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Terri Bocklund represents the Marquette Poets Circle during the first artistic walk of Chocolay Bayou on Sunday. “The earth is alive! The event took place on the Chocolay Bayou reserve of the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy. The event, which ran from Friday to Sunday, featured local artists and gave the community a tour of the reserve, which UPLC purchased in 2016. The reserve represents 12.5 acres of ecological habitat. unique near the mouth of the Chocolay River. Owned by UPLC, funding came from grants, as well as donations from individuals and community organizations. Also shown is a bird blind painted by local artist Chelsea Stafford. (Diary photo by Christie Mastric)
The event, which ran from Friday to Sunday, featured local artists and gave the community a tour of the reserve, which the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy purchased in 2016.
“We are here to celebrate five years of community-driven land conservation,” said UPLC Executive Director Andrea Denham.
Denham said performers were scattered across the bayou at various stations.
The list of participants in the Chocolay Bayou Art Walk included Mindy Kantola, prints; Emmalene Oysti, painting; Janeen Rastall, poetry; Chelsea Stafford, painting; Bree Bliss, photography; Gene Bertman, painting; April Lark, photography; Lynn Buckland Brown, collage; Alésia Braund, painting; Carrie Hensel, painting; and Colleen Maki, photography.
The Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy’s Chocolay Bayou reserve is pictured. The ÒThe Land is Alive! Ó event took place at the reserve from Friday to Sunday to celebrate its fifth anniversary. (Newspaper archive photo)
Denham said one of the attractions in the reserve is a mural painted by Stafford of the blind bird, with the mural being shown at the Fifth Artists Station.
The UPLC is also partnering with the UP Children’s Museum to update the tree sculpture at the entrance to the reserve.
“We have brought the community together to redesign and redecorate the tree sculpture, so we’ll have that soon again” Denham said.
According to UPLC, the Chocolay Bayou reserve represents 12.5 acres of ecologically unique habitat near the mouth of the Chocolay River. Owned by UPLC, funding came from grants, as well as donations from individuals and community organizations.
The property’s wetlands and adjacent bayou waters provide breeding and feeding habitat for an abundance of fish and wildlife. The wooded beach ridges of the property can be used to interpret local natural and cultural history, as well as to host community education programs.
Denham said the reserve is primarily made up of Great Lakes wetlands and a forested ecosystem of dunes and rills.
“This is where the river and Lake Superior have, over the millennia, come into an area and sort of built up dunes, and then as they receded for a while you get that low point. “ Denham said.
The resulting wetland, she said, has ridges and rollers. The bayou itself is a backwater in the Chocolay River, which she called a “Important characteristic” to the reserve.
Terri Bocklund represented the Marquette Poets Circle on Sunday.
“We are here as artists, even though we are not visual artists, with the Bird Box of Poetic Destiny, which you can access” said Bocklund. “And we offer our art for free. “
This box was filled with poems on cards written by the members of the circle.
For example, ME Kilpatrick’s haiku poem reads as follows:
Down in the bayou
Wildlife has found what is so true:
Life on the ground in the haiku.
“They’re all about the beautiful UP outside world,” said Bocklund. “They are all about the rivers and the wildlife and the trees.”
For more information, visit www.uplandconservancy.org.
Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. His email address is [email protected].
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