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Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
Towering perched dunes on the Lake Michigan shore of northern Michigan
An Ojibwe story explains the dunes. A mother bear and her two cubs swam across Lake Michigan to escape a forest fire on the Wisconsin shore. The mother reached land and lay down on the bluff to wait, but her cubs drowned, and the Great Spirit raised North and South Manitou islands where they sank. The mother became the Sleeping Bear, a dune that once looked like a resting bear. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, established in 1970, protects about 35 miles (56 km) of that shore and both islands, about 71,000 acres (288 km²) in all.
Geology tells a longer story. Glaciers of the last ice age piled up thick moraines along the lake, and wind has since blown sand up their faces, creating perched dunes that sit on bluffs rising as much as 450 feet (137 m) above the water. Visitors tackle the steep Dune Climb, follow the 7.4-mile (11.9 km) Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive to overlooks above the lake, or explore the old maritime village of Glen Haven and its life-saving station. In 2011 viewers of Good Morning America voted the park the Most Beautiful Place in America.