März 2015 - airberlin magazin - Abu Dhabi entdecken

airberlin magazin 3 / 2015 81
In Sleeping Bear
country
Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
are just a five-hour drive from Chicago. Once an insider tip,
this area is now one of the most popular tourist destinations
in the USA.
t would be a great quiz question: which inland beach was
voted the “Most Beautiful Beach” in the USA? The answer:
the beach of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
on Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes – and there
are over thirty miles of it to enjoy. What’s more, a survey by the
TV breakfast show “Good Morning America” named the dunes of
this national park the “Most Beautiful Place in America” by some
considerable margin, ahead of even the Grand Canyon.
We approach the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on
the Empire Bluff Trail. After a hike of three-quarters of a mile
under a green canopy of beech and maple trees, we finally reach
the shoreline, where we’re treated to a spectacular view. Lake
Michigan extends out to the west like an ocean, its opposite bank
way beyond the horizon. Below us, the steep, almost chiselled
coastline curves away in a northerly direction, its white sand
covering the contours of the ground like icing on a cake. It’s an
unexpected sight to come across in densely wooded Michigan.
John, one of the park rangers in charge of protecting the natural
habitat of the dunes, tells us how the wildly romantic Sleeping
Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in the north-west of Michigan
came by its name: “It harks back to an Anishinabe or Ojibwa
Indian legend. A mother bear and her two young cubs were driven
into Lake Michigan by a forest fire. She made it to the shore, but
her cubs were too weak to swim far, and sadly drowned. Once
she gained dry land, the grieving mother lay down on the shore
to wait for them. Many years passed, and the winds gradually
blew more and more sand on top of the bear until only her outline
remained visible. But the Great Spirit Manitou hadn’t forgotten
her. He created North and South Manitou Islands to mark the
spots in the water where the cubs had met their death: they’re
both visible in fine weather. A giant solitary dune on the shore
represents the cubs’ mother – but it’s shrinking every year.” John
points it out: “Admittedly it takes a fair bit of imagination to make
out the shape of a bear.”
The Great Lakes were created during the last Ice Age some
ten thousand years ago, while the sand dunes are a mere two
thousand years old. They tower over one hundred and forty
metres above the water. This quirk of nature, until recently an
insider tourist tip, is now a popular mini-break destination. It’s a
five-hour drive from Chicago to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National
Lakeshore and the sandy beach on the banks of Lake Michigan.
We resist the temptation to clamber over the dunes down to
the shoreline. Getting to the water wouldn‘t be a problem, but