The Place of Peacefulness

Written by Jenny Bremer

Summer Issue '24 - Online Shop

Striped maples are understory trees. Their preference is to live in the shade of a forest canopy. They experience slow growth, and rarely reach beyond twenty or thirty feet tall. Moose, white-tailed deer, and porcupine feast on the bark and branches of these trees, though the layers they provide a forest environment are what really contribute to its balanced ecosystem; food, shelter, and safe nesting for all.

“It’s unusual for them to grow here,” Christina tells me. “They’re usually found in New York, or anywhere in the Northeastern United States, and Appalachia.”

Christina Roberts is a real estate agent and broker, a mycelium enthusiast, serial DIY home renovator, and biology aficionado. She knows real estate law in and out, though she’s humble enough to say she doesn’t, and that there’s always more to know. She does, and there is.

I touch the nearest trunk, wrapping my small hand around its circumference, hoping it will tell me through osmosis what it’s actually doing here. I run my fingers along the stripes smattered amongst its green bark, examining their blue hue. Later, my research tells me the stripes are actually not blue but white. I know it’s science but tomato, tomato.

We’re about fifty-nine miles north of Traverse City in Bay Shore. Bay Shore is a small community located along the Little Traverse Bay, and only about fifteen minutes north of Charlevoix. Access to this property is a mere two left turns off of U.S. Route 31, with only a small clearing of trees, a nondescript metal gate, and small 8 x10 “Enji-minozhiiyaamigak” laminated sign marking the trail entrance.

While Christina manages a brokerage and helps people buy and sell homes, she also deals heavily with land. I once had a conversation with her where she divulged that she often walks vacant land with her clients, using the identification of the plant life organically growing there as an indication as to whether it would make for an ethical sale or not.

“The things that are growing there,” she explains, “will tell you whether it’s a match to what the client wants, and whether what the client wants is a match to the highest good of that particular land.” Her penchant for the land’s best interest tickles me. 

Christina, her good friend and fellow realtor Sarah, and I are walking a trail through fifty-six acres of forest known as Enji-Minozhiiyaamigak, which loosely translates to “The Peaceful Place.” This land, and its attached quarter of a mile of shoreline on the Little Traverse Bay, was recently secured as a nature preserve through the Little Traverse Conservancy. It was the largest remaining unprotected and undeveloped shoreline from Charlevoix to the Mackinac Bridge. Now, it’s the Little Traverse Conservancy’s biggest investment in land and shoreline to date.

Sarah has lived in the neighborhood that sits next to this forest for the last seventeen years. She tells me that the trail and the shoreline have really only been accessed by the families who live in the neighborhood year round. Many of the maples and pines towering over us were planted there some sixty or seventy years ago when the owner of the land was just himself a young boy.

“It was an emotional sale for everyone,” Sarah shared. I listen to Christina and Sarah recount their experience as we stop to admire a small snake sunning itself. As we continue down the path, their sharing is peppered with more information about the land itself. It’s a maple forest, I’m told, that has been left untouched by logging. There’s a large sinkhole, which is unusual due to the limestone in the ground in Northern Michigan. However, it’s a moist environment; limestone and moisture don’t bode well. They point out the scotch pine tree patch, which is invasive, and bring my attention to the clearing taking place due to their fungal disease. The threat they pose to the rest of the forest is unfortunate. Scotch pines are actually quite beautiful.

Christina shifts to the red pine trees and points out one that’s dead, though not ready to fall quite yet. “But you see this one here,” she points, aligning her gaze with the direction of her elongated arm and pointer finger as if shooting an arrow; “see how straight its trunk is? That’s at least a one hundred year old tree. That’s good quality wood.”

Good quality wood. I smile. It was just the right kind of pairing of words that suddenly slungshot me into a new perspective of what was really going on in the forest on this day. On paper, I was meeting with two realtors on land not really previously known to the public to learn about an historic sale in which they played an integral part. What I realized though was that I was getting to know the land in a way that I would not have otherwise had the opportunity had I not walked it with those who knew it. There was an intimacy that I experienced with the inhabitants of those enchanting woods that made me feel akin to the striped maple, the limestone, the sunbathing snake. I felt like I had been part of the neighboring families frequenting this land and water for years.

I’m snapped out of my rabbit hole of thought as Sarah shares that a local tribal anthropologist visited the land upon knowledge of the sale and discovered that two hundred years ago the very trail we were walking was used by natives from the Little Traverse Bay Shore Bands of Odawa to access the lake for fishing purposes. He discovered markings on trees that indicated the repetitive hanging of fishing lines. Upon learning this, I’m even more enamored by the leafy path beneath my feet. I imagine all of the other feet that traversed the path long before me, and the many iterations over two centuries this path itself took.

