Welcome to Interlochen Michigan

Interlochen is a small town in NW Lower Michigan near Traverse City and is home to the Interlochen Center for the Arts and WIAA Radio. I grew up near there and it's  a great little town.   Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlochen,_Michigan   - Episode Title: "Welcome to Interlochen" - Host: Mike Dell - Location: Interlochen, Michigan, 15 miles from host's home - Personal Connection: Frequent visits for brunch and family gatherings - Key Feature: Interlochen Center for the Arts - a renowned performing and visual arts school - Population: 694 (2020 census), significantly increased by summer music camp attendees - Nearby Family: Sister lives in the area - Geographical Context: Reference to US highways nearby - Town Status: Unincorporated, with its own post office and ZIP code - Infrastructure: Small airport with two grass runways; ongoing tension with township regarding its existence - Name Origin: "Interlochen" - Latin for "between" and Scottish for "lakes," located between Green Lake and Duck Lake - Concert Venue: Arts academy venue accommodates ~4,000, with views of Green Lake - Winter Activities: Ice fishing on Green Lake, driving across a frozen ice bridge - Community Memories: Hanging out at state park beach, deep-fried smelt culinary experience - Graduation Venue: Traverse City Public Schools holds ceremonies at Kresge Auditorium in Interlochen - Notable Alumni: Includes Chip Davis (Mannheim Steamroller) and singer Jewel - Next Episode Tease: Focus on an interesting building in Traverse City

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Mike Delve's World number 5 zero eight for
11/02/2025.
I think it's time for Mike Delve World.

(00:35):
There it is.
Yep. There it is. And, this is day
two of NAPOD promo.
Welcome
to this one. I'm gonna call this, welcome
to Interlaken.
Interlaken
is a little town
about nine to 15 miles away from me,

(00:56):
something like that. I'm there
quite a bit
because,
a lot of the restaurants that I go
to on Sunday morning for brunch and,
or breakfast,
happen to be out there. And it's kind
of a central location for
friends and family. And, so we traditionally go
out there. So but Interlochen's an interesting little

(01:19):
town.
One of the big claims to fame is
the Interlochen
Center for the Arts,
and that's a well respected
worldwide
school for performing arts and visual arts, and,
it's it's a pretty big deal out there.
The town

(01:39):
well, let's see. The, 2020 census said 694
people live there.
But I know in the, well, all year
around, the the
music camp out there has, you know, couple
thousand students
and, you know, faculty that comes in from
elsewhere. So there there's a lot more people

(02:00):
out there
than
than you would get from the census.
You know, my sister actually lives,
near Interlochen.
She's a couple miles from the,
what we call Interlochen
Corners.
That's
a a,
you know, it's on US 31, which US

(02:22):
30 One's kinda goes,
quite a distance
south of here, but, ends up by the
Mackinac Bridge.
But it comes through Traverse City. That's kind
of the main highway,
US 31
or M 37 is another one, but, anyway,
that has nothing to do
with interlocking.
Interlocking is big enough to have its own

(02:44):
post office and ZIP code. So, it is
a something, but it's an unincorporated
community
or a census designated
place. And it's
in Grand Traverse County here where, Traverse City
is.
Ironically,
Lake Ann, where I started this podcast

(03:05):
and where I used to live, is not
in this county,
and it's about the same distance from me
now
as
as Interlochen is,
but it's a lot closer to Interlochen
than than I am here. It's, just kinda
south
or no. Northwest
of, Interlochen.

(03:25):
It's a little town of Lake Ann, but
Interlochen's
interesting. Like I said, with the
the music camp being there, there's a radio
station from the music camp,
WIAA
eighty eight point seven, I believe.
And they have a few other translators around.
But,

(03:46):
their claim to fame amongst us geeks is,
do you remember the screensavers
on tech TV way back in the day?
Kate Patello
and,
Leo LaPorte. There we go. I didn't think
for a second.
It's still early today.
Anyway,

(04:07):
Kate Patello
is now a morning DJ
on WIAA,
and she's playing classical music, and
and she always does these things, you know,
for the kids that are being taken to
school.
She has a little little special segment,
teaching classical music

(04:27):
appreciation, I guess, would be the right
term for it. But, anyway, Kate from Tech
TV is
now here
in the area at Interlochen's
WIAAA
radio.
Another interesting thing in Interlochen is, they have
a little airport,
And it's, you know, two grass strips or

(04:49):
two grass runways.
It's a it's a very small airport. It's,
ran by the township,
Green Lake Township to be exact.
And
it's,
it's kinda funny because, you know, they have
sports parks, you know, around this, airport. They
have, you know, baseball diamonds and

(05:10):
fields for soccer or whatever and, you know,
so they they play a lot of sports
there.
And the township
really doesn't want the airport there. But
by
agreement
to have that airport because the
the people that donated the land,
one of the stipulations
is it will always be an airport.

(05:33):
And
so, anyway, that's it has a little tension
going on out there, but, those of us
who fly do
tend to wanna land there at least once
a year just
to just to make sure it stays in
airport and it's well maintained and, you know,
they do a good job with it. It's
a good airport,
but,
it's just interesting.

