Samantha Brown's Places to Love

-I'm in a destination that's quite simply a powerhouse of natural beauty and human effort.

First nurtured by the Anishinaabe people, it's a place where a great lake creates a sparkling environment of fresh air and rich soil, where it seems everything and everyone thrives.

It's a place where the dunes are active, the cheese is a world champion, and cherry lovers find their home.

I'm Team Cherry, as you can see.

I love cherries.

I'm exploring the pinky.

-Yep, exactly.

-I'm in the pinky.

I'm in Traverse City, Michigan.

I'm Samantha Brown, and I've traveled all over this world, and I'm always looking to find the destinations, the experiences, and most importantly, the people who make us feel like we're really a part of a place.

That's why I have a love of travel and why these are my places to love.

Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" is made possible by... -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and Samantha Brown's "Places to Love."

Sailing to more than 600 destinations around the globe, from Europe to Asia and Alaska to the South Pacific, Oceania Cruises offers gourmet dining and curated travel experiences aboard boutique hotel style ships that carry no more than 1,250 guests.

Oceania Cruises.

Your world.

Your way.

-Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel to the United States and in more than 100 countries.

From exploring our national parks to learning about art and culture in Italy, we've introduced adults to places, ideas, and friends.

We are Road Scholar.

We make the world our classroom.

-So clearly this is a lake.

-Yes.

-But it also has characteristics of the sea.

-This is an inland sea, just like all the lakes of the Great Lakes are inland seas.

-Sleeping Bear Dunes is one of only three national lake shores in the United States.

But, wow.

I mean, it just looks -- Actually, I need to touch it.

-Yes, you do.

You have to.

You can't be along the shore and not touch the water.

No salt, no sharks, no jellyfish.

And the water's always refreshing.

-But the lake shore does have its fair share of critters.

-A lot of animals will walk up and down the beach.

The eagles are patrolling the beach.

Bears, we have black bear in the park.

-Are you kidding me?

You have black bear?

-Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, of course we have bears in the park.

So yes.

So we have black bear in the park.

-It's those little cues that I never pick up on.

From Esch Beach, we continue through the park, traveling on the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive.

It winds its way through a deep forest that deposits you up above a glorious view and one of the reasons why the national park was created.

-What you're looking at are active dunes.

These are moving.

They are going across a glacial moraine.

And the term we use are perched dunes.

-Perched dunes.

-Perched dunes.

So it's one of the few places on the planet where you can see an active dune field, and you can see these perched dune.

-There's so much geological history here, but there's also just human history.

-There is.

-How people got here and how Michigan became the state it is today.

-You're looking at the interstate highway of the 1800s and early 1900s.

The Manitou Passage cut off 60 miles of travel between Chicago and the Straits of Mackinac.

-Oh, wow.

-So peak of shipping on the Great Lakes, 1880s, 1890s, there might have been 100 ships going through this passage in a day.

-Wow.

-And it wasn't just cargo.

It wasn't just timber.

It wasn't rock.

It was people, because a lot of people came to the Midwest by boat, and that's how they got to their new home as they came across the Great Lakes in these passenger ships.

That's how my ancestors did.

-Active dune field.

Active human field.

-Active human field.

Yes.

Lots of different layers.

-Merrith wanted to take me to the iconic Lake Michigan Overlook.

And if I thought I was on the ocean before, well... Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh!

-Yeah.

You are 450 feet above the lake on a very sheer cliff of sand.

-So you've got the lake here, but we're on a dune that I don't see the bottom.

-You can't see the shore because this is so steep.

But believe it or not, people do go down this.

We recommend they don't.

It's a very tough thing to do.

Imagine walking up a 450-foot-tall wall of sand that's 45 degrees.

-It's not just a straight, sheer cliff.

It's actually has a little bit of a grade?

-It does, a little bit of a grade.

-Just enough to inspire the crazies.

-Just enough for people to want to walk up and down it, yeah.

-I wanted to get a little closer, but not too close.

I'm just gonna stay right here.

[ Laughs ] That's about it.

That is unbelievable.

You think you're gonna do it?

No.

[ Laughs ] Kathy and I are not going down there.

-Absolutely not.

-Not.

We are enjoying the view.

There's 65 miles of shoreline here at Sleeping Bear.

There was still so much that I wanted to see, but there was one stop elsewhere in the park I had to make.

