Discussed in this article:
This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan
By Tim Mulherin
Published by Michigan State University Press
June 2025
Note: Last week I sent a gift article in the May 26 New York Times to my friends and relatives. Headline: A Sweet and Savory Road Trip in Northern Michigan. Description: “After a drive through this bountiful area of Grand Traverse Bay, your car will overflow with organic fruit and vegetables, freshly caught whitefish, baked goods and more. Just don’t forget to bring a cooler.”
I figured my friends and relatives would enjoy reading about a new angle on the Traverse City region and a description of our local delights. But then my friend and author, Tim Mulherin, commented by e-mail to the effect that more people, more traffic, and more resource consumption are not what we need. As his new book on the subject is being published now, I thought it a perfect time to get his thoughts on the changing character of the region, the threats to its beauty and solutions.
Tell us what your new book is about.
This Magnetic North addresses the impact of the pandemic, climate change, and tourism on northern Michigan. It’s a microcosmic look at the phenomenon that’s occurring in communities throughout the Great Lakes and other high-demand scenic areas across the United States. I spent about 18 months researching this project and interviewed nearly 90 experts in their respective fields, including tourism, agriculture, viticulture, law enforcement, commercial and recreational fishing, marine science, environmental law, conservation, astronomy, government, retail, real estate, and journalism.
Author Tim Mulherin
All my interviewees weighed in on the profound changes that have come to northern Michigan, notably accelerating since the pandemic. And all looked critically to the future we need to build together: intentionally, thoughtfully, and creatively.
Is this a “loving it to death” story?
There are definitely elements of that present in the book. Yet I would characterize it more as a warning.
I’ve found that northern Michiganders generally have a healthy awareness about the importance of wildlife and ecosystem conservation. By contrast, from where I spend half the year in Indianapolis, it is a much different collective mindset. There are now two million people in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, and it’s growing, which is especially evident in the adjacent northside cities of Carmel, Noblesville, and Westfield. I think it’s fair to say that for so many residents, nature is an afterthought. As well, Indiana is a major industrial farming state. And consider this: Indiana has lost more than 85 percent of its original wetlands – critical wildlife habitat. The White River, which runs directly through Indy, has long been in a state of desecration, polluted by agricultural chemicals, stormwater runoff, PCBs, and mercury, among other contaminants. Granted, there isn’t the dramatic “Wow!” scenery in central Indiana that folks experience in northern Michigan, especially when seeing it for the first time. Still, the precious few remaining patches of prairie, wetlands, and woodlands have their own aesthetic and essential qualities and deserve our respect and protection. So, central Indiana has been “worked to death;” northern Michigan risks being loved to death.
With the relentless wave of new residents, seasonal homeowners, and tourists coming to northwest lower Michigan – especially Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, and Antrim counties – the focus of my research – there is an increasingly higher chance of degradation of the natural resources we all treasure. This is what brought so many of us here, and why so many of us stay. Should climate impacts accelerate human migration to the region – as several of my interviewees spoke at length about as being a very real possibility – that risk becomes even more ominous.
Can you give us a couple of examples or stories that stand out for you from your book research?
That’s a hard question because there are so many. I interviewed a cross section of people who are heavily invested in their native or adopted homeland here in northern Michigan. They openly shared many insightful observations about the changes occurring here, and their anecdotes made their perspectives even more cogent. However, the book’s second chapter, “An Indigenous Perspective,” immediately comes to mind.
Because the subject involves human migration, I felt it only fitting to begin my research by starting with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, who have an under-appreciated yet important presence in the region, and a history we should all be acquainted with.
I was introduced to the Ojibwe creation story by JoAnne Cook, a GTB Tribal Appellate Court judge and cultural ambassador who frequently gives presentations on the First Peoples of the region to non-Native audiences. This led to Cook bringing up Ojibwe prophecies that uncannily and accurately portray the critical moment we’re living in, when the figurative fork in the road is a choice between a technologically fixated society or one that values Mother Earth. Problems versus possibilities.
I also spent a morning with Mark Wilson, who has served on the GTB Tribal Council and is currently on the Traverse City Commission. He continued my local/regional Indigenous history lesson, telling me about the broken treaties, the genocidal boarding school system, and the more recent Removal Act of 1956, another tool to further break apart Indigenous culture in the United States. Wilson emphasized what had transpired in the past with the theft of Indian lands as important context for my research. Remarkably, he also conveyed his welcome for all those who come here to make a home.
Additionally, I tagged along with Ed and Cindi John, owners and operators of Treaty Fish Company, and their son Alex on their commercial fishing vessel, the Linda Sue, where I experienced Indigenous commercial fishers at work out on Grand Traverse Bay. While observing them harvest lake trout from their nets, we discussed the changing ecosystem of Lake Michigan and how it’s affecting their trade – most notably, the near disappearance of whitefish in the bay. Miigwetch to all for these teachings.
One more. Spending a day with Michigan Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Richard Stowe in September at the start of the annual salmon run was an eyeopener.
Are any people you interviewed thinking about how climate change might further pressure the region's human and natural resources?
I sought out several experts for that very reason. Environmental attorney Jim Olson, founder of FLOW (For Love of Water), spoke to me at length about what may well occur in the Great Lakes region as climate change progresses. Even now, climate migrants are relocating to northern Michigan, purchasing property and building seasonal second and third or forever homes, having experienced wildfires and earthquakes on the West Coast, drought in the West, hurricanes in the Southeast, and so on. Indeed, the climate migrants settling in northern Michigan – and increasingly in the Upper Peninsula – tend to have considerable financial means to do so. In years to come, as Olson hypothesized, this could end up being a migratory wave of relocators of lesser means, given the relatively stable climate here and rarity of natural disasters.
