Sunset – Water Wonderland

- On this wild and wet episode of UTR, it's all about our wonderful water.

We'll take a glass bottom boat ride, jump off black rocks and kayak through industry.

Then we hit Fishtown, an ancient island and the Pere Marquette with the one and only Fish Whisperer.

Get ready to explore the cool rivers, lakes, and streams that make Michigan a great place to be in on or even under the water.

- Pure is what you make of it.

It's taking it all in and never taking anything for granted.

The sun sets, the moon rises, and you realize the end of one perfect summer day is the beginning of another.

Pursue your pure in pure Michigan.

- A visit to the Stahl's Auto collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

- Brought to you by Midland Michigan a Great Lakes Bay region community.

Visit gogreat.com for more info (intro music) - I've been around the world but there's one place I keep coming back to and the more I explore, the more I realize it's the place to be.

I'm Tom Dalton and this is Under The Radar Michigan.

- Hey everybody, me again.

Well, I got good news and bad news.

Good news is I made it through Covid.

All right!

The bad news is I had to have eye surgery.

So why don't you guys watch this show we put together on all the great ways you can get wet in the great state of Michigan.

And I'm gonna call my doctor and make sure everything's okay.

Okay, hold on.

Hello, Dr. Saul Looksee?

Yeah, look, I'm seeing double.

Well, no, don't bill me twice.

- Now what happens when you add two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen?

Well, you get most of Michigan, that's what.

Because we've got countless rivers and over 11,000 inland lakes.

Heck, we've even got shores on four of the five Great Lakes and the world's longest freshwater shoreline.

Yep.

We're a bonafide water wonderland where if you want to get wet you don't have to wander far.

So inflate your floaties and get ready for an aquatic adventure 'cause first up we hit awesome Alpena.

Well, it's Friday the 13th and I'm gonna go out on a glass bottom boat into Thunder Bay and look at shipwrecks under the water.

Little scary - kinda ironic.

On UTR, even though we like to live dangerously...not, this two hour tour is fun, safe, fascinating, and uber educational.

It's the Legends of Thunder Bay Shipwreck tour where you get to explore some of the Great Lakes most famous sunken treasures without getting wet.

Now, before you head out on the open seas or a lake, so to speak, you'll start your adventure at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

We had a chance to visit here back in season one and it really is an awesome place to get a sense of Michigan's great shipping history.

Now back on the boat, I met up with my first mate for the day, Stephanie Gandulla and her passion for this unique experience is unparalleled.

- So why are there so many shipwrecks in this area?

- Well, there's, there's a few good reasons for that.

My favorite thing to say is they don't call it Thunder Bay for nothing.

So lots of terrible weather, sudden fog, terrible storms.

Second reason is high traffic.

Doesn't really look like it today, but at the early 1800s, up until the mid 1900s, this was one of the busiest waterways in the whole world.

Literally thousands of schooners and freighters were plying the Great Lakes.

Any vessel traveling on the Great Lakes has to go by Thunder Bay So high traffic would lead to collisions.

- Gotcha.

- And then another reason we have so many shipwrecks here in Thunder Bay is the shallow shoals.

And so a lot of groundings.

The limestone underneath the water where we're at right now is really jagged.

So perfect for ripping apart a ship's hull, whether it's wooden or metal.

- Now these shipwrecks are all protected.

- They are, they're part of the sanctuary, which is an another layer of protection that the state of Michigan already provides.

So it's anything on, any cultural artifact, like a shipwreck, that's on state of Michigan bottom lands is state of Michigan property, which is, you know, the people's property.

- It's so neat to float above these 'cause they're not that deep.

They're only like 15 to 20 feet of water.

- Right.

Some even as shallow as eight feet.

- So you can see so much of this ship.

How is the wood preserved for so long?

- Well, it's the cold, fresh water of the Great Lakes.

I like to think of it as a schooner deep freeze.

I mean these ships are preserved because of the cold, fresh water.

Whereas in the ocean you've got the salt that will corrode metal and you also have different critters that will eat away at the wood.

- Now you can dive these sites, right?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

We encourage, we do not restrict access at all.

We encourage folks to, to get out and experience our shared cultural heritage.

- And this Thunder Bay for diving for shipwrecks is known around the world.

- It really is.

It's a world-class diving destination.

And not just diving, I mean we're here on the glass bottom boat, but there's snorkeling.

You can kayak up to a shipwreck.

All sorts of ways to experience.

- Yeah, I mean the tour's fascinating.