Now, the dune climb, you can do.

And I've been told that in Michigan, this is like a rite of passage.

Like every single elementary school comes here to climb, and then they run down.

So, challenge accepted.

You're the tortoise going up the hill and the hare going down.

[ Sighs ] I think I'm at the top.

I really don't know.

Oh, my gosh!

[ Laughs ] It's actually another mile and a half of sand dunes before you reach Lake Michigan.

So it's a 3-mile trek, because if you go -- You don't have to go, but once you do go, you have to come back.

And it takes anywhere from 3 to 4 hours.

Now, I've got this much water, so that's gonna get me enough to go back down.

I'm here in June, but the National Lakeshore is a year-round destination, and snow makes the dune climb the ultimate sledding hill.

Have a good time!

Biking the trails here is also very popular, and that makes the nearby town of Glen Arbor a perfect pit stop.

Get it?

- Land was green and the hills rolled on for many miles away She thought may her children grow till their dying day -Obviously we're in cherry land, but, like, I'm Team Cherry, as you can see.

I love cherries.

If Michigan was only famous for growing cherry trees, I'd be here anyway.

I love cherries.

Bob, how many different cherry products do you have?

I feel like maybe 50?

-Oh, you are a little bit low.

-Okay, low.

-I would say that there's about 275 different cherry products.

-[ Laughs ] What?

-Now, we go from, you know, simple, basic dried cherries to cherry jam.

Every chance that we can have to showcase cherries.

-Yeah.

-When they're sweet and tart and spicy and, you know, savory, all those different expressions are here.

-Michigan's northwest Lower Peninsula is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States.

Cherry Republic is less of a store and more of a campus for cherries and cherry lovers, and they are generous with their samples.

The business began with a cookie that started at all, but now the cherry salsa has become the icon.

Are you the maker of all these products?

-We make probably half of those products.

Anything in a jar is pretty much what we make.

-Okay.

Cherry Upside Down Jam?

Okay.

-We make our own ice cream.

My super favorite is our super cherry soft serve, you know.

-You have cherry soft serve ice cream?

-Yes.

That's been new lately.

Come back here, and we'll try it together, there.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-That's fantastic.

-Leelanau County, a beautiful peninsula in northern Michigan, juts out into Lake Michigan.

The diversity in farming up here is incredible and stunning.

It just makes for an immensely unique place to live, an incredibly inspiring place to be, and a wonderful place to grow vegetables.

My name's Nic Theisen, and this is Loma Farm.

My wife and I, Sara, started this farm about 14 years ago.

-Of course, nearby Traverse City is a foodie hot spot, mainly because of the locally grown produce by farmers like yourselves.

But you don't necessarily give to restaurants.

You actually own the restaurant that most of this produce goes to, correct?

-Yeah, about 70% to 80% of what we grow goes to our own restaurant.

-That's really rare, right?

-It is truly rare.

-There's no middleman there.

-No.

Yeah.

It cuts out the middleman, and it really gives us more control of our own creativity, starting from seed and ending on the table.

-So I'm just seeing a menu right now.

So, like, what's on the menu based on the rows of food that I'm seeing?

-Basically everything you see.

-Okay.

-The napa cabbage behind us is on the menu.

We have parsley, broccoli.

Asparagus is on the menu.

Chard, two varieties of kale.

Then butterhead lettuce which Madison's harvesting over there is on our butterhead salad with buttermilk and dill dressing.

-The Farm Club restaurant, which is a little over a mile from Loma Farm, is a collaboration between Nic and his wife, Sara, the farmers, and Gary Jonas, who's the restaurateur, along with his wife, Allison.

Are you the only business that's doing this?

Do you know of any other people who have sort of put this whole idea of living to work in terms of farming and having a restaurant?

-I've been in the industry for a while, and I know that this is really unique.

-That was the goal of the whole project, was that it's a gathering place to celebrate food and food that's grown thoughtfully and made thoughtfully.

-I joined in harvesting butterhead lettuce with Madison Meeder, who's a server at Farm Club.

-So we get the chance to come out to the farm and kind of connect with what all is happening here so we can tell the story better there.

-Wow!

-This is no exception.

-Nic, everyone gets to come up for a day on the farm?

-Yeah.

Not only do they get to, they have to.

[ Laughter ] -Ooh!

