Each year, millions of tourists and locals visit the Great Lakes region. Our beaches, rivers and streams, forests and waters are some of the most beautiful places to explore and relax during any season of the year.
In this section, we're asking to share some of your favorite places in the region. Do you know of a warm water beach on Lake Superior? How about a great place for kids and families to explore the lakes together? Do you have a romantic restaurant with an entrancing view? It's ok, you can tell us about your hidden treasures, we're all friends here.
Kingston, ONT is a Gem! Jeffrey Potter (Madison, WI)
If you haven't been to Kingston, Ontario, do yourself a favor and plan a trip. It's a smallish college town, home of Queen's University, with a decidedly progressive feel to it. Now, I'll admit, I've never lived there, but it seems like an enormously livable city.
There are great restaurants, like Chez Piggy, some terrific architecture, and very friendly people. A lot of the housing is historic, in fact the whole city has a great sense of history, because it was the first national capital of Canada. It reminds me of other great Great Lakes cities like Ann Arbor, or other progressive cities, like Madison, Wisconsin.
Although the city's relationship with Lake Ontario has had its ups and downs, the waterfront is looking up with proposed improvements to Lake Ontario Park. Bike trails and other environmental improvements are also part of the city's "Seven Point Plan" for the future.
If you enjoy good food, a relaxed atmosphere, and a sense of history - check out Kingston. It makes for a romantic weekend get-away for folks from Toronto to Montreal or curious vacationers making the circle tour. Check out the official city site: http://www.cityofkingston.ca/index.asp
10:23 am 06/21/2006
The Bruce Peninsula Barbara Spring (Grand Haven, MI)
Here's another wonderful park. Canada's Bruce Peninsula is a great place to hike, take a glass bottom boat to look at shipwrecks underwater, and admire the weathered rock formations that jut out of the water like sentinals.
Hiking the Bruce Trail through the woods is beautiful and memorable. Botanists go there to study unique plants found only there. The clear water off of the Bruce Peninsula makes many shipwrecks clearly visible from a glass bottom boat. Take your camera because the rock formations, part of the Niagara Escarpment, are very photogenic. I took the picture on this post on the Bruce Peninsula. It is an alvar with its unique plant ecology.
10:25 am 02/14/2006
Lake Michigan in Winter Dave Dempsey (St. Paul, MN)
A piece of poetry from Eric Hansen:
Truth is, it would be reasonable for the park district to erect an events sign along Lincoln Memorial Drive in late fall:
"Notice: The year's most outstanding landscape art exhibit will fill our eastern horizon for the next several months.
"Memorable panoramas of clouds, waves and brilliant, low-angle sunlight. Exotic wildlife visitors from afar. Shoreline ice formations and drift ice offset by water tinted a zillion shades of aqua and sky tones ranging from mauve to electric blue. A compelling narrative of time and place. Kindly pull over and park for best and safe viewing."
Warren Dunes, Michigan Dave Dempsey (St. Paul, MN)
This old postcard shows the wonder of one of the tallest dune formations in the entire Great Lakes region, now part of Michigan's Warren Dunes State Park near Bridgman. Calling the place a "hidden treasure" would be a more than slight exaggeration; on summer weekends, Chicagoans flock to the park by the thousands. But it is hidden in the off-season; a lonely and remote jewel where you can feel the wind, see the tops of Chicago skyscrapers, yet also see a lake surface unchanged in thousands of years.
09:17 am 12/13/2005
Lake Erie Metropark Dave Dempsey (St. Paul, MN)
Sometimes it's the places in your Great Lakes back yard that you forget to appreciate. On a cool spring day last year, the sight of a mother and daughter relaxing and fishing together on the shore of Lake Erie at the metropark at the mouth of the Huron River in SE Michigan was a reminder that gems close to urban centers have great value.
10:18 am 12/08/2005
Click on the links below to view recently posted Hidden Treasures.
Report a violation to Brenna Wanous, Town Hall Manager.
Note: The opinions expressed in the Great Lakes Town Hall are those of Town Hall participants and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Biodiversity Project or any participant's institution.
Each year, millions of tourists and locals visit the Great Lakes region. Our beaches, rivers and streams, forests and waters are some of the most beautiful places to explore and relax during any season of the year.
Hiking the Bruce Trail through the woods is beautiful and memorable. Botanists go there to study unique plants found only there. The clear water off of the Bruce Peninsula makes many shipwrecks clearly visible from a glass bottom boat. Take your camera because the rock formations, part of the Niagara Escarpment, are very photogenic. I took the picture on this post on the Bruce Peninsula. It is an alvar with its unique plant ecology.
But it is hidden in the off-season; a lonely and remote jewel where you can feel the wind, see the tops of Chicago skyscrapers, yet also see a lake surface unchanged in thousands of years.
