Michigan's Leelenau Peninsula: Fishtown and Dunes (and a bit of booze)

I totally fell in love with this part of Michigan.  Of course, it was a balmy September when we were there.  This Monday's high will be 17 F (-8 C).  What a difference a season makes!

We started our second day in the Traverse City area with a trip up to the Leelenau peninsula.  See, it's even fun to say!  Our first stop was in the tiny fishing village of Leland, which has a beautifully preserved dock area right in the center of town.  Many pictures were taken, and there may have been a lot of giggling and smiling as well.

Boats can be hired in this area to take you out to fish, but we didn't have the time.  

And yes, there are people in this town that still make their living on the sea, though a good chunk of the harbor is taken up with cutesy little eateries and little souvenir shops and galleries.

Our objective in Leland, after hugging all the weathered wooden homes, was to stop into Carlson's Fisheries.  It's a tiny deli-cum-smokehouse recommended by no less a luminary than Mario Batali, who apparently has a home somewhere in the area - though we didn't see his orange clogs anywhere.

If we had been able to take some time to catch lake trout and whitefish, we could have brought them to Carlson's to have them smoked for us, just like the places here in Austin that will process your deer into sausage and jerky.  Luckily for us fishless fools, Carlson's also sells locally caught fish out of a counter in the front of their sweet-smelling store.  (The family is also heavily involved in the historic preservation of Fishtown, making me even happier to spend my tourist dollars there.)

Yellowed clips hanging around the shop tell the harrowing story of this fishing family, who had the awful misfortune of losing their patriarch forty or so years ago in a boating accident.  I can't even imagine how terrible that would be; it makes me give thanks that I'm a pencil-pusher.

We escaped the clutches of Carlson's having spent only $25 or so on an assortment of fish sausage, whitefish pate, smoked trout, and beef and turkey jerky which all immediately went into our lunch cooler.  Talk about the makings of a serious picnic.

Picnicking and Dunes after the jump.

Now we just had to find the place to eat that picnic.  So we headed north towards Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  

Somehow, in the twelve years Logan and I have been together, he'd completely failed to mention that he had NEVER BEEN TO A SAND DUNE.

I was shocked.  I mean, who hasn't had the joy of running down a dune, arms flapping wildly and legs taking impossibly long strides?  If you fall, the worst thing that can happen is you get a mouthful of sand; it's not like skiing, where you have the same sense of flight but with the danger you might run into a tree and do yourself serious damage.

So.  Sleeping Bear.  The National Park service tries to limit climbing of the dunes to a small area, because sand dunes are extra-fragile and can easily blow away.  

It doesn't actually look all that huge in the picture, but trust me, that thing was a bear to climb.  (get it?  ha ha hem ha.)

Powerful me, before I fully realized that wearing ventilated gymshoes was a stupid idea that just gave the sand easier access to my socks:

The view from the highest point of the dune - see, I told you, this thing is TALL!

And a very happy, boisterous man-bear-husband running down the dune at full force.  (He's the dot in the center of the frame, with the legs and the hair and the arm canted way out.)

We also drove to see some beautiful overlooks of Lake Michigan.  It's easy to forget how massive the lake really is - we weren't even close to being able to see across it.  (That's a spit of land a few miles to the south, not the other side of the lake.  Pish tosh.)  

At one of the scenic areas, people were struggling their way up from the shore.  Since there were "no climbing" signs posted all over the place, I sniffed sanctimoniously and didn't pity them their toil.

We stopped at a small parking lot along the scenic driving loop and lugged our lunch cooler out of the car.  I have to say this was one of the best picnics I've ever picnicked, and this is from a girl who's done her share of picnicking over the years.  Picnic, picnic, PICNIC.

Northern Michigan's bounty at its finest.

Carlson's was well represented by a whole goddamn chunk of super-moist, sweetly smoky whitefish, a smoked fish sausage not unlike a hot dog in consistency (but completely different in flavor, of course), and whitefish pate that reminded me of the best whitefish salads I've eaten, but WAY creamier.  Also available were a couple of Gala apples we'd bought at a roadside stand the day before on the Old Mission peninsula, some dried sweet and Balaton cherries from the Cherry Stop in Traverse City, and an unfortunately chewy baguette from Leland's Stone House Bread.

Oh yeah, and an $8 bottle of Good Harbor's Fishtown White, because hey! we'd been to Fishtown that morning!  It was zesty and grapefruity and light and went superbly with our fish and fruit spread.  And the grapes, chardonnay, vignoles, and seyval blanc (the last two particularly suited for cool climates) are grown in Michigan, so it fit our local style eatings.  Mmm.

A perfect lunch.  Which is why we lingered over it for way longer than we were thinking we would and screwed up our afternoon plan, which involved visiting the wineries of the Leelenau.

We started at Tandem Ciders.  I was really excited about them and their old-world style hard ciders.

Unfortunately, their new ciders wouldn't be coming out for another week, because we were there at the very beginning of their apple season, and they only had one variety left for us to try of last year's growth.  It was thin and a bit sour and would have been lovely with a pork shank or perhaps a giant potato pancake.

We rushed on to L. Mawby, which we were totally looking forward to since they make some surprisingly delightful sparkling wines.  Though we got there just before they closed, they were not particularly friendly and didn't allow us to do a full tasting.

Grr and boo!  We were heading back to Traverse City early the next morning so Logan could get back to work, so there was no way we'd be able to return.   L. Mawby did let us try three of their wines and we bought several to take home for dinner parties.  The wines are quite nice and people are always pleasantly surprised to find that they come from Michigan.

All in all, though, we did have a very nice day on the Leelenau and returned to Traverse City happy.  I'd love to revisit the region sometime when we have more than 36 hours at our disposal.  Maybe we could even get to L. Mawby a bit earlier in the day.

Carlson's of Fishtown (no website) is at 205 W. River, in Fishtown, Leland, MI. 231.256.9801. 

Tandem Ciders is at 2055 N. Setterbo Road in Sutton's Bay. 231.271.0050.

And L. Mawby is not too far from Tandem, at 4519 S Elm Valley Rd in Sutton's Bay. 231.271.3522.

 

There is also a publication available all over the area with a list of all local wineries and a decent map, so don't worry that you'll get too lost.  Traverse City's environs are pretty small, after all!

Comments

[Tanya]

That tiny fishing village looks super cute. Fun times!

[Donna]

That picnic lunch looks awesome! Smoked fish sausage sounds intriguing, is it anything like the Korean/Japanese fish cakes they put in oden?

[Boots in the Oven]

Thanks! It totally was. I love that it's been so well preserved!

[Boots in the Oven]

You know, it actually is sort of similar! The texture was emulsified like oden, but there were a few chunks of vegetable.

[Libby Tomlinson]

If you're back in the area, I'm a native of Traverse City and the Leelanau Peninsula- I'd love to help you find your way if you need it! I'm thrilled to see that you are posting about some of the great places and eats we have here!

[Boots in the Oven]

Thank you, Libby! Logan's back in Ann Arbor now, and I'm down in Texas. But we do hope to make it back up to the Leelenau soon - it was a wonderful trip.