By CAROL SOUTH
TRAVERSE CITY -- How can a gourmet meal help the Boardman River?
When it is the Gourmet Game Dinner sponsored by the Traverse City Rotary Club, one dinner can make a huge difference. Scheduled for Wednesday evening at the Traverse City Golf & Country Club, the fifth annual gathering is expected to sell out for the third year, bringing together enthusiasts of great food and environmentalists.
"There's a lot of passion for the outdoors on the committee, a love for the outdoors and the Boardman River," said founder Lee Russell, co-chair with Mark Newhouse of a committee including nearly two dozen Rotarians putting on the event.
Since Russell launched the tradition in 2004, the annual dinner has raised $60,000 for the Boardman River. Projects have included updating an inventory of erosion sites, educational materials and replacing access steps at the Sabin Pond trailhead. Steve Largent, director of land management services for the Grand Traverse Conservation District, administers the funds.
"Without their money [these projects] wouldn't get done," he said.
The first year, the funds allowed Largent to update an erosion inventory on the Boardman, assessing how sites restored over the past 15 years were holding up.
"We found where we needed to conduct some maintenance on those sites and we also found new sites," Largent said. "Sediment destroys a healthy river, it blankets the bottom covering all the habitat for aquatic insects, which is the food base for the fish, and also the spawning gravel for the fish."
Largent noted that he gives the Rotary committee a "menu" of options for using the money, looking at what will most help sustain the river and banks or improve access or use.
"We have a lot of needs like many organizations, but it's, 'OK, what's our greatest need that fits their desires for the coming year,'" he said.
Speaking of menus, chef Chris Carey and his staff at the Country Club and Mike Connors, owner of the Apache Trout Grill, have collaborated on a feast that will include rabbit and root vegetable stew, almond breaded duck tenderloin, honey pan-fried rainbow trout and roasted elk loin. Local greens, roots, vegetables and squash help round out the meal.
The meal is not gamey but rather showcases the wild meats in a gourmet setting. This contrasts to a wild game fundraiser at the Trenton Rotary Club that Russell attended years ago where he got the idea. That dinner was heavy on the game and a very masculine event.
When he initiated the Gourmet Game Dinner in Traverse City he toned down the 'wild' aspect of the dishes to appeal to women's palates.
"It's not a stag event," Russell said.
The fifth Annual Gourmet Game Dinner also features a live auction, raffles, drawings and a door prize drawing.
Every year, the main auction item is an original artwork commissioned by the Rotary Club. This year, Interlochen wildlife artist Chris Smith created "Boardman River Sentinel," featuring a kingfisher in a fall setting along the river. A limited number of prints of the artist's work are made each year to give to event sponsors and for additional fundraising.
His second year working with the organization, Smith finds the commission a labor of love.
"I've been fishing the Boardman since we moved up here in 1990, canoeing and fly fishing and photographing it and hunting along it -- it's near and dear to my heart," he said. "That's why I moved a bunch things around on my schedule when they called me."
Limited tickets are still available to the fifth Annual Gourmet Game Dinner. The cost is $70 each or a table of eight for $500. For more information, call the Rotary office at 941-5421.