As it has been since the advent of humans on Earth, people are forced to relocate throughout the world due to hardships caused by climate impacts, which now appear to be aggravated by human activity. So, it’s not too farfetched to imagine a similar large-scale movement occurring in the not-so-distant future in the United States.
I also spoke with journalist Keith Schneider, who spent decades writing for The New York Times covering environmental science and biotech. Schneider’s environmental career focus developed because of his coverage of the Three Mile Island nuclear powerplant’s reactor meltdown in 1979. As well, I had the opportunity to talk with Jon Allan, who’s currently with the University of Michigan’s School for Environmental Sustainability and has an impressive background regarding understanding environmental impacts on the Great Lakes. He is also well-versed in climate migration.
These esteemed experts who shared their Great Lakes region environmental concerns and related observations on cultural impacts, as well as predictions on increasingly challenging conditions and outcomes we could well experience in coming years, assuredly got my attention, which I trust will do the same for my readers.
Did you find anyone actively working to address the issues raised in the book?
Absolutely. Collectively, the voices of the dozens of interviewees I spent time with are all saying the same thing: They love it here, and they want everyone who comes here, whether to stay or to visit, to appreciate it and love it as much as they do.
To name just a few names…
Poet and fly fisherman Mike Delp holds a non-negotiable view on what a northern Michigan river is for – namely, trout fishing. What’s more – taking some license in projecting from Delp’s viewpoint – it’s for people to be amazed by the endless wonders of a trout stream. You don’t even have to cast a fly or a lure or a worm, which is an innately hopeful act. Just be present for a long moment and allow it to work its magic on you. The Mad Angler, Delp’s alter ego, is mad for a reason: to get people’s attention, to shake them out of their complacency to realize the qualities of a northern Michigan river and all the endless wonders it has to offer. Once that happens, you can’t help but become a force for environmental good.
Of course, some of the folks I spent time with in researching this book are actively involved in “protecting paradise,” a slogan displayed on every Leelanau County Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle. The sheriff himself, Mike Borkovich, a controversial figure politically, is unshakeable in his loyalty to the people who have long called this special place home. He is not a fan of inconsiderate seasonal residents and visitors – a distinct and vexing minority. However, he does welcome those who have a respectful, curious, appreciative approach to life in Leelanau County, which might best be defined as When in Rome….
A final example. Heather Smith is The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay’s baykeeper. Her job is to monitor water quality and play a consultative role in assisting property owners and developers in comprehending their impact on the watershed. Smith took me on a morning-long walk one gorgeous June day along the Boardman-Ottaway River, beginning at Boardman Lake and working our way into downtown Traverse City. She pointed out the numerous challenges to the waterway, including homes, offices, and condominiums built too close to the shoreline; lawn treatment chemicals leaching into the river; storm runoff pollution; complaints from residents about “cleaning up” the natural elements along the shoreline that serve as wildlife habitat; the ongoing threats presented by microplastics and erosion and invasive species. Her work is vital to recruiting understanding in preserving the health of the watershed.
Is it too late for "this magnetic north" to preserve its character?
I’ve never been accused of being a positive thinker – but I am a realist, which means I don’t always say what people want to hear. That said, I don’t think it’s too late. My ultimate purpose in writing the book is to raise awareness about the sea change that is well underway in the Grand Traverse region and throughout the Great Lakes. We are rapidly approaching what I think is critical mass in appreciating the magnitude of change, closely followed by the need to effectively respond to the complex issues that are landing here day by day. Complaining on Facebook doesn’t help. Being resistant to change won’t contribute to the work that needs to be done together, in the utmost sense of community, to reshape the transformation that’s occurring so that it benefits the greater good.
Since I first visited the Grand Traverse region in 1986, it’s not just the spectacular scenery and endless outdoor diversions to be had here that enchanted me. Another draw is the people who live here. I have found that northern Michiganders are generally a friendly bunch. I constantly engage strangers in conversation. There is a ready dry sense of humor and a willingness to be helpful. I spend half a year in Indianapolis, and although that Midwestern charm is present in Indy, it is not as authentic as I’ve found Up North. This really doesn’t get talked about enough. People would not buy and build seasonal homes and be return vacationers if they didn’t find the locals to be congenial.
We must acknowledge that there is something of a “goldrush” underway here in the north. To ensure that northern Michigan maintains its unique identity in the face of so much change will be an ongoing balancing act.
I believe that northern Michiganders, as well as those residents in communities throughout the Great Lakes, won’t let their cultures disappear due to the surge of people who are new to the region. There is real local pride here. But it will take a concerted, patient, and welcoming effort to keep northern Michigan, northern Michigan.
So, if you move here, remember what it is that attracted you in the first place – the stunning geography, the crystalline bodies of water, the diverse wildlife, the overall natural splendor of the region. Learn how you can play an important role in protecting what we all treasure. If you want to be here, be here for all the right reasons. Connect with and learn from your neighbors. Take responsibility for your presence here. You’ll find it a much more welcoming and enlightening educational experience. And we’ll be glad to have you.
[TM1]Eliminating redundancy; “90” was mentioned earlier.
Glen Sheppard would concur with all of this. Well, most of it…he’d’ve found something that rankled him!
Sounds like his book is an excellent piece of journalism... which gives more validity to his assessments of the region's current status and what likely lies ahead.