“I could still point out today which trees were used to mend the fishing nets all those years ago,” I’m told later over the phone by Kevin Willis, confirming Sarah’s account. Kevin is the Chief Conservation Officer for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and he has been frequenting this land for 65 years. He grew up in Bay Shore in one of the neighborhoods that sits next to the property. It was essentially his backyard. 

“I’m delighted that the conservancy has this land and that it will be protected from development,” Kevin tells me. He shares that the Odawa are a seaside nation. That the shoreline of Enji-minozhiiyaamigak is one of many access sites they’d use to fish. “Wherever they could get a small vessel out on the water, that’s what they did.”

“By the way, those scotch pines?” he says, “The ones they’re clearing? If you look at the trunks of those trees where they’ve been cut, you’d be able to count the rings and see that most of them are at least 60 years old, if not more. When I used to hunt on this land in the 60s, those trees were barely ten feet tall.”

Kevin’s hope is always that natural resources remain available for all kinds of recreating. He believes that lands should remain open for multiple uses and that healthy ecosystems, ones that involve a symbiotic relationship between humans, animals, land, and elements alike, rely on how we can nurture that symbiosis and not take away from it. 

Back on the trail, Christina and Sarah share that the sale of this land to the conservancy was completely donor and grant funded. One hundred and forty two donors with one anonymous lead donor, grants, and the first ever quadruple match challenge in the Little Traverse Conservancy’s history made this purchase possible. Rather than this land being developed, it will remain protected and cared for and the trail will become universally accessible. Furthermore, a large portion of the profits made by the sellers were donated to inner city nonprofits across the country.

“The team of realtors brought this land to the conservancy and it just checked a lot of our boxes,” I’m told by Emily Hughes. Emily is the Chief Development Officer at the Little Traverse Conservancy. She tells me that because of its acreage, the vulnerability of the undeveloped water frontage, and other specifications outlined in a 26-page land conservation priorities assessment, the LTC was really happy to have had this land fall into their lap.

“At $3.15 million, this is the largest purchase in the LTC’s fifty-two year history and it’s completely member funded. Our key donor, who chooses to remain anonymous, but was open about their spiritual calling between them and the land, brought $2 million to the table. Jennifer Adderley, a long standing member of the LTC, gifted a large portion freely as well, as did many other local foundations and members. It’s one of the most profound sales in my years in major gift work.”

Emily’s voice is full of energy as she describes the sale of this land. “I can feel how much of your heart is in this,” I say in response, and invite her to tell me more.

“I ran into a friend the other day and she told me that her brother Peter was visiting Michigan recently. Peter is blind, and they enjoy spending time in nature together as a way to bond. My friend told me that Peter could actually follow the trail at Enji-minozhiiyaamigak because the trail is naturally wide enough, and there was enough of a color contrast between the organically worn trail and the woods in intercepts.”

“It struck me right in the heart,” she explains, “because it already illustrates the land’s innate accessibility, and how it opens up new possibilities to those who need its universal access. It’s already serving its intended use.” I listen to Emily’s personal account and remember Christina talking about the use of land based on its highest good. I’m in awe of the alignment taking place. 

“One person’s story can be indicative of many others,” Emily says. “There are thousands and thousands of stories alike, and this land continually affirms the innate connection that exists between all of them. There’s a lot of spirit there. I’m glad people will get to know about it.

”It’s often said that it takes a village to raise a child. Truly, though, it takes a village to do anything worth doing. And it’s hard to fathom, sometimes, how the things worth doing will get done. How would fifty six acres of untouched maple woods, old Native fishing grounds, a community’s sacred walking path, and shoreline end up being used? How do you trust that it will rest in the hands of a buyer who matches its highest good? To be with that uncertainty is yet another relationship forged, a relationship that was perhaps unexpected. Just like mine with the snake, the trees, the thought of all who walked the path before Christina, Sarah, and me that day.

That’s why this nature preserve matters. And that’s how things worth doing get done; relationships. With people, with land, with uncertainty. And ultimately with yourself. With one step in front of the other, and just doing that enough times. In being with the experience in the woods that day, that is what I came to, and was reminded of, in my heart of hearts. That, I would say, is indeed a very peaceful place.

BIO

Jenny Bremer is a life and leadership coach, writer, and photographer who draws her inspiration from the data collection in her research of meaning, magic, and truth. She is an avid cyclist, sunworshipper, and outdoorswoman who believes every day is a beach day no matter the time of year. Originally from Grand Rapids, Jenny currently resides in Traverse City.

Summer Issue '24 - Online Shop