NWC Photo Contest winning photos on display at Keweenaw National Historical Park's Visitor Center

Thimbleberries. Photography by Ann Marie Dodge. First place in the Wildlife category of the North Woods Conservancy Photo Contest. (Photo © Ann Marie Dodge and courtesy North Woods Conservancy.)

CALUMET -- The North Woods Conservancy’s (NWC's) photo exhibit highlighting winning photos from its "Get to Know the North Woods" Photo Contest opened August 24 in the Keweenaw National Historical Park’s Visitor Center in Calumet. The exhibit continues through the month of September.

The photo contest and exhibit celebrate the Upper Peninsula’s great north woods, a unique overlap area of plant and animal species characterized by biological abundance, diversity, dynamism and beauty. The contest, created for non-professional photographers, encouraged the public to explore the north woods through visiting NWC’s five Keweenaw County Natural Areas and taking pictures of their visit. iPhones, as well as traditional cameras, were encouraged. A double blind selection process was used for selecting winning photos. The judge was Eric Munch, a well-known Keweenaw professional photographer.

Top winners are: WILDLIFE -- Thimbleberries (1st place) by Ann Marie Dodge, and Bufo Amongst the Balsam (2nd place) by Alex Helman; SCENERY -- A Sliver of Sun (1st place) by Ann Kopka Ryan, and Beautiful Day at Seven Mile Point (2nd place) by John Robert (Jay) Dodge; and PEOPLE PLAYING -- Father and Daughter on Beach (1st place) by Ann Marie Dodge, and The Triple Threat (2nd place) by Ann Kopka Ryan.

All photos submitted are viewable as a digital image show within the exhibit.

Now is also the time to think forward to the 2016 NWC Photo Contest and plan a visit to one or all of the NWC’s five Natural Areas: Dore Woods, Merganser Pond, Gratiot River North, Conglomerate Falls, and/or Seven Mile Point, to take pictures this fall or winter to submit in next year’s contest! Details for 2016 will be available at www.northwoodsconservancy.org.

Galleries, cafés offer First Friday art exhibits, receptions, more on Sept. 4

Wired. Art by David Masten. Part of the September exhibit at Galerie Bohème in Calumet. (Photo courtesy Galerie Bohème)

CALUMET -- Calumet First Friday, Sept. 4, events will include new art exhibits, receptions and more. Most galleries will be open between 6 p.m. and 8:30 or 9 p.m. unless otherwise indicated below.

Galerie Bohème: Art works from David Masten and Tom Rudd

Trophy, by Tom Rudd. (Photo courtesy Galerie Bohème)

Galerie Boheme, 423 5th Street, will present art from David Masten and Tom Rudd from Sept. 4 through Oct. 1, 2015. An opening reception will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. For more information please call Tom Rudd at 369-4087.

Paige Wiard Gallery: Pastel works by jd Slack and Terry Daulton

The Paige Wiard Gallery welcomes pastel artists jd Slack and Terry Daulton, featured artists for the month of September.

Movement and Stillness, by jd Slack. (Photo courtesy Paige Wiard Gallery)

These two artists paint in vibrant colors of soft pastels and have worked together for many years to create a conversation between their works of art. In their latest dialogue they have created waves and walls, movement and stillness, chaos and quiet. An opening reception will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on First Friday, Sept. 4.

Sea Meets Shore, by Terry Daulton. (Photo courtesy Paige Wiard Gallery)

The Paige Wiard Gallery is at 109 Fifth Street. For more information email paigewiardgallery@gmail.com or call 906-337-5970.

Cross Country Sports: Jewelry by Jackie Ellinich

For the month of September, Cross Country Sports, 507 Oak Street, will feature nature-inspired jewelry by Jackie Ellenich -- Designs by Jak. Each of Jackie’s pieces is a unique, one of a kind, wearable art piece which reflects her love of nature. She uses rocks, birch bark, driftwood and found objects collected while hiking, biking or walking along the shores of the Keweenaw to create what she calls "Rustic -- Wearable Art."

Jewelry by Jackie Ellinich is on exhibit at Cross Country Sports. (Photo courtesy Cross Country Sports)

An open house with refreshments will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. The public is invited to visit and admire Jackie’s beautiful creations!

