Just in time for the busy summer months, the new addition of multiple wooden skateboard ramps have been set up at Braman Hill Recreation Area in Northport for visitors to enjoy for the season.
Jon Thatcher, chairman of the Leelanau Township Parks and Recreation Committee, still takes advantage of the amenities available at skateparks like at Braman Hill. He’s also one of the people that helped to organize the relocation of skate ramps from Harbor Springs to Northport last year. Thatcher, 67, an avid skateboarder himself, doesn’t let age stop him, adding that the sport is open to anyone that wants to get outside to stay active.
“Everybody is welcome… Everybody always likes to find a different place to ride, so here’s an option,” Thatcher said. “I can safely say we have the best skatepark in Leelanau County because there’s only one other one (in Peshawbestown). This spring, I’ve been slowly putting them together and getting things working.”
Last fall, Thatcher went to skate at the city of Harbor Spring’s new and remodeled cement skate park. When he discovered that the city was looking to find someone to haul the aged skate ramps away, Thatcher jumped on the opportunity to have them transferred to Northport. Since about March, he’s been assembling them for public use when he has the time, which is typically after work from his full-time job working in construction. The ramps have to be taken down and moved in the fall as the skate park also serves as an ice skating rink in the winter.
“These are probably somewhere like 15-20 year-old ramps, and they’re at the end of their lifespan. I’m bracing them up and we’ll try to squeak a little more time out of them, but the end goal is to get a concrete skatepark here,” he said. “At best, wood ramps are a temporary situation.”
The Braman Hill Recreation Area features a number of recreation opportunities including courts for sports like pickleball and basketball. Skatepark equipment has been on the list of things that the township has been wanting to invest in for several years. According to Leelanau Township’s 2022 parks and recreation plan, there’s been a desire to acquire more ramps and apparatuses to improve the skate park.
“There’s very little to skate here. For example, during COVID, they closed the Traverse City skatepark and a lot of skaters from Traverse City drove all the way up here to ride our little five ramps,” he explained. “That’s when I first got on the parks and recreation committee. I wanted to find a way to get a skatepark built up here… I started coming everyday and just keeping account of how many people we had there. I did kind of an informal petition, and I had counted over 70 skaters that lived in Leelanau Township, I had no idea there were that many here. All ages, families would come, mom, dad, and the kids. And this is set up so that anybody can ride it.”
While Thatcher has been working to get ramps set up and will help with the upkeep going forward, he said there’s also been discussion with Northport Public School about having students work on future art projects at the ice rink/skatepark to paint the asphalt. He said he hopes that people, whether they be seasoned skaters or new to the sport, will come out to use the added ramps in the meantime.
“Skateboarders are nomadic and they will travel,” he said. “I’ve been skating for over 51 years now — it has literally saved my life and It really helped keep my sanity. It teaches you to get back up.”
The park is open from dawn to dusk. For more information about Braman Hill Recreation facilities, go to leelanautownshipmi. gov/meeting-minutesparks- and-recreation.