(05:55):
And speaking of, you know, the name Interlaken,
it's kind of weird.
It here, I'm looking at the Wikipedia
on where the name came from.
Latin,
for inter
means between and the Scottish term
Lachin, which means lakes.
And Interlachin is situated or at least part

(06:16):
of it is situated between Green Lake and
Duck Lake.
And they're, you know, fairly large in one
lakes. And
and you go to concerts out there,
at the the arts academy, they have the
the great venue, 4,000
person, kind of sorta outdoors, but not really.
But right behind the stage, you can, you

(06:38):
know, is you can look out over
Green Lake.
It's an interesting
place to to watch a concert, and they
have, you know, big concerts in there.
You know, I remember going to see Dolly
Parton, Willie Nelson,
and I don't know who they got this
you know, who they had this summer. They
only do it in the summer because, like
I said, it's an outdoor

(06:59):
venue
or sort of outdoors. It's a a they
got a big roof and the stage is
enclosed
kind of, but the
the sides are open. It's it's really cool.
But anyway,
another interesting thing about interlocking is in the
winter or used to be, I don't think
they do this anymore,
but there was an ice ice bridge across

(07:21):
Green Lake.
And the,
state park has a boat boat launch on
the
on the east side, and there's another boat
launch on the west side of the lake.
In the middle of the winter,
people have been known to drive across it.
I've done it once.

(07:42):
I don't really like driving on frozen lakes,
but
when I was in high school, we did
it once. And you could drive from Diamond
Park Boat Launch to the,
State Park Boat Launch.
And, you know, it's about two miles across,
something like that.

(08:03):
Trying to get a drink here.
I'm still not feeling a 100%,
at the hiccups.
Anyway
and, also, Interlochen's home to the largest,
state park in Michigan by a number of
campsites.
I forget how many they have, but I
I think it's north of 400,

(08:26):
campsites, which is
just huge for a state park. We have
a state park here in Traverse City that
might have a 100 spots, maybe less than
that.
So, it's it's a very huge state park,
and they have a beach on Green Lake,
and
it's, you know,
it's nice. Very nice.

(08:47):
It's kind of the hangout for
us teenagers. So they grew up on the
West Side Of Traverse City, which, you know,
not too far from Interlochen. I think it
might have been
five miles to Interlochen.
And, so as teenagers, we'd hang out at
the beach at the state park. So every
year we had to get a state park
state park pass,

(09:08):
and, it was that was cool. Another thing
we used to do is ice fish. We
would ice fish for smelt on Green Lake
out there. We put a coop out there,
and, you know, we had a little wood
stove. It was great. You'd drive out you
even drive out on the ice sometimes, most
of the time not. We'd park at the
Diamond Park Boat Launch and walk out or

(09:32):
ride snowmobile out there, something like that. But
we had a little wood stove in there,
and you'd get in there and take your
coat off. And we would catch smelt. And
then most people net smelt, but in the
winter,
you can catch them
pretty readily on,
on speed reels, we call it. These, like,
little

(09:52):
they were built right into the, shed or
the shanty
and
had three hooks on it. You put little
perch minnows on the three hooks and drop
it down
and wait wait for a little bit and
then start dancing around. You pull it up.
Sometimes you'd get two or sometimes three smelt.
And we'd come back with a bucket full.
And, you know, smelt, I don't know if

(10:13):
you're familiar with that, but, they're they're small
fish kinda like,
I don't know what like, I don't know
what they'd be like, but, you just clean
them out and and,
fry them up, and, they're really good.
Around here,
a lot of the restaurants have what they
call Northern Michigan Surf and Turf,

(10:34):
which
is basically a hamburger and a pile of
smelt.
And, it's really good. I never had worse
heartburn though than eating deep fried smelt. So
you gotta be careful with that if you're
susceptible
to heartburn, but they are really good, really
tasty.
But, yeah. So that's it, for interlocking.

(10:58):
Just,
you know, kind of a neat little place
here.
Oh, another another thing about it is I
graduated high school.
The graduation
ceremonies for the Traverse City public schools are
in interlocking
in that big venue. I think it's called
Kresge Auditorium.

(11:19):
Kresge,
I believe, is, one of the people that,
one of the people that donated a lot
of money to the, Interlochen Center, Kresge
of of, like,
had dime stores back in the day or
k maybe Kmart was started by that. I
forget. I want to look that up.
But, you know, a lot of famous people

(11:41):
have gone there. I don't know.
You've heard of, Chip Davis,
Manheim Steamroller. You know, he does all the
Christmas music and all that. And ironically, also
did,
all the CW McCall,
country music.
You know,
convoy I think was yeah. Convoy was one

(12:01):
of his famous songs, but, yeah. It's Chip
Davis. He went to Interlochen. Jewel went to
Interlochen. Actually, I saw her in concert there
a couple times,
but she went to the, Interlochen Center for
the Arts and
a few infamous people I won't mention. But,
anyway,
it's, it's quite the famous

(12:22):
arts camp.
So with that, we're gonna call this a
podcast for NAPOD POMO.
Tomorrow
what do I got for tomorrow? I actually
have a list of things I'm gonna talk
about. Oh, yeah.
We're gonna talk about a