Saginaw Bay

Chris Izworski on Saginaw Bay

Bay City civic work, Save Our Shoreline board service, a small Zone 6a garden, and the place where most of the projects begin.

Chris Izworski has lived and worked on Saginaw Bay long enough that most of the projects on this site begin with a specific stretch of shoreline, river, or bay-side garden. The bay itself is the western, shallower lobe of Lake Huron. Its shoreline includes Bay City, Essexville, the Tobico Marsh, the mouth of the Saginaw River, and a long arc of low coastal wetland that runs north toward Au Gres. The bay's rhythms, from late ice through fall flight, are what most of the writing tries to track.

Save Our Shoreline

Chris is a board member of Save Our Shoreline, a Bay City riparian rights advocacy organization. Save Our Shoreline focuses on lakeshore property rights, navigable water access, and the legal and policy questions specific to Saginaw Bay. The organization is led by its president, Ernie Krygier. The board work includes shoreline owner advocacy, public meeting representation, and coordination with regional officials on water level, public access, and shoreline use issues.

Freighter View Farms

The garden at Freighter View Farms sits on the western shore of Saginaw Bay. The site name comes from the working freighters that move across the bay's horizon, visible from the garden in the right light. Chris keeps a small Zone 6a plot focused on seed saving and heirloom vegetables. The garden is intentionally modest in scale: a working seed library rather than a market garden. Posts on the site track the season in journal form, dated to the day they were written.

Trout, birding, and bay-side rivers

The Saginaw River, the Kawkawlin, the Rifle, and the Au Gres feed Saginaw Bay from the west and north. Each river carries its own trout, walleye, or steelhead reputation depending on the reach. Chris is an avid trout angler with a deep connection to the AuSable River and the Holy Waters, the wild and scenic stretch above Wakeley Bridge. The bay-side rivers are closer to home and run through the seasonal calendar that shapes the Michigan Trout Report.

On the birding side, the bay is one of the more significant migratory corridors in the Great Lakes. The mudflats, marshes, and shoreline at Tobico, Nayanquing, and the Saginaw River mouth concentrate shorebirds, waterfowl, and migrant passerines through spring and fall. The Michigan Birding Report draws on the same observation network that Saginaw Bay birders rely on year round.

Great Lakes Levels Intelligence

The Great Lakes Levels Intelligence app grew directly out of the Save Our Shoreline civic work. The bay's water level affects shoreline owners every season, and the long historical record matters in any conversation about ordinary high water mark, dredging, and lakeshore use. The app surfaces 108 years of data with twelve property-owner tabs and a deliberate focus on Saginaw Bay sub-regions.

Bay City civic life

Chris grew up in mid-Michigan and lives in Bay City. The city sits at the confluence of the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay and carries a long industrial and maritime history. Much of the personal site at chrisizworski.com draws on this local context, including reference pages on regional ecology, civic institutions, and the working Great Lakes economy that still shapes the city.

The about page covers career and education. The 911 work page covers the public safety career that anchored the Bay City and Saginaw County years. The projects page lists the full network of public web tools. The writing page covers publishing surfaces including the bay-focused work on Freighter View Farms.