Solutions

Limited access to health care contributes to higher rural death rates

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Rural Michigan residents who suffer from a chronic illness that requires specialized treatment may have to drive hours to receive care.

That barrier to access to health care is one reason rural county death rates tend to be higher than their urban counterparts, according to Robert Howe, the medical director of the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department.

Water

Community input sought for cleaned-up lakes, shorelines

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It’s taken over 30 years and $80 million to restore Muskegon Lake and a few nearby smaller bodies of water.

Decades of pollution and rapid urbanization created ecological problems so severe that the lake was designated a “Great Lakes Area of Concern” by the U.S. and Canada in 1987.

Wildlife

Butterflies race for state insect status

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Three butterflies are racing to become Michigan’s official state insect – and one of them is ahead, at least politically. 

The black swallowtail butterfly, a native of Michigan, spends its whole life cycle in the state hibernating as pupa under leaves during winter and hatching in the spring.

Water

Old Lake Michigan shipwreck visible again after burial under sand

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Look fast or you may miss an elusive 170-year-old sunken schooner off the coast of Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin.

The mostly intact shipwreck, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in early April, isn’t always visible, even though it’s in very shallow waters, said Tamara Thomsen, a Wisconsin Historical Society maritime archaeologist.

Art

Need a summer read? Join this basin-wide book club

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Readers across the Great Lakes states and Canada this year will participate in a basin-wide book club hosted by the Library of the Great Lakes. 

From now until September 2025 participants will read Michigan author Sally Cole-Misch’s The Best Part of Us and Ontario author Joanne Robertson’s children’s book, The Water Walker.