Grand Traverse Bay is a bay of Lake Michigan formed by part of Northern Michigan. The bay is 32 miles (51 km) long, 10 miles (16 km) wide, and up to 620 feet (190 m) deep in spots. It is divided into two arms by the Old Mission Peninsula. The entire bay is conterminous with the Grand Traverse Bay Bottomland Preserve.
Traverse City is situated at the south end of the bay where the Boardman River empties into the west arm. Cherry orchards line the bay region, giving rise to Traverse City's claim to be the Cherry Capital of the World. Several nationally known companies offer cherry-based products made with Northern Michigan tart cherries including Traverse Bay Farms, Cherry Central, Fruit Advantage, American Spoon and Cherry Republic.
The Grand Traverse Bay includes several important smaller bays: Northport Bay, Suttons Bay, Omena Bay, Bowers Harbor, and Old Mission Bay. Northport Bay, located at the northwest corner of Grand Traverse Bay is about 10 miles (16 km) long and 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Northport Bay open to the east, except inside the arms at each end, with the Leelanau Peninsula on the West side. There are several shoals in Northport Bay marked by buoys. Bellows Island, a low gravel island covered by shrubs and located near the middle of Northport Bay, is owned by the Nature Conservancy; it is primarily known as a bird rookery, and is sometimes locally called Gull Island.
The Village of Northport, Michigan operates a public marina. There is a public beach on the south side of the marina. The bay is lined with homes. There are two boat yards north of town. There is a private marina on the southerly end of the bay.
Besides cherries, the surrounding countryside produces grapes and is one of the centers of the Michigan wine industry. Known for its shimmering blue water and golden sand beaches, the Grand Traverse Bay region is a popular vacation destination.
In September 2007, Mark Holley, an underwater archeologist with the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council who teaches at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, said that they might have discovered a boulder 3.5 to 4 feet (1.1 to 1.2 m) high x 5 feet (1.5 m) long) with a prehistoric carving in the Grand Traverse Bay. The granite rock has markings that resemble a mastodon with a spear in its side. Confirmation that the markings are an ancient petroglyph will require more evidence. The stone is pictured on page 9 of New Scientist Magazine of 19 July 2008.
Famous quotes containing the words grand, traverse and/or bay:
“A garden has this advantage, that it makes it indifferent where you live. A well-laid garden makes the face of the country of no account; let that be low or high, grand or mean, you have made a beautiful abode worthy of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)