This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan takes an intimate look at one of America’s most highly sought vacation destinations now in a dramatic state of flux, related through the voices of those who know it best.
This book explores a phenomenon occurring around Michigan’s Great Lakes and other high-demand scenic locations across the country: natural landscapes are undergoing profound human and climatological change as people pick up their lives and move to bucolic locations. The Grand Traverse region in northwest lower Michigan has been one of the most impacted regions in the state, with the population increase accelerated by the pandemic and climate change.
The impact of this growth is explored through field observations and interviews involving dozens of born-and-raised locals, “boomerangers” (those who grew up, left, then returned), and relocators. The author explores the tensions between newcomers and “natives.” Interviewees include tourist industry leaders, conservationists, business owners, public safety officials, tribal members, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore officials, and more. These voices characterize the region’s diverse views, providing insight into how one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country is attempting to balance environmental preservation with an influx of people.
Northwest lower Michigan’s story of transformation, as tradition collides with progress, holds many lessons and will resonate with everyone who has ever lived in or visited such an enchanting place and dreams of calling it home.
Praise for This Magnetic North and Sand, Stars, Wind, & Water: Field Notes from Up North
“This Magnetic North is a deep conversation about northern Michigan and the ever-increasing pressure of climate change and migration coupled with the intensifying, almost tectonic force of tourism. This book is an odyssey to be savored and taken in. It is essential reading for anyone who claims to love northern Michigan for its beauty.” — Michael Delp, author of The Mad Angler: Poems and coeditor emeritus of the Made in Michigan Writers Series
“Tim Mulherin’s book This Magnetic North offers a thoughtful, curious, and whimsical window into our up-north paradise, and how the pandemic, climate change, and our robust—some would say “too robust”—tourism marketing network has changed the human experience in the Leelanau and Grand Traverse region.” — Jacob Wheeler, editor and publisher of the Glen Arbor Sun, and journalism instructor at Northwestern Michigan College
“Tim Mulherin’s journey through diverse and fascinating lived experiences in Michigan’s Grand Traverse region reveals residents and aspirational residents in flux who still share a loving commitment to one of the Great Lakes’ most magical landscapes. This Magnetic North offers visions for a place worth stewarding through the uncertain futures of economic inequality and climate change.” — Lynne Heasley, author of The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes
“Tim Mulherin takes us on a memorable walk through one of the most beautiful places in America, a place he cherishes and honors with acute observation. In telling his tales of Leelanau, he gets the biggest issue of all – the need to live with respect for the water and all living things. In accessible prose he teaches, delights, and entertains. — Dave Dempsey, author of The Heart of the Lakes: Freshwater in the Past, Present, and Future of Southeast Michigan and Great Lakes for Sale
“Some can visit a place a thousand times and never get to know it, while others go deeper, beyond the tourist lookouts and marked trails, until they’ve learned the place by heart. Tim Mulherin is one of the latter. He ‘gets’ northwest lower Michigan, and his book is a rich and entertaining celebration of it.” — Jerry Dennis, author of The Living Great Lakes and Up North in Michigan: A Portrait of Place in Four Seasons
“‘We are born to love the planet,’ so says Tim Mulherin, and I agree with him. Indulge yourself in a little northern Michigan planet love with this vibrant collection of essays.” — Heather Shumaker, author of Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes
“Tim Mulherin’s love of the place is expressed in just the right way: by writing to the senses. I’d been there often, decades ago, but as I read, I returned, feeling the sun-hot sand and the water-cooled breeze, smelling fish cooking over a driftwood fire, hearing mosquitoes whine outside the sleeping bag on Manitou Island, feeling my legs pumping to get me to the top of Sleeping Bear Dune without stopping, squinting at that glittering road of afternoon light stretched across Lake Michigan. I read his words, breathe deep, and I’m there again.” – James Alexander Thom, author of Follow the River and Panther in the Sky
