Screenshot of air quality map: Accuweather, July 19, 2026 In the Great Lakes region, and in much of North America, summer is a brief and treasured season. We pack in a lot in twelve or so weeks. While we talk about the lazy days of summer, there is almost a frenzy of festivals, fairs, sports events, outdoor concerts and theater, “up north” trips, etc. If you are one those folks who by mid-March is dreaming of the joys of summer, you’re not alone. However, in the last few year

Clark Lake Golden Hour, Jane Elder These are rugged times if you care about democracy, humanity, and the biosphere, and I assume that if you care about the Great Lakes, you are probably checking all those boxes. The constant drum of daily bad news and political dysfunction ripples through in the form of rollbacks of long-standing protections, rejection and expungement of expertise and institutional memory in regulatory and scientific agencies, and corporate sweetheart deals t

Photo by willfess courtesy of Friends of the Boundary Waters As the United States tumbles onward in the present administration’s quest to free corporations and billionaires from tedious little things like regulations that protect health and the environment, our forests and waters are now threatened in ways that are unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. The trajectory to unravel government and shatter federal institutions is moving forward apace, and our new national motto s

When we fail to prevent disasters Jane Elder Lake Whitefish - Catch of the Day - Michigan Sea Grant Photo My mom grew up in Marquette Michigan, but like so many others, she re-located to southern Michigan for jobs during World War II. She loved the Upper Peninsula, so there were family trips to the U.P. when my brother and I were little. I remember the road signs for Laughing Whitefish Falls on the northern route to Marquette, and puzzling over whether or how a whitefish coul