The Grand Traverse Area is located in the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. (Our state actually has two relatively large peninsulas of land--the Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula, which looks like a backwards mitten). Traverse City is the largest metropolitan area in the region, but Petosky and Charlevoix also are well-known vacation towns. Northwest lower Michigan was subjected to at least four major glacier periods; the most recent ice-age was the Wisconsin Ice-age which occurred approximately 12,000 years ago. This period resulted in massive sheets of ice gouging the relatively soft shale deposits underlying the great lakes and our part of the state. Mixed in with the shales were resistent sandstones and limestones which withstood the scouring action of the glaciers. The end result was the creation of a dramatic landscape with steep elevation changes, thousands of vistas, and hundreds of natural ponds and lakes in our region. Because of the presence of the Great Lakes, we have access to hundreds of miles of shoreline and many square miles of open water.
All this water brings unusual climate conditions to Michigan. We can be as cloudy as Seattle in some southern parts of the state (fortunately not by us) and as snow-bound as Buffalo, New York, in other areas of the state (the Keewenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula experiences an average of 200-300 inches [5.12-7.69 meters] of snow per year). In the Grand Traverse Area, we have approximatley 30 inches of snow per year, with precipitation fairly uniform over the calendar year. Because we are surrounded by water, our temperatures stay cool well into Spring and warm longer into Fall. (Nearly 50 additional frost-free days occur on the Old Mission Peninsula than areas at the same latitude only 10 miles [16.6 kilometers] inland to the east). This is what allows stone fruits like cherries and peaches to be produced so far north.
When the first european settlers came to the region, several indigenous American Indian tribes occupied the land. These tribes included the Chippawas and Pottawatomies. The French voyageurs and Catholic Jesuits were the first to travel through the region, giving it the name of "Grand Traverse" due to the wide expanse of water that marked its shorelines. This was believed to occur as early as the 1600's; by 1839, when Reverend Peter Dougherty, a Presbyterian minister, arrived most vestiges of the French were gone. (One vestige did remain--apple trees. It is unclear whether the French brought the seed with them or if the local Indians traded for it.) Reverend Dougherty established an outpost in the vicinity of a natural harbor on the east side of the Old Mission Peninsula. As the community grew over the next twenty years, changes in Indian policy forced the minister to relocate his mission to the Leelanau Peninsula at a site currently known as Omena. With the departure of Reverend Dougherty, the townsite became known as "Old Mission", a name that it retains to this day. Old Mission is believed to be the oldest white settlement outside of Mackinaw Island in Northern Michigan.
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