- Hi, and welcome to "Destination Michigan."

Here's a look at what's coming up for you.

The future of farming is growing in West Michigan.

We're revisiting Revolution Farms where innovation meets agriculture for a fresh look at the way local greens are grown year round.

Then we're taking a trip back in time to Colonial Michilimackinac.

It's a place where history comes alive, complete with cannons, uniforms, and plenty of stories.

Next up, you don't need a step foot into a wardrobe wonder to find this magical setting.

We'll hit the Narnia Trail in the Upper Peninsula to explore a spot where nature meets imagination.

Then a trip across Lake Michigan to Beaver Island, where legends shape this island's rich history and a bonus stop inside a toy shop that helps bring out the kid in all of us.

- [Announcer] Support for "Destination Michigan" is provided by the CMU Bookstore.

T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, maroon and gold memories, and an official outfitter of Adidas apparel at the Central Michigan University, owned and operated CMU Bookstore.

Online shopping seven days a week at cmubookstore.com, on campus at the University Center and Game Day locations at Kelly/Shorts Stadium and the John G. Kulhavi Events Center.

(bright music) - Welcome back to "Destination Michigan".

My goodness, it is a colorful morning here in Mount Pleasant at Island Park.

Well, I think we can all agree our four seasons make Michigan one of the best places to live in the country, but there are challenges like being able to grow food year round.

Near Caledonia sits a giant greenhouse where there are greens roll out daily, despite the elements.

Here in Michigan, we know all about the production line.

After all, we first helped put the country on wheels.

Well, this is hydroponic agriculture, a similar system that blends conveyor belts, technology and biology to grow lettuce no matter what Mother Nature has in store.

- So we're the only ones using this large of a automation system.

We have two acres that we're growing, and so we make about 15,000 pounds of lettuce every week that we distribute across Michigan and other states.

- [Stefanie] It's hard not to think you stepped into the future of farming here in the Midwest when you walk around the space at Revolution Farms.

It is a fascinating loop that begins with a single seed and ends with a package full of fresh greens.

- [Tim] We purchase our seeds from a distributor, and each gutter that we use to grow in, it's about 18 feet long.

We pack it full of peat moss in a wood fiber material, and then the seeds get laid in there automatically by a drum seeder.

That gutter is then moved out into the greenhouse, and within about 23 days, it'll go all the way from seed to being a full harvest kind of head of lettuce.

So we have a very short growing period in that time.

And then after that, the gutter moves into the harvest room and goes across a blade.

- There are 10 growing lanes inside the greenhouse.

Each lane has about 1,800 gutters growing about five pounds of lettuce.

Now, if you're doing the math, that equals about one million pounds of salad greens grown each year.

- It's a hydroponic system, so we're only giving the plants a small amount of water directly to the roots.

So nothing's ever touching the leaves.

Means a whole lot less water.

There's no soil factoring in.

So like organic certifications all have to do with like clean soil and making sure you're not overusing pesticides and treating the ground with anything.

We don't have to worry about that.

The seeds are just come out, it's a non-GMO seed.

It gets delivered here.

We end up supplying water with nutrients to it, and then that allows, the peat moss allows the seed to put some roots into the gutter, and then we get a plant very quickly after that by not using any soil.

- [Stefanie] One thing you won't see in the large greenhouse?

People, there's very little human-to-plant interaction.

That's intentional.

It's an additional safety measure to prevent contamination as lettuce grows before it gets harvested.

- So food safety is one of our top priorities.

As everyone knows, we've heard about different recalls of lettuce from, you know, fields and it's animals, kind of different exposure to things with, you know, E. Coli, listeria are all big threats to us.

We're not immune to those being indoors.

There's still stuff that can come in from outside and still affect the lettuce.

So the less human interaction that you have with food growing, the much better off you're gonna be on food safety.

Again, nobody's touching it the whole time, no pesticides have been applied.

It's just been sitting out there growing in the sun and the beautiful weather.

And once it gets cut in the harvest room, then it immediately goes into our packing cooler and brought down to refrigeration temperature and then packed into different containers to go out to the stores and to our end customers.

- Everything's kind of always constantly changing.

I love the plants.

It's what I really fell in love with at school.

So it's cool I get to continue doing that in my career.

Managing all the inputs to kind of make the plants healthy and grow, and then provide really local produce to the area.

- [Stefanie] Another point of pride for Revolution Farms is the employees.

Not many stick around, and that's not a bad thing.

- So we're a mission-focused non-profit that grows farm produce.

So we employ everybody with any kind of barrier to employment, whether that's a disability, whether that's a return-to-work program out of the prison system, whether it's refugees, pretty much anything.

