In October 1960, Prince Akihito of Japan visited Chicago for 21 hours. Chicago’s mayor presented the prince with a diplomatic gift: 18 bluegill. What happened next would change the underwater world of Japan forever. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

On a remote island in Lake Michigan, some old apple trees could have very rare, never-before-discovered genes. And if they do, they could join the U.S. stockpile of apples poised to fight off future threats. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Buildings and light pollution are taking a heavy toll on migrating birds. Some cities in the Midwest and Great Plains are working to fix that. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

In one of the most polluted parts of Lake Michigan, whitefish are thriving. Some people wonder if we should try to replicate that environment elsewhere to save the iconic species. But that could mean doing something untested and controversial. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

In the early 1800s, a group of politicians decided part of the Ohio border should move farther north. It started a decades-long border fight between Michigan and Ohio. There were winners. There were losers. And in the end, it shaped the states as we know them. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

In 2014, a group of botanists discovered that a very rare plant native to the Kankakee River in Illinois, had vanished from its only known native habitat in the world. That set off a quest to bring back the missing Midwestern flower. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

What would happen if our devices were alive? Would it change the way we treat them? One researcher in Chicago wanted to find out. So she made a smartwatch that has to be fed and watered to work. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Lake Champlain is more than 16 times smaller than Lake Ontario, the smallest Great Lake. But in 1998, Congress designated Lake Champlain as the sixth Great Lake, teeing off a historical and cultural fight over which lakes can really call themselves Great.  _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you some cool Points North goodies in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Blue moon ice cream, this quintessentially Midwestern, bright blue dessert, is a mystery. No one can agree on what it tastes like, and no one with the info will say. We try to find out. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Ron Reimink knew how uncomfortable and annoying swimmer’s itch could be. He spent much of his adult life trying to eradicate it in lakes across northern Michigan. Then one day, he realized he was completely wrong.  _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Emily Ford goes on a winter vacation. She doesn’t go to some warm beach location, though. She sets out to thru-hike Wisconsin’s 1,200 mile Ice Age Trail. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Tom Farnquist is in the business of preserving underwater artifacts and displaying them in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The problem is, a lot of those artifacts were technically stolen from the State of Michigan. And one day, the state notices. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

After Traci Lynn Martin’s mom died, she knew she couldn’t keep putting off her dream: becoming the first person to kayak around the Great Lakes in one year. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Minnesota and Wisconsin are bitter rivals at just about everything. So in 2019, when Wisconsin’s secretary of tourism claimed Wisconsin had more lakes than Minnesota, the embers of an age-old debate were stoked. Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, but does Wisconsin really have more? _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Cougars are making a comeback. The iconic wildcat hasn’t had a breeding population in the Great Lakes states since the early 1900s, but now they’re moving east. Experts say they could be back soon. Some people swear they already are. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Inside rustic cabins and yurts at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park there are log books. For more than 70 years, visitors have written in them. We went into this time capsule to see if people’s experiences here had changed much over the changing decades. _______________________ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

When a black bear in Minnesota woke up from hibernation in the middle of winter and attacked three people and a dog, researchers were left with one question: Why? _______ Join the Points North Fan Club today! For just $5/month, you can support the show you love, and we'll send you a Points North beanie, bumper sticker, and some other fun stuff in return. Subscribe to the Points North Newsletter for more Great Lakes news. And follow us on Instagram.

Americans stepped up to do something about dying bees. Beekeeping is all the rage right now. But what if all those backyard colonies are making the problem worse?

Erik Grams has been taking trips to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota for over 30 years. It’s his favorite place in the world. But last year, during a fishing trip, there was a fatal accident that left Erik wrestling with his feelings about the place he loved.

Microplastics are everywhere. But after accidentally combining materials in a lab, scientists at the University of Michigan are on the cusp of discovering a new method to capture and remove microplastics from water. Researching it takes time, money, and repeated set backs.