By Mark Bashore, WKAR
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-975895.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI –
At a turning point in her life, Battle Creek author Loreen Niewenhuis decided to take stock with an ambitious adventure. It involved her very favorite place and its thousand miles of shoreline. In March, 2009, she set off from Chicago to walk the perimeter of her beloved Lake Michigan. Niewenhuis recounts the experience in her new book, 'A Thousand Mile Walk on the Beach.' WKAR's Mark Bashore spoke with the author and first asked what factors fueled her desire to walk around the "big lake."
Loreen Niewenhuis: "It was a bunch of factors, but the biggest thing kind of came to a head in my life where I had a mid-life crisis and I knew that I either wanted to go on a crime spree (laughs) or take on a really big challenge. And luckily, I veered toward the taking on a big challenge, and Lake Michigan is my very favorite place in the world, so it immediately became clear that Lake Michigan had to be my adventure."
Mark Bashore: "I've mentioned to a few people that I'm interviewing an author whose book is about walking the perimeter of Lake Michigan and almost all of them first respond by mentioning how awful it must have been near Chicago and Gary, Indiana. What from that segment of your walk will you remember most vividly?"
Niewenhuis: "I think the day that I walked through the BP oil refinery, which is a massive installation and there's all these smokestacks and the day I walked through--even though it was in March--it was 70-degrees so I was sweating all day. And when I finally got to the casino hotel on the lake, I took off my pants, and above my socks up to about the middle of my thigh was completely brown from the soot that had worked its way under my clothes. And I think that was, like, the visual that kind of captured the extent of the industry in that first segment."
Bashore: "One motivation for your walk was to get an idea of the environmental condition of the Great Lakes. And you comment many times on how beat up they are and how much help they need. Could you read one of those passages, please? This is on page 50."
Niewenhuis: "Sure. On a sunny day, it seems that all is well with the lake, but that is an illusion. If you know where and how to look, and what to measure, the Great Lakes are a battered, blundered, trashed and invaded ecosystem that needs to be strengthened. A good start would be a law that all ballast water must be treated before it is discharged to prevent any future invading species from assailing the lakes.'"
Bashore: "As we sit here a couple years after you wrote those lines, are you more or less confident about the environmental condition of Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes?"
Niewenhuis: "I am encouraged by the legislation, the five year legislation, moving through Congress called The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.' It has been scaled back from the initial vision that President Obama had for the five year package, and it's been scaled back every year a little bit more because of the economy and the monies available, but it is certainly a big step in the right direction, to putting money into the Great Lakes .and the money is targeted for projects that will give immediate results. It's not money to study, it's not money to look at problems. It's money to fix problems. So this five-year initiative is, I think, a complex answer to a complex problem, it's the beginning of the answer. So I'm encouraged by that, but there is still much more work to be done on the Great Lakes."
Bashore: "You periodically walked with friends and family members, but you had a good deal of time to yourself as well, to meditate on whatever. What was that like?"
Niewenhuis: "It was lovely. It was lovely to be away from all distractions, and when you're walking by the lake, as many of your listeners probably know, there's a rhythm that you can get into with the waves and the wind and it's very soothing and it kind of allows you to have a long thought. And that's something in my day-to-day life with computers and phones and running around .I (had) not had the luxury of having a long, complex, connected thought for a while, so I was able to contemplate the lake, the ecosystem .all the research that I was doing, I just kinda just packed my brain as much as possible and was able to mull things over. But then I was able to also think about my life, you know, and my family, my kids, my future, my past. And then every once in a while toward the end of the day, I would get so tired that some stupid jingle from TV would rise up from the subconscious and I'd have to sing The Brady Bunch' tune out loud a couple of times, which was unfortunate." (laughs).
Bashore: "You met all kinds of people and wildlife on your walk. Which was most memorable?"
Niewenhuis: "There was one day I was hiking in rolling dunes with dune grass, and I didn't see that there was a fawn sleeping on the dune, almost covered with the dune grass, and I almost stepped on it. And the fawn jumped up and I jumped back, and we startled each other, so that was quite memorable as far as wildlife. And then I found, I crossed paths with a communist called Carl on a bike in Wisconsin and we had a lovely conversation about development and government that was very memorable."
Bashore: "You created a video that's on You Tube that quite graphically concerns the dozens and dozens of dead animals you encountered on your walk. Let's listen to a little bit of your narration."
Niewenhuis: "It was along the stretch between Peshtigo and Oconto, Wisconsin that I saw the most heartbreaking road kill a great horned owl. This is a magnificent bird and it was both fascinating to see it so close and heartbreaking to know it was dead. As I moved the owl from the rocky shoulder of the road into the tall weeds nearby, I worked my fingers through its downy, belly feathers. I closed my eyes and imagined how it was to fly as this bird of prey through the night sky, to hear the "womp, womp" of great wings flapping in the cool night air. As I nestled it gently in the tall grass, I was astonished by how little it weighed."
Bashore: "Of all the topics I image you could have covered, why that one?"
Niewenhuis: "I became fascinated with the road kill. When you drive by road kill, it's not very personal. When you walk by road kill, it's very personal. And I was taking hundreds of pictures a day, so I started taking pictures of all the road kill that I passed. And I was fascinated. There were hummingbirds and bats. And the most heartbreaking road kill that I saw were a lynx and a great horned owl about a mile away from each other, and it's because a highway was being put in where a wetland had been, so their whole ecosystem was being disrupted so the top predators in that area were having to cross the road and get out of that area and two of them were killed so close to each other. So I think the point of that passage in the book is to show that we have an immense impact on the natural world, and especially when we're going and disrupting a complete ecosystem whether it's in the lake or on the land."
Bashore: "The muscles recovered, the blisters healed, the toenail grew back. What's the lasting take-away from your thousand-mile walk around Lake Michigan?"
Niewenhuis: "One thing that the hike gave to me--I mean it certainly took away all the boundaries I had as a person, where I thought I'd have to stop at a certain point. I had to push past those boundaries that I thought I had, so it's expanded my sense of myself. And with regard to the lake, it has transformed my vision of the lake from the pinpoint views that I had of all the lovely little towns and beaches that I had walked into a complete holistic view. Not only walking the lake, but doing all the research. And I think that holistic view, when people actually see the lake in its entirety, it is a call to action for people to care about the lake more and to push for more legislation to protect our lakes. It's extremely important."