BY MARK URBAN

From art to Art’s and putting to paddling, Glen Arbor is a wide-range of activities on its own little island. While some of the combinations may seem a little unusual, it all works for the Leelanau County village on the Crystal River.

“Glen Arbor is 36 square miles of land and the national park came in 1970 and took 30 of that,” said Mike Sutherland, who owns The River Glen Arbor, a new business that offers mini-golfing along with kayak and canoe rentals. “They turned us into an island basically. “We’re surrounded by national park and Lake Michigan. It’s a unique community.” Just consider that on one corner of West River Road and Lake Street is Art’s Tavern, a long-established bar and restaurant.

Across the street is actual art. There are, by most estimations, nine art galleries in and around the village of Glen Arbor. There are several other art-related businesses. “We’d like to see Glen Arbor considered an arts destination,” said Peg McCarty, director of the Glen Arbor Art Association. “For our town, there are a lot of art galleries. “A lot of people see that as beneficial, supporting the arts.

” In addition to art of the visual variety, Glen Arbor boasts as much of the musical versions in the summer months. The Manitou Music Festival offers 12 events in July and August. Most of these are held at the studio stage and were coordinated by Harry Fried of Lake Street Productions. A few are offered outside of town, such as the free Dune Climb Concert and another atop the ski hill at Homestead Resort.

“It’s an unbelievable series,” said Bonnie Nescot, treasurer of the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce. “And it’s very intimate. It’s also very diverse, they have all types of music.”“It’s a lot of creative people working together coming up with good ideas to make our town special,” McCarty added.

Glen Arbor has several other ways that its town is special, at least from an event standpoint.
There’s a Fourth of July Parade that always features something unique. “It’s still a free-for-all,” Nescot said of the parade. “We don’t have any rules and we don’t have any themes. We just celebrate theFourth of July.

” There’s also an art fair, a 5K Run-Walk (July 28) sponsored by the Glen Arbor Women’s Club, Port Oneida Fair (Aug. 7-8) and a vintage book sale (Aug. 13-14). There’s even a Labor Day Bridge Walk with spectators walking the bridge on M-22 at the Glen Lake Narrows. The span is currently under construction which began on Dec. 1, 2008 and isn’t scheduled for completion until October. “This year we might have a Bridge Wave with each side waving at the other,” Nescot joked.While the construction to the south has created a detour, it hasn’t done much to affect things in the north. “It hasn’t made a difference at all,” said Nescot, who credited a map of the detour route from Joanne Rettke with easing the confusion.

One thing that may confuse visitors to Glen Arbor is where to eat. It has nothing to do with the lack of choices.“There’s a lot of diversity in the food,” said Nescot, who co-owns Art’s Tavern with her husband, Tim Barr. “You don’t have to go to one place over and over like a lot of small towns. It’s a lot of fun because you have a wide range. “The price ranges are all there, too. You can have everything from the inexpensive all the way to things that are more higher-end.”

With as many places to eat or shop for art, there are also a lot of specialty and clothing shops.

If you’re into doing things actively, there are also plenty of options.

There’s top-notch tennis courts at the Glen Arbor Township Park.

There’s also plenty of places that will rent you a canoe, a kayak or a bicycle. There’s also plenty of places to hike and explore. Of if you want to work on your putting and your paddling, there’s The River. The mini-golf course opened a year ago, the livery on June 27. “I always wanted to do an eco-tour company and a canoe/kayak livery,” Mike Sutherland said. “It just so happened that I built a mini-golf course and gardens first. “We’re making a lot of families happy here.” And he should know what it takes, being that Mike and Becky Sutherland have five kids of their own. The course itself isn’t like your traditional place to play miniature golf. No trees were cut down and nothing but native plants were used.“We didn’t bring anything in that wouldn’t have been here,” Becky Sutherland said. There’s also signs that explain the history of Glen Arbor. “There’s a piece of history on every hole,” Becky Sutherland said. “It’s more than a mini-golf course.” In many ways, the diversity offered at one business mirrors that of the rest of Glen Arbor.

“I’ve always marveled at it,” Nescot said. “We live in Empire and we have the beach there that is the big focus. In Glen Arbor, we don’t have a public beach. “The town is the focus. People come here to shop and there’s a lot to do.”

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