Most people who use the Alpena Bi-Path treat it as pavement. It is the loop you take before work, the stroller route on a Saturday, the shortcut from the neighborhood to the library. What gets forgotten is that when the project started in 1974, the pavement was the afterthought. The sculptures were the point.
That original idea has been quietly closing itself this year. On June 18, the city held part of its America 250 celebration at City Hall and unveiled two new pieces, and the artists running the program said out loud what long-time residents may not have realized: the sculpture series is done. This summer is the last time a walk down the Bi-Path will feel like an ongoing project instead of a finished one.
The name gives it away
The full original name was the Alpena Sculptured Bikeway/Walkway. It was conceived in May 1974 as the Thunder Bay Arts Council looked for a way to commemorate the nation's Bicentennial with something permanent rather than symbolic. The route itself was not casually sketched. The council brought in Peter Pollack, a landscape architect from the University of Michigan, who used aerial photography and on-site analysis to design a route that worked with the landscape and left room for future expansion.
The name came from kids. Local elementary school students submitted more than 700 suggestions in a community naming competition, coordinated in part by Police Officer Russell Mainville, who ran bicycle safety programs in area schools. "Bi-Path" was short for Bicentennial Path. Half a century of use has scrubbed that meaning off the word, but it is embedded in every mile marker.
The path itself has grown well past its original footprint. Today it covers nearly 18.5 miles, providing barrier-free access to waterfront parks and trails linking recreational, cultural, commercial, and civic sites throughout Alpena.
What June 18 actually closed
The community picnic and Declaration of Independence reading at City Hall got the headlines. The quieter news was the two sculptures being dedicated at the same time.
The city unveiled a bald eagle statue outside the Alpena County Courthouse and a thunderbird in front of City Hall. "The Eagle has Landed" is by Ann Gildner, and the thunderbird sculpture, "In the Eye of the Beholder," was created by artist Autumn Bildson, whose work contains symbols representing happiness, everlasting life, wisdom, strength, and friendship. The event also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 18.5-mile trail, and residents celebrated with a bike parade Wednesday, starting at McRae Park and ending at City Hall.
The finality is the piece that has gone under-reported. Tim Kuehnlein of the Thunder Bay Arts Council said these are the final two sculptures of the Art Vision Alpena project which began in 2017, resurrecting the sculpture component of the Bi-Path. Both sculptures are about six feet tall, placed at the seats of local government as a reflection of civic pride, and celebrate both the semiquincentennial and the 50th anniversary of the Bi-Path. When the two sculptures are placed in 2026, there will be a total of 20 along the Bi-Path, and there are currently no plans to continue the sculpture program past 2026.
Twenty installations, spread across 50 years. Roughly one every two-and-a-half years, if you evened it out. It never worked that way in practice.
The uneven timeline
The sculpture program moves in bursts. There was a long dormant stretch after the initial Bicentennial push, then a revival, and now a hard stop. It helps to see it laid out:
- 1979 — Glen Michaels' Sculptured Fountain installed at the Besser Museum, the first piece along the path.
- 2000 / 2009 — Tom Moran's The Eagle, constructed in 2000 and installed in 2009 at the Besser Museum campus, crafted from welded steel tube, steel plate, stainless steel, copper, and brass, containing more than 1,500 individually hand-sanded feathers.
- 2017 — Departure of the Great Blue Herons and Global Collaboration Awareness installed as the Art Vision Alpena revival began.
- 2018 — The multi-piece History of Industry series.
- 2022 — Water in Limestone, placed at Culligan Plaza.
- 2024 — Health & Wellness: A Tribute to Service and Giving.
- 2026 — The Eagle Has Landed and In the Eye of the Beholder, unveiled June 18.
For many years, during a period when no new traditional sculptures were added, the focus shifted toward expanding the pathway's physical reach. What began as a modest route grew into roughly 18 miles of pathway, weaving throughout the community and tracing the natural contours of the river's footprint and the wildlife sanctuary at the center of town. That is the middle chapter of the story most residents lived through without noticing it as a chapter at all. The path kept getting longer while the art paused.
Stops most residents pass without looking
The sculptures get the anniversary press. The path also has installations that are older, weirder, or simply parked in a spot people walk past a hundred times a summer.
