Arts & Culture

As we move into our middle years many of us yearn to do something to change things up in a big way.

Battle Creek's Loreen Niewenhuis took that question and really came up with something different: she got up from her desk, put on her hiking boots and started walking.

First Loreen walked around Lake Michigan.

Then she decided to walk over a thousand miles - hiking the shorelines of all five Great Lakes.

Her adventures are chronicled in her new book A One-Thousand-Mile Great Lakes Walk: One Woman's Trek Along the Shorelines of All Five Great Lakes published by Crickhollow Books.

Niewenhuis has taken off her hiking boots and joins us today on Stateside.

Listen to the full interview above.

Frannie Shepherd-Bates is a Shakespeare geek. She is also executive artistic director of the Magenta Giraffe Theatre Company in Detroit.

Twice a week, Shepherd-Bates drives from metro Detroit to the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, which is about 10 miles south of Ann Arbor, to share her love of Shakespeare.

This week marks an important event in the history of Michigan and the history of Native American tribes here in the Midwest.

250 years ago this week, Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa called a council of tribes. The purpose of the council was to figure out how to drive out the English settlers and army from the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions.

Hundreds of Native Americans came to Chief Pontiac's council on the banks of the Ecorse River in what is now Council Point Park in Lincoln Park.

Many are familiar with the name Chief Pontiac because of the city in Oakland County that bears his name and the now-discontinued GM car line.

We wanted to learn more about the significance of Chief Pontiac and this Council that he led on April 27th, 1763.

Ben Hinmon, is the Cultural Instructor of the Seventh Generation Program of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe in Mount Pleasant. Hinmon is the Great-Great-Great-Great Grandson of Chief Pontiac.

Today he takes us back to what was happening during this council meeting in 1763 and he talks about the legacy of Chief Pontiac.

This weekend there will be a traditional Pow-Wow at Council Point Park in Lincoln Park.  The Lincoln Park Historical Society and Museum, American Indian Movement of Michigan, and others are holding the free events, which also include a car show of classic Pontiacs at 5 p.m. Thursday, and a concert by singer-songwriter Bill Miller at 6 p.m. Friday.

You can listen to the full audio above.

Michigan was recently ranked fifth on USA Today's list of craft brew states in the country.

Over the past three to four years Michigan has seen a large growth in microbrewies.

There has been recent  buzz within the microbrewery scene in Michigan with news that the state's first 'Mobile Canning' line is being launched.

Microbreweries around the state will be able to get cans of their brew onto store shelves without having to invest in costly canning equipment.

There’s not a parent around who hasn’t had a child write that classic school essay “What I want to be When I Grow Up.”

It might be wise to pay close attention to the goal that child sets for himself or herself.

When she was ten years old, Caitlin Lynch of Bloomfield Hills announced that her goal was to become a professional singer.

She came from a family of talented musicians, her first solo was in first grade at Holy Name School in Birmingham singing, “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music at the school talent show.

She sang her way through Marian High School in Bloomfield Hills then on to the University of Michigan.
 
Last month,  Caitlin Lynch made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in Francesca di Rimini.
 
Soprano Caitlin Lynch joined us today and told us about her professional singing debut.