Virus threat creates unease in Michigan summer tourism haven

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Clare Nagrant earns her living from tourism, so she's taken a beating during the coronavirus-imposed shutdown. A few months ago, she was juggling four jobs. Now she's down to one part-time gig with a distillery that stayed open by adding hand sanitizer to its product line.

Yet the 42-year-old single mom doesn't feel the usual excitement about thousands of free-spending summer visitors flocking to northern Michigan's lake country, even though its restaurants, taverns and shops are being allowed to reopen this weekend.

"I feel like I’m between a rock and a virus," Nagrant said after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer loosened restrictions on some businesses in northern Michigan, which has had far fewer COVID-19 cases than Detroit and other cities in the southern part of the state.

“It's good that we can prosper again, but there's no vaccine, there's no cure, there's still people dying. I'm just going to go to work, wear gloves and masks and be as clean and cautious as possible.”

Many feel likewise in the Traverse City area, one of the Midwest's premier tourist havens. It's revered for Lake Michigan beaches, cherry and apple orchards, vineyards and craft breweries, farm-to-table restaurants, miles of bike trails and a diverse arts and culture scene.

With only a few months of warm temperatures, summer is make-or-break season for many hotels, souvenir shops and other small businesses, generating profits that can sustain them during the long snowbound winters.

In these topsy-turvy times, however, many locals are conflicted. They yearn to make money and get outdoors. But they want to keep the virus away.

The need to survive economically without igniting a flareup is forcing people to make hard choices and adapt in previously unthinkable ways.

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