Bridge Staff

Like lots of smart young natives, Katie Capaldi thought her destiny lay far from the northern Michigan town where she was raised. But she’s writing another chapter. Plus, five other looks at people and life Up North.

The Headlands is drawing stargazers to a 550-acre park at the very tip of the mitten, officially designated an International Dark Sky Park.

Jeff Thompson figured he could make his own skis as easily as buying them. Then mom and dad sold their house to come work for him.

Internet-based companies can live anywhere. One twenty-something hopes giving entrepreneurs a great northern Michigan summer might turn their heads.

His parents always warned: In a small-town economy, the pie is too small for everybody to get a slice.

Every school bus that stays on the road represents more money for the classroom at Inland Lakes Schools. The district’s mechanic is onboard. Plus, three more looks at life Up North too complicated to fit on a postcard.

Food pantries, like their customers, mostly take what they can get.

A luxury playground grows where an abandoned cement plant once stood on the shores of Little Traverse Bay.

The homeless are about in rural northern Michigan, John McLintock sets out to find them.

Bridge’s first-ever rankings of elementary, middle and high schools across the state recognizes schools that coax the most potential from students.