The boat ride's fun.

Even if I even without, without the glass bottom, you know, it's still fun.

- Yeah.

- Do you ever find any like treasure or booty or bounty or the, the pirates?

No.

- This is the treasure.

The treasure is the, the historical shipwrecks.

- We saw some absolutely fascinating shipwrecks that were so close you could almost reach out and touch '''em.

We even got up close and personal with a classic freighter that was in port loading its cargo.

If you're looking for a way to meld your mind with Michigan's magnificent maritime memories, you might want to head to Alpena for the Legends of Thunder Bay Shipwreck tour.

We did and we would again.

Remember when your mom used to say to you, "Well, if your friends are gonna jump off a cliff, are you gonna jump too?"

Well, I finally figured out the right response.

Heck yeah.

And that's exactly what people of all ages do here in Marquette at the tip of Presque Isle Park, the cliffs are called Black Rocks and they're an incredible formation of black granite cliffs that rise 20 feet above the crystal clear and frighteningly freezing waters of Lake Superior.

Allison Silk told me all about this incredible place and she made sure I knew exactly what I was jumping myself into.

- I was gonna ask you why they call this Black Rocks, but it's pretty obvious these rocks are black.

- Rocks are blacks and actually some of the rock formations that are you'll see from the shore if you go out on a boat, we have some of the oldest rock formations in the world in this part of the country.

- Wow.

This is the view is incredible.

- Yeah.

- Now how long have people been jumping off these rocks?

- As long as people can remember.

I've talked to NMU alumni and people that have lived here 40, 50 years ago and they remember doing this growing up in, you know, being students at Northern jumping.

- And does the park mind that people jump here?

- They don't, no, they don't promote it.

But somehow the word gets out.

You know, we have people that come in and say this is on their bucket list.

Everybody knows about it.

So I, I think it's just through word of mouth that it's promoted.

- This is not on my bucket list, but - - You're doing it anyways.

- Well, I think I'll try it anyway, but I gotta ask you, what's it like having all this in your backyard?

- It's incredible.

I feel like I live in the most beautiful place in the world.

You know, I've shown pictures to family and friends.

There are some overlooks in this park, Presque Isle Park, where we are right now, and people have thought I'm in California, Oregon, Washington.

They just, they can't believe it's Michigan.

- How far is the jump down to the water?

- It's about 15 to 20 feet, so not too bad.

- Fifteen sounds better.

- Yes.

- We'll go at 15.

- And the water, obviously, is deep enough for the jump?

- It is.

Yep.

No one has ever been injured jumping.

There are different spots and everywhere you really wanna jump, it's safe.

- And it's toasty warm this time here, right?

- Yeah, oh, about 90 degrees.

Yeah.

- Before I took my own leap of faith so to speak, I wanted to find out what possessed other people to do this crazy thing.

- So is it true you guys have thicker blood up here or are you just crazier?

- Probably a little bit of both.

- You know, you and I should know better than to be doing stuff like this.

Why?

Why are you doing it?

- Because I've been doing it for a long time.

- Really?

And you're just gonna do it again.

- I'm going to do it again.

Too bad my kids couldn't come today.

- They'd be proud or ashamed or embarrassed.

- No, they've been doing it since they were five and seven.

- Do you have something, a favorite thing you like to yell when you go in?

- Not really.

- I'll yell for you.

- You kinda just gotta do it.

I'll do, I'll yell for you.

Go ahead.

Excelsior!

(water splashes) Okay, let's see you do it.

I dare ya.

I double dog dare - Oh my God.

(water splashes) - Hey, she disappeared right in the water.

So you are doing this because?

- Because I like to get wet.

- No, tell me the truth.

It's because chicks dig cliff divers.

Right?

- That's very true.

When I come out here and I'm flexing my abs and I'm like, I'm about to jump in that water and all the ladies, there's whoa, do some tricks.

And it's like...What?

- Awesome.

I don't believe any of that.

Why don't you just jump?

- Whoa.

(water splashes) - He did a flip.

Well it was time.

The moment of truth finally came.

- I'll be right there, Alison.

Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

Hold on.

On three.

Three!

Mommy!

(water splashes) - Well, I'll be honest.

I thought dressing like super dude would ease the impact and shield me from the cold water.

- My cape.

- But all it did was make it more difficult for me to swim to shore.

- Lose the cape.

And losing the power of my UTR super hat just made it more difficult for me to watch this clip.

- I'll survive without it.

- The truth is the jump was so much fun.

