Over the weekend, I took a short vacation to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northwestern Michigan, USA.
The Lakeshore owes its name to an an Anishinaabe oral tradition passed down through the years. The story goes that long ago, there was a raging forest fire on the western shore of Lake Michigan. To flee the wild flames, a mother bear and her cubs decided to swim across the lake to safer shores on the other side. After many long miles of swimming side-by-side, land was finally in sight, but the cubs began to tire and fall behind their mother. She swam ahead of them to the shore and waited for them on a high bluff above the water, but the cubs were not strong enough to make it to shore. One after the other, the two cubs drowned within sight of land. Heartbroken and desperate for her cubs to resurface above the waves, the mother bear laid down on her stomach to gaze out across the waters. To commemorate her heartbreak and undying love for her cubs, The Great Spirit rose from the waters two islands to mark the spots were the cubs drowned and a solitary dune, in the shape of their mother, to watch over them for the rest of time.
High along the bluffs to the South, the mother bear can still be seen laying on her stomach and watching over her cubs just off shore: an eternal vigil to her babies that were tragically lost to the the lake.
Below are a few photos from both my hikes across the dunes as well as the fungi found in the dense forests that surround this beautiful lakeshore. Enjoy the photos, and please feel free to offer your suggestions if you believe I have misidentified any species. Thank you!
View from Empire Bluff:
View from Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive:
View from Pyramid Point:
Sunset on Sleeping Bear Bay:
Russell's Bolete (Aureoboletus russellii):
Painted Suilus (Suilus spraguei):
Red-banded Polypore (Fomitopsis pinicola):
Two-colored Bolete (Baorangia bicolor):
Velvet-footed Pax (Tapinella atrotomentosa):
Flame Chanterelle (Craterellus ignicolor):
Yellow American Blusher (Amanita flavorubens):
White Coral Fungus (Clavulina coralloides):
Ochre Jelly Club (Leotia lubrica):
Artist's Bracket (Ganoderma applanatum):
Tinder Conk (Fomes fomentarius):
Genus Xylaria:
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