8' x 21'
Gerald R. Ford International Airport
2024

According to Anishinaabek legend, Mother Bear and her two cubs lived deep in the forest on the west coast of Ininwewi-Gichigami (Lake Michigan). One night, a blazing wildfire drove the bear family out of the trees and onto the Lake. Desperate to escape the flames, Mother Bear led her cubs into the dark waters. They swam and swam until the eastern shore was in sight. As day began to break over the horizon, Mother Bear looked back for her cubs, but they were nowhere to be seen. She pulled herself out of the water and waited on the sands for her cubs to emerge from the Lake. She waits there to this day, the Great Sleeping Bear Dune, now covered by the sands and winds of time. Though her cubs never made it to shore, you can find them swimming still — the North and South Manitou Islands. 

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Included in this mural are forget-me-nots, a lakeshore wildflower representing Mother Bear's hope for her cubs to return. The Anishinaabek can be seen paddling their Wigwaasi-Jimanaan (birchbark canoes) toward the Manitou Islands. Makinaak, the Great Turtle, comforts Mother Bear from the north. The piping plover, a critically endangered lakeshore bird, guides the cubs home.