The Fletcher Library corner. At the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library, the bronze sculpture "Two Kids on a Bench," dedicated in memory of longtime Friends of the Library president Sue Sandy, depicts two children reading together on a park bench. It was created by California artist Max Turner and installed in 2006. Nearby stands "Taking Flight," an abstract stainless-steel blue heron sculpture created by Dan Rambadt of Vanguard Sculpture Services in Milwaukee, installed atop the library's historic artesian sulfur well in 2006. The well is the detail. Most people photograph the heron and never register what it is standing on.
Kaiser Paul. The 30-foot-tall Kaiser Paul Lumberjack Statue on the campus of Alpena Community College was originally constructed in the 1960s by artist Betty Conn of Birmingham, Michigan, made entirely from recycled Kaiser automobile parts for a Gaylord gas station called Paul Bunyan's Gas and Eat. The hood forms his chest, headlights serve as eyes, and steel shavings create his hair and beard. After the gas station closed in the 1970s, the statue changed locations several times and narrowly avoided being scrapped.
The military stretch. The cannon on the City Hall lawn, the Civil War memorials, Little Flanders Field, and the comprehensive war memorial on the Alpena County Courthouse lawn all sit within the Bi-Path corridor. Little Flanders Field was established after World War I and expanded to include 167 crosses honoring service members from the Civil War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with memorials for POWs, MIAs, and victims of Agent Orange. The cannon displayed on the City Hall lawn is an armament from the battleship USS Maine, destroyed by an explosion in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898.
The lighthouse at the mouth. At the end of the harbor pier stands the Alpena Light, built in 1914 of cast iron, replacing earlier wooden lights that had served vessels entering Thunder Bay since the 1870s. The Bi-Path routes you within sight of it if you follow the river out toward the harbor.
On campus. Global Collaboration Awareness, located at Alpena Community College, uses seven interlinked spheres to represent Earth's continents and seas, drawing inspiration from the 16th-century armillary sphere of Antonio Santucci. It sits along the ACC stretch of the trail, and most walkers who cut through campus never stop long enough to count the spheres.
How to actually ride it
The Bi-Path is not one linear trail. That is worth saying plainly. The 14 miles of designated route include one loop that nearly circles the Alpena Wildlife Sanctuary, another loop stretching from Water Works Park on the lake up to the wildlife sanctuary then west to the high school, and a segment running from Carter Street along the river northwest to Lake Besser before meeting up with the wildlife sanctuary loop. The trail system links civic attractions, neighborhoods, schools, parks, the unpaved Alpena to Hillman Trail, and businesses.
Practical starting points:
- Mich-e-ke-wis Park, 1302 S State Ave. The southern trailhead, and one of the easiest places to park a car and start.
- Island Park (Duck Park), off US-23 north of downtown. A 17-acre island surrounded by the Thunder Bay River, which winds through 500 acres of back waters and low islands. Good access point if you want the river-oriented segment.
- Bayview Park. Home to the 2025 bird-watcher sculpture with black-capped chickadees, cardinals, and a red-headed woodpecker on an approximately 8-foot tree.
One honest note. Riders on TrailLink have complained for years that signage between sculptures and parks is inconsistent and that the trail occasionally routes onto sidewalks. If you have lived in Alpena long enough, you already ride around those gaps by habit. First-time riders should keep a phone map handy.
Why any of this matters in a 50th-year summer
The Bi-Path spent most of its life growing sideways. It gained mileage, gained a covered bridge and a water tower on Island Park through volunteer work, gained access spurs. It did not gain much art. The 2017 revival closed that gap deliberately, and the June 18 unveilings closed the program.
That makes this summer the first one in which a resident can walk or ride the full loop and see the finished collection the 1974 committee sketched out. Twenty sculptures. One lighthouse. A field of 167 crosses. A lumberjack made from a scrapped Kaiser sedan. If you have been treating the path as pavement, this is the year to treat it as the gallery it was named for.
If you are thinking about what it looks like to put down roots along a route like this, or you already own a home in Alpena County and are wondering how a walkable-waterfront corridor factors into what your property is worth, Hillman Real Estate is happy to talk. Get in touch.
