Detroit River Stories

Send a text In this episode, I talk to Joanne Coutts, an activist and cartographer about her work mapping Detroit's buried creeks. Many of the maps we discuss can be found at her website. As always, if you have feedback for us, want to get involved, share your own story or suggest someone for us to talk to, please reach out to us at drsl-admin@umich.edu.

Send a text In this episode, Bailey Flannery and Rachel Wilson talk to Captain Rick Armstrong, Commander of the US Coast Guard Sector Detroit. Our conversation explores the wide range of responsibilities and tasks of Coast Guard, focusing on everything from search and rescue to icebreaking along the Detroit River. If you've ever wondered what, exactly, the Coast Guard does in the Detroit area...

Send a text In this episode, Bailey Flannery and Desiree Cooper discuss how Cooper's decision to "marry Detroit" (by way of marrying a Detroiter) has irrevocably shaped her as a creative and person. This includes her long journalistic career at Detroit Free Press , which led her to eventually interviewing and documenting the life and legacy of Sarah Elizabeth Ray (also known as Lizz...

Send a text In this episode, Bailey Flannery sits down with Captain Paul Lamarre III to discuss the winding life path that has led him to become the Executive Director of the historic freighter and museum ship the SS Col. James M. Schoonmaker; the Director of the Port of Monroe; a member of the Board of Directors for the National Museum of the Great Lakes; the President of the American Great Lakes...

Send a text Dr. Juanita Lyons and Steven Johnson recount how their father, Albert Johnson, founded the Motor City Yacht Club in 1960s Detroit to help foster a black power boating community when other local yacht clubs were exclusively white. Juanita and Steven also share memories of their childhood spent boating, swimming, fishing--living, really, on the Detroit River and the Great Lakes, as well...

Send a text Lissa MacVean is currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, where she studies the physics of water in lakes, estuaries and marine coastal environments. But before she began her more formal studies of waterways, Lissa actually grew up along the Detroit riverfront in a commune based out of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah, which was dedicated to high-...

Send a text City of Detroit Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero discusses how her representation of District 6 stems from her childhood calling to protect the water and fight for justice, from Puerto Vallarta to Detroit. She also addresses how both increased ICE activity along the Detroit River and Detroit's status as a "border city" impacts residents' relationships with the...

Send a text University of Michigan English & Education graduate student Marquise Griffin recounts a summer internship spent sailing a schooner along the Detroit River and Great Lakes that shaped his understanding of the intersection of blackness, boating, movement, and literacy--particularly being able to read and write oneself as a "water person" of color. He also explores how this...

Send a text The final episode of season one features conversations from three chance encounters at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. On August 21st, 2021, Planet Detroit and Friends of the Rouge hosted a Storybooth Blitz, welcoming all who happened across the booth on the riverfront that day to share their stories and memories of the water--and they did, telling tales of a small ban...

Send a text Family Chiefs of the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation Sue Szachta and Linda Filipek discuss how the Detroit River has acted as border, connection, and home at various times in the Nation's history, as well as how the River informs their personal relationship with Six Points at Gibraltar, a site that is both sacred ancestral burial grounds and an up-and-coming educational center that bri...

Send a text Tepfirah Rushdan discusses her personal experiences with the Detroit River as a site of spiritual connection, ceremony, and cleansing and how this has influenced her leadership in organizations like the Black to the Land Coalition, which strives to reconnect Black and Brown folks with the land and water from which they have historically been alienated. She also addresses the connection...

Send a text Erma Leaphart recounts her childhood spent along the Detroit River and how this shaped her sense of connection to and eventual advocacy for the entire Great Lakes water system. She  illuminates how, in the face of climate change and the numerous challenges it poses for the Great Lakes, we might persevere together in hope and in recognition of the water as kindred, as the very blood cou...