Sleeping Bear Film Nabs Prize, To Air On PBS

While the legendary mama bear and her cubs rest peacefully beneath the sands of Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Manitou Islands, their spirits are alive and well. Keith Patterson celebrates it in his new documentary The Spirit of Sleeping Bear.  
 
Subtitled Awaken Your Spirit, it features historical footage and photos, interviews with local historians, and contemporary footage of people enjoying the dunes, trails and waters. It recently nabbed the top prize at the Central Michigan University Film Festival for Best Michigan-Made Feature Documentary. Next up: showings on PBS, though when it will be aired and on which PBS stations is still to be determined. “I’m also hopeful it will be on the PBS app,” Patterson says.
 
Patterson didn’t set out to be a documentarian, but his interest in film came early. “I had a really good professor at Forest Hills Central in mass media,” he says, saying that teacher literally changed his life. “At 16 I decided, ‘This is what you should do.’”
 
After majoring in film and video studies at the University of Michigan, he ventured west to Los Angeles. He was able to find work on a number of scripted network and cable television shows, as well as a handful of movies. But as his family grew, he decided it was time to relocate back to his home state.
 
“I started an ad agency, then three years ago started Manitou Films,” he says. Originally dedicated to his agency clients, he found that expanding from shorts still attracted clients, while providing another outlet for his creativity.
 
“I fell in love with the genre,” Patterson says of documentaries. “It’s real people.” He made a feature-length film about Grand Rapids, a.k.a. Beer City (also the name of the film). Then he ventured into the water with Lake Leelanau, Spirit of the Lake.
 
While that may have prepared him for what became The Spirit of Sleeping Bear, Patterson says that going in, his goal wasn’t to create a feature film. “I was approached by the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitors Bureau,” says Patterson. His assignment was to make a promotional film that was part history and part adventure.
 
But as he shot the film, he found himself thinking it could evolve into something more than a short promo. “It was never intended to be a feature film. Even when filming It, I thought, that would make a (good) show.”
 
And he had plenty of material. “I was sitting on a mountain of footage,” he says. He had done most of the filming in 2021, and after sifting through it, in 2023, he put it all together.
 
The movie shows people enjoying the park in the present day and historically, utilizing footage and interviews Patterson and his crew shot as well as historical footage and photos. The first chapter is “The Legend of Sleeping Bear.” It blends pages from the popular children’s book of the same name by Gijsbert Van Frankenhuyzen with commentary from local historians, including Laura Quackenbush of the National Park Service and NPS Interpretive Park Ranger Bill Herd.
 
The legend of how the Sleeping Bear dunes were created is a melancholy one. Fleeing a fire in Wisconsin, the mama bear and her cubs swim across Lake Michigan. She lands on the shore and falls asleep watching and waiting for her cubs, who never make it across. The Great Spirit takes pity on her, making her one with the dunes, and the cubs rise to the surface as the Manitou Islands, forever watched over by their mother.
 
The film itself offers a poignant look back at one of the region’s historians. Longtime Empire resident Dave Taghon provided insights into early fruit farming and other historical aspects. The president of the Empire Heritage Group passed away earlier this year, but not before contributing both onscreen and off.
 
“The black and white film footage of Senator Phil Hart – Dave shared it. I sent the reel to Chicago and had it digitized,” says Patterson. “He couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.”
 
The film also features the Glen Lakes, Fishtown, Van’s Beach, Elberta Beach, Point Betsie and local businesses. 
 
What’s next? Patterson intends to look at Michigan’s role in the American Revolution. He’s also planning to begin working on a series of films about the country’s national parks. “The Spirit of Sleeping Bear is intended to be a television pilot. Each (show) would be a different national park,” says Patterson. If that’s the case, his homage to Sleeping Bear Dunes should prove a great entrance point.