Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
Michigan
The 460-foot Sleeping Bear Dunes tower over the northeastern shore of Lake Michigan like shifting pyramids of sand. The dunes are a popular launching pad for hang gliders and stretch for seven of the thirty-four miles of national lakeshore. The Sleeping Bear Dunes are the world's largest perched dunes, so named because the dunes sit atop high, limestone bluffs. The dunes are slowly migrating eastward and inland, where forest remnants of bleached pine, white birch, and cedar swamps persist.
The lakeshore includes North and South Manitou Island, which play a role in the Chippewa Indian legend used to name the dunes. On the shores of what is now Wisconsin, a forest fire forced a mother bear and her two cubs into Lake Michigan. The mother swam to the opposite shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. The cubs could not keep up and drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs slipped beneath the water. Manitou created a solitary dune on the mainland to represent the faithful mother bear.
Ferries out of Leland, Michigan, service both islands: expect an hour and a half ferry ride to reach South Manitou Island, while North Manitou Island is a one hour and ten minute ferry ride.
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