So anybody who really has a hard time either getting that first job or returning to work the second or third job, we do vocational rehabilitation training.

So we really wanna see our employees get trained on all the different aspects of working in a regular environment.

And then if they move on to another place and are able to get another job, we celebrate those successes.

- [Stefanie] From the packing room to store shelves, Tim says it can't get much more local or fresher than this.

- Being able to find a system that allows us to grow 52 weeks outta the year is really just a help for all our customers and everybody in Michigan to be able to eat fresh, local produce year round.

People are always wanting stuff, especially in the middle of winter.

It's cloudy, it's cold, it's snowing, and then they say like, "Wait, you just grew this right down the street?

How is that possible?"

And you know, and being in here on a winter cold day feels like summer.

(air whooshing) - Now, they also do small tours in the greenhouse to show others how it all works and comes together.

Tim says the best time to do that might be in the wintertime.

Gee, I wonder why.

Well, get ready to step back in time at Colonial Michilimackinac, where an 18th century fort and fur-trading village comes to life on the shores of the Straits of Mackinac.

It's hands-on history and a chance to see Michigan's past in a whole new way.

- [Instructor] Get ready, fire!

- In the late 18th century, in the 1770s specifically, Michilimackinac was a transshipment point.

It's a center of the Great Lakes fur trade, people coming from really all over the Great Lakes watershed, indigenous people, Europeans gathering here to trade with one another, to trans-ship goods, so to transfer from one canoe to another.

But it was also a diplomatic center and a military center, which became increasingly important as the American Revolution went on.

Michigan as a whole, very few European settlements, apart from here at Michilimackinac down at Detroit, up at Sault Ste.

Marie over at St.

Joseph for what's now Niles, many, many more indigenous communities throughout the state, mostly Anishinaabe.

So the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi.

Those people were largely trading with the Europeans, sometimes fighting alongside them, sometimes fighting against them.

But everyone ended up being involved in the Revolution in some way.

- Michilimackinac was founded as a permanent year-round complete community in about 1715 by the French military.

So the house we're in right now was a fur trader's house throughout our site's history, which is a unique part of our fort.

It is a fort, there are soldiers here, but there were also always civilians.

And this is one of those civilian homes that was lived in by the fur traders.

So before the American Revolution, there was a lot going on in this region.

We went through a big war, which we call the French and Indian War, the Seven Years War.

Once that was over, there was another large event that happened here in 1763, and that was a part of Pontiac's rebellion.

It was a huge uprising across the Midwest that included Michilimackinac.

The fort ended up being attacked at that point.

That settled down, and then from about 1764 until the start of the American Revolution, the fur trade really started to pick up over at Michilimackinac.

The community expanded, there ended up being about 100 more houses outside the palisade, in addition to the 40 houses that were inside the palisade.

The soldiers' presence was needed to control the area for the British government at that point.

It was also needed to regulate the fur trade.

And the big draw here was really the geography.

We're right at the tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

And everything in the 18th century moves on the water, and we have water (chuckles).

We have Lake Michigan, we have Lake Huron just a bit north, we have Lake Superior.

It's so easy to find Michilimackinac because of the waterways.

So prior to the American Revolution, the big draw here was the water bringing people in for the fur trade.

You can pick things up here, drop things off.

It becomes a huge meeting point for a lot of individuals.

Families lived here as well.

So we think there were maybe about 10 year-round families that stayed at the Straits of Mackinac.

In total, the population was probably about 200 in the winter.

But in the summer, again, once those waterways open up, there were closer to 2,000 people, men, women, kids, soldiers, voyagers, lots of different people who were coming out here to work The fur trade.

- Truly, you know, the Revolution is part of a much larger struggle that people have sometimes called the 60 Years War.

It kind of starts in the 1750s with the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War, and it blasts all the way through The War of 1812.

And it's for control of the Great Lakes.

It's all of these conflicts.

So you've got the Seven Years War, the Revolution there, it's the Northwest Indian War is one name for it that takes place in the early 1790s, and then The War of 1812.

And to some extent, it's the British fighting out here and the French, but it's very much the native people fighting out here to protect their communities, to protect their culture, their families.

And again, they're able to do that successfully by navigating changing imperial ambitions.

So first it's French, and then British, and then American.

And they're able to navigate their way through all of that, and again, protect themselves by taking up arms for that 60-year period.

After that, they had to shift tactics and they're able to continue fighting for their rights through the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, more in a political sphere belt, but they're able to continue doing that.

And that's, you know, one of the reasons that those people are largely still here.

We still have Ojibwe and Odawa people right here in the Straits.

Those people have been here for a very long time.

And it's because of those efforts.

- [Instructor] Three cents.

And fire!

