35968 Scow Fall Winter - Inland Lake Yachting Association

FALL/WINTER 2006 SCOW SLANTS PAGE 23
Take a walk around the lake? Maybe, maybe not
from Racine Journal Times Editorial Board
http://www.journaltimes.com/nucleus/
index.php?itemid=4246
The U.S. Supreme Court... had the good
sense to leave well enough alone.
By deciding not to take up a Michigan
case, the court guaranteed the rights of all
citizens to enjoy the simple pleasures of a
walk along a Great Lakes beach — no matter
who owns the land leading up to the water.
For some that may be inconsequential,
but for others who treasure the outdoors and
revel in the natural beauty of Lake Michigan
and its sister Great Lakes an adverse court
ruling would have put a padlock on miles of
pedestrian access.
That was in fact what happened in
Michigan that triggered the court case in the
first place six years ago. Joan Glass a retired
widow living in Greenbush on Lake Huron
north of Saginaw and Bay City was told she
couldn’t walk on the beach by neighbors who
owned a cottage fronting the lake.
She sued. And lost.
According to the Detroit News, a
Michigan Court of Appeals ruled two years
ago that beach walking was trespassing. That
was disturbing considering that 70 percent of
the 3,200 miles of land along Michigan’s
Great Lakes shoreline is in private hands.
So Joan Glass appealed. The Michigan
Supreme Court took up the case and last
summer it held that beach walking is allowed
up to the ordinary high water mark.
We had hoped that would be the case.
Certainly there is a history of precedents
outlining the rights of citizens to have access
to the lakes and to other navigable bodies of
water — a history that predates statehood for
both Wisconsin and Michigan. The Northwest
Ordinance of 1787, which governed the
United States territories northwest of the Ohio
River stipulated “the navigable waters leading
into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the
carrying places between the same, shall be
common highways and forever free...”
Forever free.
All the courts had to do was determine
where those waters end. The state court wisely
picked the high water mark and the Supreme
Court by its inaction now guarantees the
rights of voyageurs of any era to beach their
crafts and walkers and hikers to follow the
shoreline to their heart’s content.
Glass reacted to the court victory, telling
the Detroit paper, “If I were Snoopy, I’d be
clicking my heels together because I’m so
happy.”
The court fight came at the expense of
tapping into the inheritance of her four
children, but it leaves a legacy for all citizens
for all time.
So if you are one of those lake lovers and
you happen to be walking along the shore in
the days or weeks ahead listening to the lap of
the waves and the cries of the gulls, you might
give a nod across the water toward Saginaw
Bay and thank Joan Glass for her efforts.
[While this situation evidently applies only to
the shores of the Lake Michigan, it is
interesting to note the variety of ordinances
among our member Inland Lakes. Geneva
requires that all lakefront owners maintain a
walking path for hikers. Minneapolis
maintains the public circumference of Lakes
Harriet and Calhoun. In other lakes in the
Midwest, property owners extend their lot line
fences far into the water to prohibit trespass-
Scow Slant Ed.]