Alastar Dimitrie, coordinator, Marketing and Events, GINCC

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Ishpeming’s Lake Bancroft Park. If you follow our social media channels, you may have already noticed this.

The park is 0.6 miles from our office, which makes it a prime lunchtime destination. Finding a good lunch park is an essential–the antidote to the much maligned “sad desk lunch.”

The West End covers a pretty large area. My lunch park may not be your lunch park. Lunch breaks, like the summer, are finite, so proximity is paramount. Fortunately, as far as places to enjoy the great outdoors go, the West End offers an embarrassment of riches.

If you’re in Negaunee, it might be Jackson Mine Park. Located along the Iron Ore Heritage Trail, Jackson Mine Park is beautiful in late summer. Sit at a picnic table or in the shade of an apple tree, boughs heavy with fruit. Marvel at a very old historic log cabin or take shelter in a very new pavilion, which was completed earlier this month.

If you’re on the east side of Ishpeming, Al Quaal Recreation Area might be your lunch park. If you want to really stretch your lunchbreak to the breaking point, you could hike nearly twenty kilometers of trail, or engage in a game of tennis, volleyball, basketball or baseball.

If you’re on the westernmost end of the West End, you’re in luck because Van Riper State Park could be your place. With more than one thousand acres of wilderness and one and a half miles of Lake Michigamme shoreline, Van Riper is a park well worth a visit. It is also equipped with a picnic area and shelters, among other amenities. Of all the parks on this list, it holds the distinction of being the one where you are most likely to experience a moose sighting.

If I didn’t mention your favorite lunch park, it’s simply because the West End has too many beautiful places to fit into one article.

So that these areas may continue to be enjoyed by others, I would encourage everyone to remind themselves of the Leave No Trace Seven Principles:

1.) Plan ahead, prepare

2.) Travel and camp on durable surfaces

3.) Dispose of waste properly

4.) Leave what you find

5.) Minimize campfire impacts

6.) Respect wildlife

7.) Be considerate of other visitors

If you’re just taking a few minutes to eat a sandwich, camping is probably not a part of the equation, but making sure the wrapper gets into a proper receptacle rather than a lake obviously should be.

Late in the afternoon, I occasionally find myself daydreaming about my lunch park. It has all the essentials: greenery, shade and water. I find myself thinking about the flowerbeds bursting with garden phlox, yellow daylily and hydrangea or how the branches of the weeping willows graze the surface of the lake. What began as a marriage of convenience seems to have blossomed into something more.

Editor’s note: Alastar Dimitrie is the GINCC’s marketing and events coordinator.