(guns firing) - Michilimackinac, Michigan in general, they do have a role to play in the Revolution.

People from this community, people from Detroit, people from Sault Ste.

Marie and St.

Joseph, they took part in the war, you know, either by going off to other places and taking up arms and actually fighting, or just by reacting, you know, they got news out here just like we do, it just took a little while longer.

But those people were very aware of events in other places, and they responded to them, they reacted to them, and they participated in them.

So we don't often think about Michigan being part of the American Revolution, but it absolutely was.

And in many ways, it shaped the state as we know it today.

- Now, Fort Michilimackinac traditionally opens in early May and closes before the end of October.

Thanks so much, Chris.

Well, there's no doubt Michigan is a magical place and along the Lake Huron Coast, a trail makes you feel like you are stepping into a storybook.

It's been called a Narnia of the North, but it's much more than a social media sweet spot.

Jamie Mankiewicz takes us into the woods to show you more.

(air whooshing) - And that cedar component creates its own little microclimate.

So you get to see a lot of moss on rocks and it really makes the place magical to discover.

- [Jamie] The John Arthur Woollam Preserve is 43,000 feet of rocky shoreline in between Cedarville and DeTour.

At the edge of a coniferous forest, the shoreline is built on what's called alvar, a rare limestone pavement that's found on only a few places on earth.

The space was dedicated in 2013 and is filled with massive boulders, beautiful blooming flowers, and countless unique plants and animals.

- We have a lot of rare, threatened and endangered species in this area.

The most exciting ones that you're gonna be seeing today and now is our orchid population.

A lot of our orchids are in bloom now.

There's also a large amount of migratory birds that come through, as well as ferns.

There's some ferns that are fairly rare within the state.

And really all of these are kind of on the landscape in this area because of that meshing of that northern boreal forest and that southern hardwood forest kind of mixing and meeting, as well as that alvar, that underlying bedrock pavement, which all kind of together swirl into this really amazing area that supports so much life and diversity.

- [Jamie] The Nature Conservancy is dedicated to keeping a close watch on this beautiful space, which recently became social media famous, something that has created a bit of chaos.

- [Emily] The biggest threats that we're facing and challenges that we're facing here at this place right now is actually on the people front.

You know, people loving to get out and discover nature is like the best thing, but we also need to take care of the places where we're going.

We need to follow leave no trace ethics and really pack it in, pack it out.

You know, there aren't trailhead amenities at these places.

So it's really about taking care of these places through being aware of what you're bringing in, what you're doing, staying on the trails.

- [Jamie] The conservancy uses trail counters, brush stations and offers maps and other guides online, all in an effort to protect wildlife and keep these areas beautiful.

- I've seen wolf scat on the property.

So there is a wolf population here.

There's a chipmunk (laughs).

The other unique thing about this is it is a birding trail.

So for those birders out there, this is an amazing place to come birding.

I've heard probably five or six species just standing here, so.

- [Jamie] As for the Narnia nickname, that comes from a nearby camp with a tradition that comes from hiking to an old lamppost on the property, something featured in the famous "Chronicles of Narnia" series by British author CS Lewis, where children are transported to a land of magic, mystical beasts and talking animals.

But this real life trail is the perfect place for someone longing for a sense of discovery.

- I appreciate it in that people want to get here and see it, but we are seeing the impacts of it ecologically through trail widening, through more people coming here.

We've seen a little bit of degradation, we've seen some degradation in the moss on the rocks, and people climbing the rocks.

So we'd really like people to stay on trails.

You know, campfires, we've noticed an increase in camp fire rings that we break up.

Just being aware of your surroundings, knowing the rules of the places before you go is always helpful.

(air whooshing) - For a guide to birding trails, trail etiquette, and what to know before you go to help prepare before your trip, head to nature.org, and remember, pack it in, pack it out.

Michigan's Narnia needs all of us to help it stay enchanted.

Well, our next story involves a ride on the Emerald Isle.

Adam journeyed across Lake Michigan to learn about the rich history that can be found on Beaver Island, along with a one-of-a-kind toy shop.

(air whooshing) (upbeat music) - A lot of people don't know about Beaver Island, but we've got beautiful beaches, we've got a lot of trails.

And then when you come to the museum, you learn about, we have the only king in the United States, self-appointed king, but the only king.

And then we've got this beautiful mural.

We've got a museum that's all on commercial fishing and all the maritime history.

We have a unique Gutsy Women exhibit where we've had some very unique women who lived and prospered over here.

We've got the lighthouse history.

There are two lighthouses on Beaver Island.

Elizabeth Whitney Williams, she was one of the lighthouse keepers for the Whiskey Point lighthouse.

And she's a well-known female hero in lighthouse history.