Calumet Art Center: Exhibits, pottery, raffle, more ...

Roses in the Calumet Art Center Heritage Garden were just getting started in August. Now, gardener Karen Schmidt reports, they have taken well to their new setting, having survived the summer drought; and a few are still yielding lovely blossoms. Be sure to visit the garden to admire a variety of flowers and plants. (Photo by Keweenaw Now)

This month members of the Calumet Art Center, 57055 Fifth Street, are exhibiting seven inspired paintings by accomplished artist Carole Gorgas (1938-2006). Gorgas, who spent some of her youth in Ahmeek, went on to become an internationally acclaimed artist. Eva Papineau-Anderson, Carole's daughter, will share stories of the landscapes and people which influenced her mother's evocative artistry. The paintings are on display upstairs in the Art Center Auditorium.

Master potter Ed Gray and intern Jacob Thill have untiringly turned the potter's wheel all summer; and -- with laughter, wisdom and lessons learned -- each of them has created an impressive collection of extraordinary pottery, which is available for sale in the gallery.

Jacob Thill, Michigan Tech student in mechanical engineering, displays some of his pottery during the August First Friday art walk. Thill has been working as an intern with Ed Gray this summer. (Photo by Keweenaw Now)

"It's been really nice working with Ed," Thill said. "This is the first time I've been working in Calumet."

Thill, who has been doing pottery for eight years, also exhibited 150 pieces of his work at the Eagle Harbor Art Fair in August.

September's First Friday will mark the Art Center's first 50/50 raffle drawing. Each First Friday throughout the year a winning ticket will be drawn at 8 p.m. Tickets are
available for purchase inside the studio during normal business hours,Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets sell for $1 each or 6 for $5. Good luck!

The Calumet Art Center Board plans to install and dedicate an 8-foot tall Peace Pole in the Heritage Rose Garden by the spring of 2016. A Peace Pole is a hand-crafted hexagonal monument that displays the message and prayer "May Peace Prevail on Earth" on each of its six sides, in six different languages. For a $200 donation name plates will be added to the pole as funds come in.

Café Rosetta: Waters Collection of Model Birch Bark Canoes
 

 

These model birch bark canoes, made by Bill Waters of Marquette, are on display at Café Rosetta, 104 Fifth Street in Calumet.

The Waters Collection of model birch bark canoes are on display in Café Rosetta during the month of September. Bill Waters has crafted these canoes of local birch bark from fallen trees only. Bill, a retired NMU professor of Criminal Justice who lives in Marquette, has a passion for the birch tree and the role it has played in the history of the Great Lakes region, especially as a source of bark for Native American and Voyageur canoes. Bill started making his canoes last October when, while walking in the woods, he picked up a magnificent piece of bark and noticed for the first time the richly colored, flexible but durable characteristics of this natural material. Bill strives for an authentic look in his canoes.

The Waters Collection canoes have been and currently are featured in galleries in Michigan and Wisconsin and are on sale in shops across the U.P.

Copper Country Associated Artists (CCAA): Paper Quilting

Copper Country Associated Artists announces a Paper Quilting workshop on First Friday, Sept. 4. (Photo courtesy Copper Country Associated Artists)

Do you enjoy making a quilt, but have never made one? To get a taste of creating a quilt the CCAA's first Friday event in September is paper quilting taught by Millie Little and Karen Secor. It's the look of a quilt, the pattern of a quilt, and favorite colors of a quilt. Supplies and ideas will be provided to make your own paper quilt in a class setting from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

CCAC wishes to support the Sandstone Piecemakers Quilt Guild's quilt show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Keweenaw Heritage Center in Calumet so visit CCAC and see the raffle quilts.

Omphale Restaurant and Gallery/Eagle Café: Art by jd Slack continues

Sievi Country, by jd Slack. (Photo courtesy Omphale Restaurant and Gallery)

The Omphale Restaurant and Gallery/Eagle Café, 431 Fifth Street, will continue the exhibit of oil pastels by jd Slack this month.

Call 906-235-9191 for more information or dinner reservations. Visit their Facebook page for the menu and music announcement.

