While you’re having coffee — or spiked eggnog — by the tree this morning test your crew’s knowledge of the Land of Delight.* 

Q: What lake is home to the Christmas Tree Boat pictured above?
A: Glen Lake. This is the 7th year for local Frank Siepker Jr. to moor the Glen Lake Christmas Tree Boat #GLCTB and delight photo takers and passersby at The Narrows. Solar panels charge batteries for the tree's 2000 LD lights. The first year Santa rode the fishing boat, too, but couldn’t withstand the high winds.

Q: What is the name of the famous brunch beverage served at The Cove in Leland, that is served with an entire smoked fish “standing proud” in the glass?
A: Chubby Mary, one of “Northern Michigan’s Most Iconic Eats 2020.” 

Q: Costumes for which Star Wars bounty hunter were created by Sandy Dhuyvetter, a musician and designer who splits her time between Lake Leelanau and Northport?
A: Boba Fett. Dhuyvetter, a.k.a. “Momma Fett,” created gunslinger garb for this fan favorite in The Empire Strikes Back. 

Q: Which adorable endangered bird — with an alliterative name — has its largest Great Lakes population residing in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore?
A: Piping Plover.

Q: What horror flick — filmed in Northport and Omena — hit No. 1 at the U.S. Box Office this May due to unusual circumstances surrounding the pandemic?
A: The Wretched. Filmmaker and Detroit native Brett Pierce told Entertainment Weekly: “We’re going to be a Jeopardy question one day, because we’re going to be the lowest-grossing most successful film.” Check out the interview Pat Sullivan did with Pierce and his filmmaker brother in the Northern Express.

Q: This competitive high school team practices on Lake Leelanau, is comprised of athletes from across Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties and is coached by a 2012 Olympian. What is the sport?
A: Rowing. Lake Leelanau Rowing Club founder Erik Zehender hired Ukrainian rower Viktor Grebennykov —  a triple world champion skuller who also competed in the men's eight event at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London — as the competition tract crew coach. Read more about the team here.

Q: Kalkaska and Leelanau are among the ten counties in Michigan whose names were created by this historic geographer, geologist and ethnologist?
A: Henry Schoolcraft. His creative vocab often combined Native American words with roots from Greek, Latin and Arabic, sometimes leading to disputed sources. Leelanau’s name has been cited as a Native American word or combination of Native American and French ascribed to Schoolcraft, meaning “Delight of Life,” which has morphed more recently into “*Land of Delight.”

Q: This Nashville-based indie pop artist grew up in Leelanau County, attended Interlochen Arts Academy for high school, and regularly finds her way back to the area for performances at venues like Two K Winery and The Workshop.
A: i.am.james (Say you were a fan first.)

Q: This Glen Arbor-based fruit-and-fun emporium got its beginnings in 1989, when founder Bob Sutherland started selling T-shirts sporting the motto “Life, Liberty, Beaches and Pie” out of the trunk of his car.
A: Cherry Republic.

Q: This Leelanau-born lawyer was the first woman attorney in the nation to successfully defend a murder case, in 1926.
A: Emelia Schaub, born in a log cabin in Centerville Township in 1891. The trailblazer was also Michigan’s first woman to be elected and to serve as county prosecutor — in Leelanau County, of course — and worked to protect the rights of Native Americans in Northwest Michigan. 

Q: Which Leelanau lighthouse crumbled into Lake Michigan due to high water levels and erosion?
A: The North Manitou Light Station (est. 1896) on the southern tip of North Manitou Island. The light tower fell in 1942 and the remaining buildings succumbed to the lake by the 1970’s.

Q: What was the name of the award-winning, tart cherry-laden burger patented by Pleva’s Meats in Cedar?
A: Plevalean.

Q: What beetle has nearly decimated the region’s ash trees, valued by local Indigenous People for use in traditional basket making?
A: Emerald Ash Borer.

Q: What is the name of the Manitou Passage shipwreck discovered by famed shipwreck hunter Ross Richardson in 2010? 
A: The Westmoreland. The ghost ship and gravesite whose location remains a secret — and is said to still hold barrels of whiskey and gold coins that were headed to Fort Mackinac — is also the cover image on shipwreck photographer Chris Roxburgh’s just-released book, Leelanau Underwater, which includes a handful of wrecks previously never seen. 

Q: When missionaries and settlers first arrived in the 1800’s, what three locations on the Leelanau Peninsula already had established villages of Indigenous People?
A: Omena, Northport, and Leland. 

Q: What geographical location in Leelanau County has no deer?
A: South Manitou Island. Steve Yancho, Retired Chief Ranger and Chief of Natural Resources at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore told the Leelanau Ticker in his happy birthday salute to the Lakeshore this October, “South Manitou Island is an unknown gem that many lifelong Leelanau County residents have never visited. The lack of deer on the island allows a person to experience a forest like none found on the mainland or even North Manitou Island.” 

Q: What Michigan craft distillery is the official sponsor of the Cedar Polka Fest?
A: Valentine Distilling Co., which Cedar native Rifino Valentine started as one of the first craft distilleries in the country, in Detroit in 2007.

Q: Author Jim Harrison famously rented Room 1 of the iconic Jolli-Lodge (currently listed for sale) where he stayed until he had completed this novella, also made into the film of the same name?
A: Legends of the Fall.

Q: In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were three stations from which U.S. service on the shores of the Manitou Passage?
A: The U.S. Life-Saving Service. The stations were located on North Manitou, South Manitou, and at Sleeping Bear Point, where crews used surfboats, projectile rescue lines launched from shore, and a boatlike metal capsule called a surf car to rescue mariners in distress.

Q: Summer vacationers once took dune rides that launched from Glen Haven, in a fleet of burly cars and trucks called what?
A: Dunesmobiles.

Q: What is the name of the Swiss melting cheese made locally for 25 years by Leelanau Cheese Co.?
A: Raclette. Check out cheesemaker Anne Hoyt’s Christmas tradition.  

Special thanks to Elizabeth Adams of Leelanau Historical Society (see the just-launched virtual Leelanau Christmas exhibit); Juliana Lisuk, volunteer coordinator at Inland Seas Education Association, which is hosting virtual cafes this winter; Emily Sunblade, interpretation education technician at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for their trivia expertise!

Photo courtesy Frank Siepker Jr.