- [Adam] From gutsy women to commercial fishermen, the history of Beaver Island is filled with unforgettable characters, none more unique than James Jesse Strang.

- Strang ended up on Beaver Island kind of how a lot of people did in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

He was traveling on a steamboat.

He discovered Beaver Island.

And at that time, he was aspiring to become a leader in the Mormon church.

And he saw Beaver Island as an opportunity to establish a colony.

So when Joseph Smith was assassinated, there were several people who thought they should be the next leader.

But the two that we are most familiar with is James Strang and Brigham Young.

And of course we know how that ended in history 'cause Brigham Young is the main person commonly thought of about the Mormons.

But also there was Strang, and he came over to the island and he started a colony over here.

If you were to look at the census records and historical records, it's estimated that maybe 3,000 Mormons lived on the island while he was in power.

- [Adam] His reign lasted six years and ended in June of 1856.

Strang was shot by two of his followers as he walked towards a ship in the harbor.

Taken to his parents' home in Wisconsin, he died a few weeks later.

- After he died, a lot of the islanders who had been exiled from their community returned in full force and they did destroy a lot of the church's holdings, some of the buildings and stuff, the print shop, the historical part of the print shop was not burnt down, but it was ransacked.

- [Adam] Today, King Strang's legacy still lingers.

The island's main road bears his name and his former print shop now houses the museum.

- [Lori] This building was originally where James Strang published a newspaper, which it was the first newspaper published north of Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan.

- [Adam] The historical society also preserves the home of Feodor Protar, who first arrived when a steamboat sought refuge from a Great Lake storm in the late 1800s.

He is known as the Saint of Beaver Island.

- He was beloved by the people on the island.

And once they knew how intelligent he was, I mean, he was a man who came from Eastern Europe and he was obviously well educated, I mean, before he came to Beaver Island, he also ran a newspaper and he was a thespian.

When he got over here and he was doing so well with his farm, the islanders started coming to him and asking for advice about their own animals.

Eventually, you know, they started asking for tips for healthcare and he helped them, you know, cared for them when they were sick and gave them ideas for home remedies and such.

- [Adam] Protar lived quietly here for 32 years, tending to the medical needs of its residents.

He offered remedies freely, asking nothing in return.

Upon his passing, the community inscribed these words on his monument, "To our Heaven-sent friend, who never failed us, in imperishable gratitude and admiration, his people of Beaver Island."

As the largest island in Lake Michigan, Beaver Island remains an unspoiled retreat where adventure and nature meet.

Visitors come to hike its trails, enjoy its waters, and savor the slow rhythm of island life.

Like those who came before her, Miss Mary felt the island's called after just one visit.

- Larry and I got married, and we came up here for our honeymoon.

We were only here one day, and I was on the boat going home, and I started crying, and I wondered why was I crying?

And then I realized I couldn't leave, I couldn't go home, that I already had transferred my home to here.

So I moved here and it was been great ever since.

It started out just named Homemade Goods and it was whatever I could make, and I did pretty good.

Bought a building in Chicago, and when I sold the building, and moved up here, Larry said, you know, "Let's make it a toy museum 'cause we have lots of toys."

So we did, and we decided to make it look like a house.

I don't want it to look like a business, that we make it like a house, and we'll leave the trees and leave everything growing wild.

I know that when those kids walk in the door, they are churning with excitement and they're going from thing to thing.

They don't know what to do really 'cause there's too many things.

So they pick one and hold it, and then they go around and get a couple more, and they're holding 'em like this so I give 'em a basket, you know, to put things in.

And most things are very reasonable so they can get 'em, but it's just like Christmas to them walking in the door.

You know, that's what it is.

And if they don't have any money, I just give them things, I mean, I don't care, it's not the point, you know, the point is them.

So you know, I'm so happy to see them.

- [Adam] Today Miss Mary finds joy in tending to her shop and creating.

Hand-making jewelry, painting the landscapes of night skies she experiences living on the island, and even writing and illustrating a children's book.

The island called her, and here she found her home.

- It's not anything wild, there's nothing exotic, it's simple.

The trees seem to grow the way a tree should grow and the flowers, the carpet, the south end right now.

But when I walk in the toy store with all the toys all over the walls and all over everywhere, I just feel totally at home, totally safe, totally secure.

It's just a big comfort in there.

- Thanks to the Historical Society, visitors can now take a walking or a driving tour to experience all the island has to offer.

And of course, make sure to check out the Toy Museum on the way out to Whiskey Point.

Well, that wraps up this edition of "Destination Michigan."

We hope you learn something new and added some new spots to visit on your next trip around Michigan.

Thanks so much for watching.

(upbeat music) (air whooshing) (upbeat music continues)