Five years ago, the Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy completed its $165,000 fundraising goal and officially opened the Preserve. This year, we will celebrate its 5th Birthday with our first annual Bayou Art Walk, Friday, August 20 through Sunday, August 22. The public will be invited to hike the Bayou, take part in a community art project, and visit with and support exhibiting artists throughout the Preserve!

The Art Walk will be a celebration of the natural beauty and community space provided by the Bayou. Picture: a blue arm of a river shimmering through pine branches and cedar boughs with warblers and blackbirds and finches filling the air with song, and wildflowers poking up through the moss and last year’s leaves. This jewel is the 30-acre Chocolay Bayou Nature Preserve, tucked between the growing communities of Marquette and Chocolay Township. This small area holds part of the boundary of the 1842 Copper Treaty of La Pointe with the Anishinaabe, and also the site of the area’s first steam sawmill and furnaces.