-10 Degree Czech Pale Lager -for you.

-How are you doing?

Nice to see you again.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-You look -- You dressed -- -We changed.

-Exactly.

You clean up nice.

Exactly.

-Yeah, we wear a lot of hats.

-But that's not all.

On top of a farm restaurant, there's also a brewery.

-Yeah, whenever we're talking with the crew, we always emphasize that every single thing that's on the menu is so many steps deep.

And there's a fun and interesting and deep story for everything.

-Yes.

Take a garlic scape, for instance.

They're typically discarded, but at Farm Club, they are picked... Ah!

...battered, fried, and made into a delicious "onion ring" that everyone looks forward to.

That's something we're all really proud of is having really accessible, fun, delicious, honest project with a lot of integrity.

-We grow well over 100 crops on this small acreage, and it allows us to grow things that make no sense, like fava beans.

You know, there's no money in fava beans, but there's a lot of fun and flavor and interest.

That needs to be your next T-shirt.

"There's no money in fava beans."

-Yeah, you're right.

[ Laughter ] -We are on the west side of Traverse City, on the historic front lawn of The Village at Grand Traverse Commons.

-And this is now a place of restaurants, close to 10 restaurants, tons of shops, office space, residential space.

But its first history was a state hospital, which is another way of saying a mental asylum.

-Right.

Well, it started off as the Traverse City State Hospital.

The Northern Michigan Asylum was the first name.

There were over 3,000 patients being served here in the late '60s when they hit their peak.

-This building right here is the main building?

-Yeah, so this was called Building 50 by the state of Michigan.

So in our local community history, this was always referred to as, you know, saving Building 50.

How are we going to save Building 50?

-It is a strikingly beautiful building.

But I would imagine there were a lot of people who thought, I still don't want to have my business or live in a place that might have, um, some -- a really tortured past.

-Once we started turning the lights on, you know, and bringing the building back to life, one bite at a time, it really changed the nature of it.

You know, my dad and our company got involved early on, and we've been working at, you know, fixing up this property since 2002 when we initially acquired the property.

-From the very beginning, our mantra was, you know, lights in the windows, music in the halls, art on the walls.

We'll bring the building back to life.

People will come.

-Ray Sr.'s daily mantra helped create one of the largest historic rehabilitation projects in the nation.

And it's a brilliant example of what an adaptive reuse development can do for a community.

Their next building, currently being renovated, gives you an idea of the original state of Building 50 and the massive repairs that need to be done.

This was once the men's cottages, vacant since 1989 when the hospital closed.

What is it going to be turned into?

-So our hope is to have multifamily housing in here, condos or apartments to reuse the building.

And something that's highly needed in our community is more housing.

-I mean, I can see it right now, Raymond, a nice ficus in the corner, an area rug.

This is beautiful.

-And, you know, knowing that we have windows that are, you know, 6 or 8 feet tall, lots of natural light coming in.

And that was part of the design of these facilities was to have that natural fresh air and light.

That was part of the medicine of the day.

And the big question was, is would anybody want to be here?

-And the answer?

A resounding yes.

The Village at Grand Traverse Commons represents a small ecosystem of what makes Traverse City such a gem, as you wander around great local art, artisans, and small businesses.

I love this T-shirt because this shows the hands, right?

-Yeah, shows the Upper and Lower Peninsulas.

-Where am I?

I'm in the -- -So you're just about to the pinky.

Yep, exactly.

-I'm in the pinky.

-And then that's the Lower Peninsula that we're in and the Upper Peninsula up north.

-See, I needed a T-shirt to show me that.

-Exactly.

-Like, a map wasn't gonna help me.

I needed a T-shirt.

-You had to have the fun version of it.

-I did, 'cause it is fun here.

-We think so.

-And that's the way it is in Traverse City.

People embrace the whole notion of community.

And you know if somebody's honking their horn, they're not from Traverse City.

-Traverse City has a front row seat to Grand Traverse Bay, a part of the Great Lake.

The waterfront is strolling distance to its downtown, with shops, restaurants, and non-honking cars.

It provides a perfect base to explore this entire area.

So it was time for me to be on my way to an experience not many Americans have "herd" of [heard] that before was just "Swiss-ful" thinking.

[wishful] So, Gary, when I bite into this cheese, I am tasting a world champion.

-Yes, that's right.

