If you drive from Leland to Northport on M-22, part of your way is along the west shore of North Lake Leelanau. Along the north lake, you are only a few miles from the 45th parallel, which in our county runs from south of Leland over to north of Suttons Bay. Now that the lake is frozen over, ice shanties are beginning to appear.
The Narrows between north and south Lake Leelanau is the only place to get from one side to the other, M-204 crossing from one arm of M-22 to the other, from the Lake Michigan side to the Grand Traverse Bay side, and going right through the little unincorporated village of Lake Leelanau, formerly known as Provemont.
"Unincorporated" doesn't mean nothing's happening in Lake Leelanau. This winter a new building is rising on the Narrows, to house a new wine tasting room come summer. See more of the view looking north on my other blog. The other side of the Narrows, looking south, was quieter. Even the ducks weren't doing much more than napping.
How different all of these same scenes will be when summer returns! Fishing will be from boats and docks rather than on ice. Here is a man fishing last summer behind St. Mary's School. (He doesn't seem at all nervous about the presence of swans.) Back in the very old days, when M-204 crossed the Narrows south of the present bridge, a high iron bridge reached from the site of this dock to the other side. Different times, different seasons, but the Narrows remembers.
