My time as a resident of northern Michigan was relatively brief – five years, from the age of 8 to 13. But truthfully, I’ve never left. I mean that in the emotional sense, as it’s woven into my DNA as a lifelong Michigander. But it also applies physically because I get there as often as I can. There was a bike trip in the Petoskey area that took me through a dizzying kaleidoscope of fall colors; visiting a secluded cathedral of nature that incidentally also was a golf course, outside of Cheboygan; a breathtaking summer dinner at sunset on the shore of Lake Michigan in Glenn Arbor; an enchanting winter night’s walk through a twinkling trail of trees at Boyne Highlands. Northern Michigan is a wondrous place and I’m not alone in enjoying it. I know from the competition for booking vacation rentals, I know from the traffic heading north on Fridays all year long, and increasingly I know because MLive readers are telling us. MLive is making a concerted effort to report more frequently and deeply from Up North. There may be some dispute on where that actually begins, but there is no argument that everyone is eating up the stories and issues we’re covering in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Since the beginning of December more than 2 million readers have come to our coverage of the north. Not surprisingly, most of that readership comes from areas where we escape to the north from: Detroit, Grand Rapids, Chicago. We’ve written about wildlife unique to the area, we’ve written about interesting and fun things to do, we’ve written about regional lore, and we’ve written about landmarks that can’t be found anywhere else, like the largest ski jump in the Western Hemisphere. We’re also covering breaking news and issues that are roiling communities, like our story this week out of Alcona County, where a political and cultural fight has erupted over whether to accept $12.5 million in state money for senior citizen programs. Alcona County is the middle of your pointer finger, for those looking at their palms. Our closest newspaper, The Bay City Times, is about 2 hours away by scenic drive, but the M in MLive stands for “Michigan,” so our reporter Lindsay Moore was there last week to document the drama. MLive also is leaning into one of its strengths: Environment coverage. Back in June, we sent a team of journalists to the Upper Peninsula to research stories about ecology, wildlife, sustainability and more. And in the past two months we’ve added more on that topic, writing about national parks along Lake Superior “decarbonizing,” about continuing issues with the pollution from the “forever chemical” PFAS, and the larger threats from global warming. I should note that for MLive this is simply an amplification – it’s not like we just discovered the wonders north of Mount Pleasant. We covered wildfires in the Upper Peninsula a decade ago, frequently visit Mackinac Island, and our Michigan’s Best and Lovable Michigan teams have traversed thousands of miles of scenic roads highlighting food, drink and destinations for almost 10 years. There’s no end of places we can go or topics we can write about that won’t seem interesting, because “up north” means something different to all of us; we all have a favorite place that informs how we identify as Michiganders. Mine is called Aloha, on the shore of Mullett Lake, the place I left but that never left me. What’s yours? ###
John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at editor@mlive.com. | 