "Get Michigan Moving" initiative to promote fitness
Here's a list of a bunch of the lesser known bridge walks in Michigan:
A lot of people in Michigan use the long Labor Day Weekend as a chance to enjoy one last bit of summer before school starts and the cold fall winds begin to blow. I know about 50,000 or so will be walking across the Mackinac Bridge on Monday. Most of the Michigan State Parks will be at or near capacity with folks camping over the weekend. The rest of us will most likely at least have a cookout of some sort.
How about you?
I love listening to Daisy May (May Erlewine) any time, but her songs from Mother Moon and Heart Song are even more poignant on chilly rainy days or crisp autumn days. Today is a rainy day so Daisy May is getting heavy play on my computer (yeah, I don't even use my stereo anymore) all day long. Her style is a blend of Folk and Bluegrass and her voice is just beautiful. You can take a listen to the two albums below and see for yourself.
Here's a video of Daisy May and Seth Bernard singing the title song off her album, Heart Song:
Dave Dempsey is known as an "environmental" writer. His books include such topics as the Great Lakes, conservation in Michigan, and a biography of Michigan's environmentally friendly governor - William G. Milliken. Dempsey has long been a champion of preserving and protecting Michigan's environment and also had his book, On the Brink: the Great Lakes in the 21st Century, awarded by placement on the 2005 Michigan Notable Book list.
Said Dempsey of the 2009 Michigan Author Award -
“It’s both humbling and exciting to receive this award, since Michigan is my home and the source of my writing inspiration. Its land, water, wildlife and people are an amazing tableau,” said Dempsey. “In both the writing I’ve done and the writing I hope to do, I want to tell stories about people who made a difference and the places that shaped them. The Library of Michigan is a remarkable public asset that has made such research possible.”
The last Dog n Suds drive-in that remains in Michigan is in Montague. Built in 1963 this location has been owned by the same family since 1965. Dog n Suds is open April through September from 11am to 10pm Monday through Saturday and 11am to 9pm on Sundays. Here is their full menu with prices.
If you are ever in the neighborhood I strongly recommend stopping in for some Coney dogs or a burger. Of course, you have to have some Dog n Suds root beer to make the meal complete. Great food and fun for the entire family.
It was not until recently that I knew Michigan was home to several German POW camps during World War II. Somehow these camps were left out of every single Michigan history book I read in school and later in life. I feel a bit ignorant not knowing about these POW camps and wonder just how many other Michigan residents are unfamiliar with them as well.
I can't remember where exactly I came across this, but somehow I found this documentary, The Enemy In Our Midst. This documentary was produced by Jackie Chandonnet and John Pepin and originally aired back in 2004. The German POW camps in Michigan's Upper Peninsula are the focus of the documentary, but the premise of it intrigued me enough to dig further and see where, and how many, German POW camps were in Michigan during World War II. I was hoping to get a DVD copy of The Enemy In Our Midst, but I emailed John Pepin and he said that there are only VHS copies available. I'm buying the VHS version as I really want to see this film.
Here is a short promotion for the documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJldp92NP0
I've been unable to get a consistent number, but thanks to a handful of different websites (pimarily this page at www.gentracer.org) I was able to put together a list. One would think that there would be more information available on this subject, but so far I haven't been able to find too many sources. Depending on how you link the camps together (some camps fell under the "umbrella" of other camps) I was able to come up with 31 different camp locations. Now, some of these locations may have been consolidated under another camp name/location and some of them were strictly hospitals so sometimes you see the number of camps in Michigan listed closer to 20.
Around 6,000 German POWs were posted at the various camps across Michigan. About 1,000 of the POWs were at the five camps in the Upper Peninsula with the remainder located in the Lower Peninsula. The Red Cross made periodic inspections of the camps to ensure that the POWs had decent living conditions and were being treated fairly. Escape attempts were few and no German POW from Michigan is known to have made a complete escape from one of the camps.
A lot of the German POW camps in Michigan were formerly CCC camps and filled mainly with Germans that were forced into service in Hitler's army that fought in Africa. Therefore, they were not thought of as too terribly dangerous and were brought here to work at various camps. Of course there were some SS soldiers that were definitely in the Nazi category and locals usually steered clear of them. These camps were not forced labor camps, in fact, the POWs liked being able to go out and do something, plus the ones cutting pulpwood in Michigan's U.P. were paid $.80 per day. The work the German POWs performed was in areas where there were shortages of labor due to the war effort.
After the war ended the German POWs were sent back to Germany. Many of the prisoners would have liked to have remained here, but due to regulations they had to return to their home country. The German POW camps in Michigan were an interesting part of Michigan's history that I am glad to have found. I still can't believe it took me so long to hear about all of these POW camps and how they have been buried in our history books.
Nicely done video by students from Allegan High School about the German POW Camp near Allegan:
