Business & Economy
Behind that romantic stand of pines, a history of abuse
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Long before “Pure Michigan” lured tourists and vacationers Up North, images of pristine forests and sparkling streams were doing the same thing — even if what tourists would see was neither pure nor pristine. While the state’s slick tourism campaigns of the recent decades are familiar, people might not know that they hark back to post-Civil War advertising that romanticized the state’s nature “and gave it the transcendent qualities that remain in tourists’ imaginations today,” according to a recent study. The study by Camden Burd, who grew up in Grand Rapids and spent summer vacations on Green Lake in Interlochen, dates the current “Pure Michigan” theme to a 2008 rebranding of the state’s tourism industry. He described the campaign as intended to boost tourism amid the Recession and to connect with the public’s feeling of nostalgia and “longing for tranquility and the restorative potential of a communion with nature that was untouched, uninhabited and idyllic.”
“When the Pure Michigan campaign really kicked off in 2008, it was painted with a really broad brush” and focused on such topics as “forests, water, rest and relaxation,” with photos of forests and shorelines, Burd said in an interview. Later the campaign expanded to promote urban destinations such as Detroit and Jackson.