Jim did it and Eric even did it twice.

So if you're up in the UP and you're up for the challenge, jumping off the cliffs at Black Rocks is an awesome experience you'll never forget, and take it from me, you'll feel like a superhero even without the crazy costume.

Oh, and you'll also save $24.95.

Bonus.

- Well, since we've been talking about food for the last few minutes, I think it's about time we work up another appetite.

And for that we've got something pretty cool and pretty unusual.

Now, imagine kayaking on a beautiful summer day with some of your new best friends.

Now, imagine doing it around one of the biggest industrial complexes in the world.

This is the industrial Rouge tour put on by Riverside Kayak Connections.

They do it only once a year and it's absolutely fascinating.

What's it like to be dwarfed by industry as you paddle past the Ford Rouge complex?

Well, thanks to our guide and fearless leader, Tiffany Vandehe, we're all about to find out.

- Would you classify yourself as an avid kayaker or just a regular kayaker?

- No, I'm a pretty avid kayaker.

- How long has Riverside been doing this tour?

- Probably 11 or 12 years.

- That long.

Can you just do it one day a year?

- We do it once a year.

- Probably why there's so many people here.

You should do it more often.

What can we expect on the tour?

- You're gonna see a lot of industry, possibly a freighter.

I heard that there one might be going through today.

- Oh awesome.

- So, and it is a fairly calm paddle until we get out to the Detroit River.

So.

- I was gonna ask you what skill level you need 'cause my skill level's very low on many things, so it's so it's an easy paddle.

- This one's an easy paddle.

I mean, we'll be on the Detroit River for five to 10 minutes and if there's a wind that can be a little bit more challenging.

But by that point you've been in the boat for two hours so it won't be so bad.

So.

- What would you tell somebody who might not be interested in doing this tour?

Why it's so fascinating?

- The Rouge River was the, actually the course of the river was changed by Henry Ford so he could get things up to his manufacturing plant.

So you're seeing like where the car industry started or you know, in the very early stages and how things have changed.

You paddle under I 75.

That's kind of a really cool experience.

You're starting to see how wildlife is coming back in those areas.

So there's definitely, we'll probably see some birds along the way, herons.

You'll see people fishing.

I mean just a lot of different, not just the industry, but also some nature and just how people are living along the river.

- Now you guys do a whole variety of tours, right?

At Riverside.

- Correct?

We do everything.

We focus on, well, most of the Detroit River, but because this, the Rouge goes into the Detroit River.

But we do tours from Lake St. Clair all the way down to Lake Erie, Detroit Historical Canal tours around Belle Isle.

We paddle from Detroit to Wyandotte.

- Wow.

- We do the lower River Grosse Ile-Wyandotte-Trenton.

- Is there a lot of recreational kayaking on the river here?

- It's really starting to take off.

And when we, they first asked, Friends of the Rouge approached us like 11, 12 years ago.

We did a tour and I didn't think anybody wanna do it.

Definitely a lot more interest and they're starting to now create launches that'll be along the the lower section of the Rouge River.

- Now how many kayakers are with us today?

- There will be about 25 today total.

- Boy, it's like wrangling cats.

How are you gonna keep us all together?

Well, luckily the river's very calm.

- It's very calm.

And we will have safety boaters that will be out with us to help everybody.

- Oh good.

I'll need my own safety boat.

- Well enough talking about kayaking, it was time for us to put our crafts in the water and our paddles to work.

And what a wonderfully surreal paddle this is.

Sitting in your kayak, you're overwhelmingly dwarfed by some of the most gigantic industrial structures imaginable.

It's almost like you're slowly passing through the belly of a giant mechanical beast with all the sights, sounds, and smells of progress.

And at the end of the tour, you paddle right out onto the Detroit River with incredible views of the city skyline, the awesome Ambassador Bridge and monster freighters.

It's a pretty grandiose end to a terrific tour.

If you're looking for a completely different kind of kayaking experience, get ahold of the folks at the Riverside Kayak Connection and take the industrial Rouge tour or one of their other fun tours.

You'll learn a lot, laugh a lot, and of course work up the appetite necessary for our next segment.

- Hey, look, Fishtown!

Pretty cool, huh?

- Welcome to Leland's Fishtown.

Now, if at first glance you think it's just another one of those fabricated, recreated tourist traps, I've got some news for you.

Sure.

It has all the nostalgia and unique shops that families and wives like mine love.

But at the heart of it all is a real authentic working fishing village that hasn't changed in generations.

