When her sons left for college in 2009, Battle Creek, Mich. resident Loreen Niewenhuis decided to leave on her own adventure and hike along Lake Michigan’s southern edge, a 64-day trip that would begin and end at Navy Pier in Chicago.
“I dragged [my sons] to Lake Michigan their whole lives,” Niewenhuis said. “When I told them I was going to walk around it, they sort of just nodded their heads like, ‘Of course.'”
Niewenhuis wrote about her trip in her first book, “A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach.” But her adventuring and writing wasn’t done.
“I had so much fun on the first hike,” Niewenhuis said. “I learned so much. I became even more connected with Lake Michigan, so then I did the second hike to connect to all five lakes. Then I thought a trilogy would be a great way to cap the adventure.”
Those follow-up trips became “A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk,” which was released in 2013, and “A 1000-Mile Great Lakes Island Adventure,” which came out in June. Niewenhuis will give free talks at REI stores in Northbrook on Oct. 19 and Oakbrook Terrace on Oct. 20 to discuss her trips.
There are more than 35,000 islands in the Great Lakes, and Niewenhuis’ book provides a sampling of them ranging from the Island of Montreal, the most populated fresh-water island in the world, to Isle Royale on Lake Superior, where she helped scientists monitor the interaction between moose and wolves as part of a study that’s been going on for 57 years.
“I wanted to go to very populated islands and very remote islands and set foot on islands in every Great Lake,” Niewenhuis said. “I set foot on 30 islands, but I saw thousands of islands.”
This island trip, split across 2013 and 2014, was the most physically demanding, involving spending 80 days not just hiking but kayaking and biking.
While it was hard to find a unifying theme for the islands she visited aside from geography, Niewenhuis did find commonalities among the people who lived there.
“On the inhabited islands I tried to get the answer to the question why do people choose to live on islands,” she said. “People wanted a more solitary experience, a more in-touch-with-nature experience. They liked being removed from other communities.”
That’s something Niewenhuis can relate to. While she kayaked with her niece and nephew for three days when traveling the islands and hiked with her sons a bit during first two adventures, she was alone for most of her trips.
“I don’t mind being alone for long stretches,” she said. “We don’t have those solitary moments in modern society. I enjoy that time to really disconnect.”
While she plans to keep hiking, Niewenhuis said that this will be the last book she writes about traveling the Great Lakes. She does plan to continue volunteering for the Isle Royale’s moose watch study, which enlists hikers to search for bones for scientists to analyze.
“The experience was amazing,” Niewenhuis said. “It was a week completely off the grid. The island was actually formed by the Earth’s crust being broken. You’re actually hiking the layers of the Earth.”
Loreen Niewenhuis author presentation
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7-8 p.m. Oct. 19
REI, 888 Willow Road, Northbrook
847-480-1938; rei.com/stores/northbrook
7-8 p.m. Oct. 20
REI, 17W160 22nd St., Oakbrook Terrace
630-574-7700; rei.com/stores/oakbrook-terrace