Yeah, we just won a super gold at the World Cheese Awards in Trondheim, Norway, this year.

-This is fantastic.

-I'm glad you like it.

-How many cheeses do you go up against?

-There were over 4,000 entries this year, and our cheese placed in the top 100 of those cheeses.

So yeah, really quite remarkable that a European style cheese made in the United States, you know, placed above cheeses that are made in the Swiss Alps.

-The Europeans love that.

-Yeah, not too happy.

-When those scrappy Americans come in.

But you are also making a cheese that is not known really here in the United States or as an American cheese, so to speak, raclette.

-The variety of raclette that we make is, I think, kind of more suited to the American palate.

So traditionally, raclette is exclusively a melting cheese.

But as you go for another slice there, you notice it is really tasty just to eat as a table cheese.

-Well, I am surprised by this, because I definitely have had raclette in Switzerland, and I only thought it was a cheese that you heated, and that's what gave it more of its flavor.

It came through.

But this is beautiful.

It's nutty.

It's mild.

It's buttery.

You even have your own cave.

-Yeah, it takes man cave to a whole new level for sure.

-Inspired by the naturally formed caves in Europe, this cave was designed and built to create an environment with the perfect temperature and humidity to make what is a very labor intensive cheese.

Whew!

-[ Laughs ] -That's quite a smell!

How long does the cheese stay here in the cave?

-We try to shoot for like 5 months, 5 to 6 months.

-Wow.

-We'll wash the cheese every day with a brine solution.

-Washing it takes away the stuff they don't want and creates an environment for the bacteria they do want to grow on the cheese.

And this is adding to the flavor.

-Every time we wash it, you know, we're leaving a little bit of salt on the outside.

And yeah, that does get taken up into the cheese.

Ah, attention to detail.

Very nice.

Yes.

You gotta get all that mold off.

Very good.

It's a labor of love with this cheese.

We certainly love making it, and it is a lot of work.

But at the end of the day, it's, uh -- Yes.

-Now I get to enjoy the traditional way to eat raclette with the melting cheese scraped over potatoes and cornichon pickles.

It's always available this way at Leelanau Cheese.

Oh, look at that.

Oh, my gosh.

That was so satisfying.

-That was a genuine reaction.

-And then I'm gonna put a little bit of the herbs first?

-Yep, uh-huh, yep, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

Mm-mm-mm-mmm.

Happy dance.

-Yep.

-Heave!

Heave!

Looking good.

Heave!

Heave!

-All set?

-Yeah.

I've been admiring Lake Michigan.

Now it's time to get on it.

I'll be enjoying the ride on Wind Dancer, a majestic schooner that sails the dazzling Grand Traverse Bay.

Tawny Hammond is not only the captain, but owner of this beautiful boat who wanted to preserve the history of the schooner on Lake Michigan.

-Schooners basically before the railroad and automobile, all of these little cities all around the Great Lakes were stops where they would get water.

They would get coal or wood.

People would get off.

People would get on.

It was the water stagecoach.

Obviously we traveled by land, but before the railroad, this is how you moved things.

That's how you got around.

And that's how the Indigenous people moved, as well.

-For over a thousand years, this has always been our homeland.

You know, this is our homeland now.

And the water, nibi, is very sacred to us.

It's a being.

It's like a live being that is there.

And it's always been this -- always gave us food, fish.

You know, we lived on fish for a lot of time.

So those are important things that provided for our families.

[ Speaking Anishinaabemowin ] ...Grand Traverse Band... [speaks Anishinaabemowin] My name is Thomas Peters.

I usually go by my family name, which is Binesiwegiizhig.

And I'm a member of the Grand Traverse Band here in Northern Michigan.

-You are an elder, correct?

-Yeah, I'm old.

[ Both laugh ] -But, I mean, that's -- Okay, it's a commentary on your age, but it's also a part of your responsibility to your people, the Anishinaabeg?

-Yeah, Anishinaabeg.

The spiritual part of who we are is built into our language.

There's a word for old lady in our -- It's called mindimooyenh.

But if you translate that into English, it means "the one that holds things together."

And then there's a word for a baby.

It's abinoojiinh.

A abinoojiinh is a spirit that was placed here.

And so all our teachings and the way that we believe is incorporated in our language.

That's why the effect of boarding schools had such a negative effect on us, because it was taking away our history... -Right, right.