Red Jacket Art Supply and Gallery: Works on Paper

The Red Jacket Art Supply and Gallery, 570305 6th St., will display Works on Paper this First Friday. These include graphic design, mono prints and word image collage. A demonstration on using collage and print materials will take place at 7 p.m. All are welcome.

Hahn's Hammered Copper: Guess the mystery object!

Gustavo Bourdieu, left, tries to guess Peter Hahn's mystery object at Hahn's Hammered Copper during the August First Friday art walk. Did you guess it? (Photo by Keweenaw Now)

On First Friday, Sept. 4, stop by Hahn's Hammered Copper and check out Peter and Shelly Hahn's hand-hammered copper jewelry and décor. They also feature beautiful vintage items and may ask you to guess a mystery object for a prize!

Hahn's Hammered Copper is at 203 Fifth Street in Calumet.

Copper Harbor Trails Fest to offer races, activities Sept. 4, 5, 6

The Copper Harbor Trails Fest offers a variety of mountain bike races and activities this weekend, Sept. 4-6. (2014 Copper Harbor Trails Fest photo © and courtesy Chris Schmidt. Reprinted with permission.)*

COPPER HARBOR -- The longest running mountain bike event in the Upper Peninsula returns to Copper Harbor this weekend! The 22nd Annual Bell’s Beer Copper Harbor Trails Fest kicks off on Friday, Sept. 4, with a movie night fundraiser hosted by UPMTB premiering the film unReal at the Copper Harbor Community Building at 8:30 p.m.

On Saturday, Sept. 5, riders hit the trails with both a short and a long Enduro event featuring either 2 or 4 timed primarily downhill trail sections with untimed transition stages in between.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, it’s the kids turn with 40-yard, 1-mile, and 3-mile mountain bike races for ages 13 and under. At 6 p.m., the fan favorite DWD Memorial Dock Jump showcases mountain bikers jumping via a ramp off the Harbor Haus Dock. The evening winds down in the Copper Harbor Park with the music of The Raven Congress. 

On Sunday morning, Sept. 6, Downhill Races will take place on the Overflow Trail.  Starting on Brockway Mountain, the downhill race features large jumps, drops, rugged terrain, and large berms as riders descend at high speed to the finish of the race near highway M26.

A downhill racer faces a challenging course during the 2014 Copper Harbor Trails Fest. (Photo © and courtesy Chris Schmidt. Reprinted with permission.)*

At 1 p.m. Sunday the 14-mile XC race and at 2 p.m. the 22-mile XC races roll out through Copper Harbor on their way to the newly constructed Keweenaw Point Trail before looping back through the main Copper Harbor Trail System and finishing in the Copper Harbor Park. In the evening, the weekend is topped off with The Fitz BBQ and Bell’s Beer served in the park with a bluegrass concert by Minneapolis-based The Last Revel. 

The entire weekend is open to the public, registration for race events is available on site, and there is no charge for the music in the park. All funds raised support the Copper Harbor Trails Club mission to advocate, develop, and maintain trails and land for human-powered activities in and connecting to Copper Harbor.

Additional information and the full schedule of events is available at www.copperharbortrails.org.

Download the Participants' Guide here.

* See more of Chris Schmidt's photos here.

Kerredge Gallery to exhibit "On Iceland" Sept. 3-26

Artists in Iceland. (Photo © Bill Schwab and courtesy Copper Country Community Arts Center)

HANCOCK -- In April 2014 a group of artists went on an expedition to Iceland with Bill Schwab, owner of North Light Photographic Workshops. What they saw and captured was a landscape wild and foreboding -- a strange and lovely mix of glaciers, ice floes, sea stacks, cathedral-like geological formations, geysers, geo-thermals, farmland, islands, sea ports and fishing villages.

The exhibition "On Iceland," opening at the Copper Country Community Arts Center Kerredge Gallery on Thursday, Sept. 3, brings together six individual interpretations of a nine-day journey along the southern coast of Iceland.

