Tom Farnquist is in the business of preserving underwater artifacts and displaying them in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The problem is, a lot of those artifacts were technically stolen from the State of Michigan. And one day, the state notices. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the…

After Traci Lynn Martin’s mom died, she knew she couldn’t keep putting off her dream: becoming the first person to kayak around the Great Lakes in one year. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun …

Minnesota and Wisconsin are bitter rivals at just about everything. So in 2019, when Wisconsin’s secretary of tourism claimed Wisconsin had more lakes than Minnesota, the embers of an age-old debate were stoked. Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, but does Wisconsin really have more? _______________________ Join the Points North Fan C…

Cougars are making a comeback. The iconic wildcat hasn’t had a breeding population in the Great Lakes states since the early 1900s, but now they’re moving east. Experts say they could be back soon. Some people swear they already are. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, …

Inside rustic cabins and yurts at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park there are log books. For more than 70 years, visitors have written in them. We went into this time capsule to see if people’s experiences here had changed much over the changing decades. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, yo…

When a black bear in Minnesota woke up from hibernation in the middle of winter and attacked three people and a dog, researchers were left with one question: Why? _______ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in r…

Americans stepped up to do something about dying bees. Beekeeping is all the rage right now. But what if all those backyard colonies are making the problem worse?By Daniel Wanschura

Erik Grams has been taking trips to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota for over 30 years. It’s his favorite place in the world. But last year, during a fishing trip, there was a fatal accident that left Erik wrestling with his feelings about the place he loved.By Daniel Wanschura

Microplastics are everywhere. But after accidentally combining materials in a lab, scientists at the University of Michigan are on the cusp of discovering a new method to capture and remove microplastics from water. Researching it takes time, money, and repeated set backs.By Michael Livingston

One calm September day, Big Abe LeBlanc set his fishing net in Lake Superior. Then he called law enforcement and turned himself in. What happened next changed fishing in the Great Lakes forever.By Ellie Katz

On April 8, 2024, Meghan Hetfield and her partner Roni Pillischer witnessed a total solar eclipse over Lake Ontario. But in the middle of this intense and beautiful experience, something else kept grabbing their attention: the mystery of the squeaky sand all around them.By Daniel Wanschura

Kenny Pheasant first became a teacher of Anishinaabemowin at 14 years-old, teaching customers from behind the meat counter at a grocery store. Now, it's his life mission to get more people speaking the Great Lakes’ original and endangered language.By Daniel Wanschura

This is a tale of two cyclists, one legendary race, and an unlikely rivalry.By Ellie Katz

One minute David Holtfreter was kayaking on Lake Michigan; the next he was in the water, fighting for his life. A fisherman saw David struggling from the shore and swam out about 200 yards to rescue him. But in the rescue commotion that followed, David wasn’t able to give the stranger a proper “thank you.”…

One family’s visit to a famous Indiana sand dune turns into a wild tale of a missing boy and mysterious tunnels.By Daniel Wanschura

In 1998, a hunter named Mitch Rompola claimed he’d shot the biggest whitetail in North America. It was all over the news, and people waited in anticipation for it to be entered in the record books. But then Mitch just went silent. And instead of becoming a famous hunter, he became an infamous one.By Maxwell Howard

Last December, Theresa Eischen was watching the news when a story caught her attention. The original Star Wars film was being translated into Anishinaabemowin, an endangered language. Theresa had zero voice acting experience, but she loves Star Wars and is fluent in Anishinaabemowin. So she auditioned to voice Princess Leia. It was a long shot.…

A researcher in Ohio was surrounded by hundreds of dead ash trees. They had been wiped out by this beetle called the emerald ash borer. But then, in that same forest, she found a lone tree thriving. Could this tree be the key to saving ash from extinction?By Daniel Wanschura

For more than 20 years, Nic Theisen has spent his days on his hands and knees in the dirt farming. It’s a tough way to make a living, and for years Nic didn’t always know if the farm would make it. Until something big changed.By Morgan Springer

Peter Quakenbush’s dream is to create a conservation burial forest – a place that would both preserve the woods and give people the option to be buried in nature. But not everyone is on board with that idea.By Ellie Katz

Lake trout are on life support in Lake Michigan. Every year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spends tens of millions of dollars raising and stocking them. But what if there was another way: genetic engineering. Could it be used for conservation?By Patrick Shea

Two guys are hunting coyotes in Michigan. All of a sudden, they say they lure in the biggest coyote they’ve ever seen and kill it. But, it turns out, it’s not a coyote at all; it’s a federally endangered gray wolf about 300 miles from its normal habitat. So, how did the wolf get there? And did the hunters play any role in it?…

There’s this biker in the Upper Peninsula. Seems like everybody knows him or knows of him. He competes in some of the most challenging mountain bike races, but he doesn’t even ride a mountain bike. He competes on a single-speed BMX bike. Why does he do it?By Daniel Wanschura

We think of the Great Lakes as shark-free, but as legend has it, a young boy named George Lawson was attacked by a shark while swimming in Lake Michigan near Chicago in 1955. Is this story true or just a bunch of bull shark?By Daniel Wanschura

Copper is a key metal for renewable energy, and experts say we’re going to need a lot more of it to transition to clean energy. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is Copper Country. Some see copper mining as an economic boon for the region, but others worry it could come at the cost of some of the Great Lakes’ most pristine wild spaces.…