-...about who we were.

But we're regaining that.

I've been part of that process of trying to regain our language within our people.

This area in northern Michigan is our homeland.

Today, we share this community with a lot of non-Natives.

Today, we have a lot of visitors.

We have a lot of people that live with us in this community, and we are all one community.

And we want that opportunity to show you this area and its beauty.

And so we welcome people to come and visit us.

-So, both of you are known for building things.

Carter, you're a pretty famous craftsman and builder.

And, Todd, you were a contractor.

-Yeah, general contractor, 20-plus years down in Texas.

-But you both were born and raised here, right?

-Just down the road.

-Just down the road.

-When you were being raised here, was there wine?

Was this a part of your growing up just being around -- -It was all cherries.

-Yeah.

-All cherries throughout.

-There's nothing wrong with that.

-There is nothing wrong.

Yeah.

We actually thought we were gonna have a cherry farm.

We worked on this farm when it was a cherry farm when we were kids.

-Get out!

What did you do?

Like, literally pick cherries?

Pulled tarps and, yeah.

Yeah.

That's what you do.

That's like a rite of passage when you live in Traverse City.

-That's how you grow up in Traverse City.

-Yeah.

-You have to do it.

-The Oosterhouses' winery, which they named Bonobo, grows Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, lots of Riesling, and my summer fave, ros.

-Just having the ability to put something in this bottle and then give it out to people and they're like, wait, where is that from?

Michigan?

No way.

I mean, this is just such a rich environment to grow grapes up here.

-Cheers.

-Cheers, you guys.

Thank you for being here.

-This is beautiful.

Bonobo goes out of its way to make their winery a comfortable, casual destination, which I found out while enjoying a glass of Chardonnay with Carter and his wife, the actress Amy Smart.

-People like being -- They want experiences, right?

And we want to provide that here.

We want people to come here.

We want them to walk around.

We tell people, go to the vineyard.

Just have fun, hang out there.

-But another huge mission of yours, especially yours, Amy, is just that whole sustainability factor.

-I know that the intention going into growing these grapes was let's be sustainable.

Let's be as eco as we can.

Let's keep the biodiversity.

-We don't use any herbicides.

We don't use any pesticides.

We don't have irrigation.

-But not using herbicides -- -Is a biggie.

-It's huge.

-It's a biggie.

-I love the fact that right behind me is a bar that you built, just to be honest with you, the fact that of course there's a do-it-yourself aspect to this space.

The staple gun's out, and the glue gun's out.

-All of it.

-All of it?

-"Trading Spaces" days, it all came to this.

- Sunrise on my back porch I'm so alive, I feel it in my throat I'm your man, I know it soaring Knew I loved you years ago -Cheers.

Thank you so much for being here.

-I know.

Love it.

-I appreciate that.

-If there's a finer place to be than this picnic table overlooking the vines, I haven't seen it.

-Growing up, we didn't realize how important the Great Lakes were, you know, and just living here, and how great it was just to be around that body of water, which looks like an ocean.

-Oh, totally looks like an ocean.

-But it's all freshwater.

-Yeah, yeah.

-That's right.

-The lake has created this amazing environment for all these different grape varieties and wonderful wines.

It's a place where visitors can really see why it's being protected.

-And I think that it is something that is inspiring for people to experience, being able to eat at restaurants that are truly serving locally grown and lovingly produced food.

-So it's important to know that [speaks Anishinaabemowin] was given to us, and it's sacred.

I mean, the water is sacred.

Nibi is what we call the water.

This whole area, you know, we're caretakers of that Mother Earth.

That's part of us, part of who we are.

-And that's why Traverse City, Michigan, is a place to love.

For more information about this and other episodes, destination guides, or links to follow me on social media, log on to placestolove.com Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" was made possible by... -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and Samantha Brown's "Places to Love."

Sailing to more than 600 destinations around the globe, from Europe to Asia and Alaska to the South Pacific, Oceania Cruises offers gourmet dining and curated travel experiences aboard boutique, hotel style ships that carry no more than 1,250 guests.

Oceania Cruises.

Your World.

Your Way.

-Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel to the United States and in more than 100 countries.

From exploring our national parks to learning about art and culture in Italy, we've introduced adults to places, ideas, and friends.

We are Road Scholar.

We make the world our classroom.