- Just this little charming place that's not like anywhere else in the world.

- I mean, it's unique.

Where else could you find anything like this?

- Then there's the fish.

Look, kids, white fish, (blows raspberry) they taste good too.

- So if you're looking for fresh fish, good luck finding it any fresher than here at Carlson's of Fishtown.

This family's been fishing these waters for six generations now.

That's like a thousand years I think.

Fishtown is still, obviously, I can see from here, is still a real fishing community.

- Absolutely.

It's one of the only active fishing villages in the country.

- There are a lot of shops here, but that's how we saved Fishtown.

We rebuilt all the old buildings and rented them out so we could have some income to continue to rebuild the buildings.

- Right.

In the meantime, the fishing business was our main business and still is.

- Well I, for one, am glad we have folks like the Carlson's keeping it real here in Leland.

Get it, keeping it "reel".

Oh, well.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that Fishtown is a pretty cool place.

But what might be under your radar is that right at the end of the dock here is the starting point for another great Michigan adventure.

Since 1917, the Manitou Island Transit Company has been taking people out to explore the North and South Manitou Islands.

These two beautiful and rugged islands are about 15 miles offshore and are part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Ah, the seas were angry that day, my friend.

So the ride out was not for the faint of stomach, but I'll tell you what, holding onto the person next to you really is a great way to meet new people.

Now we took the trip out to South Manitou Island.

The island is only about three miles across, but it actually feels much bigger and no one permanently lives here anymore, but it's still an incredible place to camp or just explore for the day.

Our tour guide for the day was Mike Groebner.

His family's been here for generations.

So he knows everything there is to know about these islands and that makes one of us.

- A lot of my friends have been to Leland.

They, they love it.

They love Fishtown, but they never even thought about doing this, about taking the transit out, taking the boat out here and, and seeing these islands.

This is a, a true treasure.

- Absolutely.

Probably a big reason for that is that, is that you need to set aside a full day.

It's, it's a a lot bigger commitment than just going shopping in Leland or going down to the beach for a while.

And our people are more likely to be people that are seeking out this type of experience and making that kind of commitment for a whole day's adventure.

- But it's so worth it when you get out here and you see the stuff that's out here and you can hike out here, you can camp out here.

- Yep.

This is the dual purpose island or our, our day visit island, we call it.

Whereas North Manitou is, is wilderness camping.

- Right.

- And South manage with semi wilderness camping.

But we also spend the afternoon here.

- So we made our way through some beautiful forest to the southern tip of the island for a look at something I couldn't wait to see.

The shipwrecked Francisco Morazan.

This is a spectacular site of this shipwreck.

Now tell me about how did this happen?

- Yeah, it is their dramatic view.

In 1960, a November storm, a young inexperienced captain was trying to get back out of the Great Lakes before he was trapped in here for the winter, which maybe made him use some bad judgment and leaving in a, in a big storm.

- And apparently he wasn't the first.

- Well this is a graveyard of shipwrecks.

I mean he's one of 13 or 14 ships that just missed the, the, the basically narrow channel after 200 and some odd miles coming up here and getting buffeted about by by the storms and currents between here and Sleeping Bear over there is pretty narrow, uh, target.

And obviously he missed.

- As if seeing the shipwreck wasn't cool enough.

Mike took me on a great hike through the island where we got to check out the Valley of the Giants.

Some of these mammoth cedar trees are over 600 years old and apparently they won't be around much longer.

So I suggest you come up and see '''em real soon.

They're another one of Michigan's great hidden treasures.

Just like the islands they call home.

- I tell you honestly, I can't remember the last time I packed so much cool stuff into one day.

But it's hard not to in Leland.

This town's got it all and we put a cap on our adventure with a fantastic meal at the Riverside Inn.

It was the perfect end to another great trip.

Although not the most romantic of company.

You know I've heard of the horse whisperer, the dog whisperer, and even whispering willows.

But fish whisperer?

Do fish even have ears?

Well by now you've probably guessed two things.

One, I'm going fishing and B, I know absolutely nothing about fishing, which is why I've secured the expert services of Tommy Lynch, the one and only Fish Whisperer.

Ooh.

When it comes to any and all things fly fishing, this guy is the wizard of the water.

He knows every fly, every fishing hole.

Heck, he even knows some of the old fish in the river by name.

We met Tommy on the Pere Marquette River just south of Baldwin where I tried both fly fishing, And given my general lack of skills and knowledge, probably Tommy's patience as well.

- Okay.

