Exploring Belle Isle's Blue Heron Lagoon

✌🏽 Sam here. Walk all the way down Belle Isle's Blue Heron Lagoon Trail and you'll be surrounded by rich natural texture.

The intrigue: After passing the lighthouse and bridge, there's a little bird house with a 3 x 5 notepad inside. On the front: "WRITE A LOVE LETTER TO BELLE ISLE."

• Naturally, I did.
• Email [email protected] with a photo of my note and I'll send you some exclusive Sam swag.

Zoom in: The trail also has informational boards showing the location of manmade fish-spawning reefs around the island.

• The construction of shipping canals in the early 1900s destroyed the fish's natural habitat.
• Just 1% of the sturgeon population that once called the Detroit River home still exists today — an estimated 6,000 now swimming in the river, according to research by Canadian conservation groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• That's sadly one of the healthiest remaining populations in the Great Lakes.

Flashback: Someone caught a 100-year-old, 240-pound sturgeon in the Detroit River in 2021.