The artists are Jerry Basierbe, Livonia, Mich.; Julie Bonney, Ashland, Ore.; Cynthia Coté, Calumet, Mich.; Linda Fitch, San Carlos, Calif.; Bill Schwab, Dearborn, Mich.; Darcie Sternenberg, Jacksonville, Ore.

A closing reception for the artists will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 25, at the Copper Country Community Arts Center in Hancock. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

The Copper Country Community Arts Center is at 126 Quincy St., Hancock. Call 482-2333 for more information.

Citizen protests to address land, water issues at north, south ends of Mackinac Bridge Sept. 6

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge in March 2015. While the Bridge will be the scene of large crowds of walkers on Sept. 7 for the Labor Day Bridge Walk, two protests will take place -- one at the north and one at the south end of the Bridge -- on Sept. 6. Concerned citizens will address several issues calling for land and water protection. (Photo by Keweenaw Now)

MARQUETTE -- In response to the recent proposal for "Michigan Mining Day" on Sept. 6 (906, corresponding to the Upper Peninsula area code), proposed by State Sen. Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba), and many issues surrounding the State of Michigan’s proposed sale / exchange of over 10,000 acres of ceded treaty territory (aka "public lands") to Graymont, a Canadian mining corporation, Dr. Martin Reinhardt, an Anishinaabe Ojibway citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and associate professor of Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University, has called for a "906" protest, "We Protect Mother Earth" (WPME), on Sept. 6, 2015, at the Mackinac Bridge.

The protesters will meet at the Mackinac Bridge Welcome Center (UP side of the Bridge on the right side heading north) at about 8 a.m. and march to the Bridge before 9:06 a.m.

Reinhardt is also one of six plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the State of Michigan regarding the proposed sale of land to Graymont. Reinhardt led a similar protest at the Bridge in March 2015.*

Carrying the Eagle Staff, at left, Martin Reinhardt leads a protest just north of the Mackinac Bridge on March 28, 2015. Native and non-Native protesters carry signs expressing concerns about Michigan environmental issues -- including the state's approval of a land and mineral rights exchange and sale involving more than 10,000 acres of public land for the Graymont limestone mining project, the proposed CR 595 wilderness road near Marquette, the aging Enbridge pipeline threatening the Straits of Mackinac, and fracking. The three-day protest attracted a total of about 100 participants from both sides of the bridge. (Keweenaw Now file photo)

Reinhardt asserts that "if people are concerned about treaty rights violations, selling off public lands, dangerous pipelines, deforestation, fracking, intensive mining, destroying wetlands, and nuclear waste dumps, it is time to take a stand and tell the State of Michigan that we will be IDLE NO MORE!"

He encourages protesters to bring staffs, flags, banners, signs, hand drums, and shakers to the event.

This protest coincides with another protest, which will  take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 on the south side of the Bridge -- the "Pipe Out Paddle Protest" (POPP). Jannan Cornstalk is the event organizer for that event. It will include guest speakers representing various organizations and a flotilla of canoes and kayaks. The POPP is focused on the removal of the Enbridge oil pipelines running under the Mackinac Bridge.**

On May 26, 2015, members of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council (NMEAC) of Traverse City and other groups from "Oil and Water Don’t Mix" -- a coalition of businesses, municipalities, Native American tribes and environmental and conservation groups -- gathered at Conkling Park, Mackinaw City, for a Great Lakes Call to Action -- to shut down Enbridge's Line 5 aging pipelines under the Mackinac Straits. Their protest coincided with the Mackinac Policy Conference held on Mackinac Island May 27-29. (File photo by Allan Baker for Keweenaw Now)**

"These are two great opportunities to show your displeasure with the way the State of Michigan is treating Mother Earth," Reinhardt said. "Let’s join in protest against the State’s mismanagement on both land and water and on both peninsulas of Michigan."

For more information on the "We Protect Mother Earth" event, contact Dr. Martin Reinhardt at martin@reinhardtassociates.net or click here to visit the Facebook site.

For more information about the Pipe Out Paddle Protest, contact Jannan Cornstalk at pipeout2015@gmail.com or click here to visit their Facebook site.

* Click here for our April 2015 article on the March protest.

** Click here for our article on the May 2015 protest and press conference on the Enbridge Line 5 issue.