What we're gonna do here, brother, before we start getting you going is I want you to try a couple of practice casts out there.

- You want me to try a couple of practice casts?

- Yep.

- Now just to give you a frame of reference on myself, there's a park near me that's got a river and I occasionally see guys up there in waders doing this.

And that's the extent of my knowledge, - Oh - about fly fishing.

See/ (laughing heartily) - You already messed it up.

I'll tell you a big thing with fly fishing too.

Less is more here.

The harder you hit this thing, the worse it gets.

So it's up slow.

Way back to two o'clock.

Stop at 10 o'clock.

- Gotcha.

'Cause it's so light.

- And if you pull it outta the water, it doesn't work.

Right idea.

- There we go.

- Swinging your arm there a little.

- Oops.

- Is that better?

- Getting warmer.

- I gotta ask you real quick, how did you get the name Fish Whisperer?

- Oh, old college girlfriend.

- An old college girlfriend.

- She was into horses and she used to yell at me for going to Alaska in the summers.

- So it's in your blood, you've been doing it for a long time.

- Yep.

- Better than bowling.

- Better than bowling.

That's (chuckling) - Well, when, when was the first time you got hooked on fishing?

Pun intended.

- Well I think I was in upstate New York.

- Yeah.

- My father and my mother took me to see my uncle Fred.

He had this private little pond in his backyard and I caught a bass and the whole putting something out there and asking something to bite it will really hit home.

So if you can hit that bank there, Tom, that's a good one.

Remember slow let it low.

- Oh, slow and low.

Now.

And I have to admit too, the first time I talked to you on the phone, and this is a true story by the way, I had to stop you and tell you that I didn't understand a darn thing you were saying to me.

- It is.

There's kind of a subculture.

We're just, we're just a bunch of geeks.

We're just missing pocket protectors, really.

- Yeah, but I mean there's all the different insects that you know and all the different, it's just amazing.

It's a totally different language, a totally different culture.

But I can, I can completely see now that we're on the river, how you can get hooked on this so easily.

- As you can see, this has the potential to be a pretty long day for the other Tom.

Something just went up onto the shore, like a an animal.

- It's a muskrat.

- Oh, a muskrat.

Can I catch one of those with this?

- I don't know.

You gotta get better at casting for those, too.

- This is my first time.

Now what kind of fish are we fishing for, right now?

- We're fishing for the elusive brown trout.

- The elusive brown trout lot.

Are there a lot in the Pere Marquette?

- Yes.

Yes.

Quite a bit.

They're very smart though.

They get fished 12 months of the year here in Michigan.

- Well they'll probably outsmart me today, at least being my first time.

- Well luck.

Luck plays a good role in that too.

- And lucky for us, not only did we have the power of the Fish Whisperer on our side, we had the ever-present power of TV magic.

So it wasn't long before Tommy taught me a few tricks and found us the perfect fishing hole.

- See if we can get one going here.

And that's the thing about it too, 'cause there's 50 or better fish down in the bottom of this pool and all of 'em are finding a way to say no right now.

But again, as soon as it gets dark, then it's all bets are off - And then, it happened.

- Fish on!

- Keep that rod to the right and walk to me nice and slow.

Don't touch that pedal.

There you go.

Walk to me.

It's a good one.

Lift them straight up nice and slow.

That's good.

You can quit reel.

(laughing) - Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Look at this fish.

Look at this fish.

He's beautiful.

- Well, I guess it's a tradition to kiss your first fish.

At least that's what Tommy told me.

Turns out I caught a beautiful Wild Rose brown trout with the most incredible neon pink spots.

And as Tommy explained, you don't keep 'em.

You catch 'em, thank 'em for the experience, and send them on their merry aquatic way.

Quite simply put, this was a day I won't soon forget.

And one thing I can tell you for sure.

When you're out with Tommy Lynch on the Pere Marquette and you hook one of these beauties, you'll be hard pressed to keep your excitement to a whisper.

I hope this action packed episode taught you a little something about our great state.

No matter where you live, you're never far from the amazing sights, sounds, streams, trees, or trails that make Michigan the best outdoor palooza in America.

Hands down.

- Pure is what you make of it.

It's taken it all in and never taken anything for granted.

The sun sets, the moon rises, and you realize the end of one perfect summer day is the beginning of another.

Pursue your pure in pure Michigan.

- A visit to the Stahl's Auto collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

- Brought to you by Midland Michigan a Great Lakes Bay region community.

Visit gogreat.com for more info (outro music)