060426 ~ Warmer Wandering! - Nick Nerbonne

The guest, Nick Nurbin of Travel Michigan, reveals that Michigan’s June events are not just seasonal festivals but living history, with roots stretching back to 19th-century immigrants and even Henry David Thoreau’s 1861 journal entry. The Mackinac Island Lilac Festival, running June 5–14, is more than a floral spectacle—it’s a legacy of 1800s horticultural migration, with lilacs planted by New England settlers and European immigrants who carried them across the Atlantic. What makes the event truly unique is the emotional weight behind it: a photo of a horse-drawn carriage framed by purple blooms has been used by Pure Michigan for a decade because it captures a moment so vivid, no camera could do it justice. Beyond the lilacs, Nurbin shares deeply personal family ties to Michigan’s communities—his great-aunt helped launch the Cascades in Jackson, and his ancestors settled in Benzie County from Norway, still farming the same land today. The state’s festivals are not just tourism bait but acts of cultural preservation, from the honor-system asparagus stands in Empire to the fish fly festival in New Baltimore, where residents celebrate the very insects that cover their homes. At the heart of it all is a quiet truth: Michigan’s charm lies not in grand spectacle, but in the way its people turn nuisance into celebration—whether it’s cleaning up hex flies or honoring a Civil War ancestor.