Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore preserves thirty-five miles of Lake Michigan shoreline in northwestern Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, along with North and South Manitou islands and more than seventy-one thousand acres of dunes, forests, beaches, and glacial landforms. Shaped during the Wisconsin glaciation about ten thousand to fourteen thousand years ago, its perched dunes have gradually moved eastward over glacial deposits. Named for an Ojibwe legend, the park emerged from a contentious political effort that began with legislation introduced by Senator Philip Hart in 1962 and led to its establishment on October 21, 1970. It also protects historic communities, recreation areas, wildlife habitat, and a large designated wilderness area added in 2014.