By Richard Louv on April 1st, 2013 Thinking about Newtown. Chased by an unending stampede of 2,000-pound automobiles and 4,000-pound SUVs, we cocoon inside our homes. The assault continues. Unsettling, threatening images charge through the television cable and overwhelm us. Hyper-vigilance trumps mindfulness. Where do we find respite? The poet Wendell Berry offers...

By Richard Louv on April 30th, 2013 What’s a grandparent to do? Marti Erickson makes a practice of keeping two collapsible chairs in her car trunk. If she’s having a particularly stressful day, she drives to the closest patch of nature, sits on one of those chairs, and is soothed. She always carries two chairs in the trunk of her car. “My oldest grandchild likes...

Shannon Shuptrine, Faculty - Elementery News

On Sunday, March 17, Getting Kids Outdoors partnered with the Little Traverse

Bay Bands for a Maple Syrup workshop. More than 50 people met at the Craven

Family Sugarbush, located north of Harbor Springs. Doug Craven, an LTBB

member, along with three of his four boys came out to help and haul buckets,

boil sap and romp in the snow. After a quick...

Northern Michigan Outdoors: A Q&A with Josh Baker, owner of The Outfitter in Harbor Springs, on the giant ice mass discovery on Lake Michigan.

By Maureen Stine  Years ago, I caught a friend’s reaction to a challenging work assignment.  His supervisor wanted him to establish a 501(c)3 volunteer group for their civic center to enhance and support future programming.  “Man,” he groaned (the boss out of range), “I don’t have the time, and nobody’s ever shown interest in volunteering for that.”  Dismissing the...

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, we’ve talked about gun laws and mental-health treatment, amid a host of other responses. But one potential tool has not been mentioned. Now, let me say right off that I don’t pretend that nature is a paragon of peace. Writer Herman Melville once challenged the idea of nature as “the grand cure,” as he put it, and asked “who...

 Kate Bassett Harbor Light Newspaper Jan 16, 2013

Photos of elementary school children making patterns with leaves, taking “pictures” with cardboard frames, and practicing geometry by way of building forts, flashed across the projection screen during the Harbor Springs Board of Education meeting Monday, January 14. These images-- examples of how children can learn...