Hello Everyone! How are y’all doing out there? I hope everyone’s summer is going well and you’re getting out and having adventures of your own out there. I can’t believe it’s almost August and I know it’s going to be cooling down here in the north in just a few more weeks so I’m trying to soak up the sun and enjoy the summer while it lasts. Even Lake Superior is pleasant to swim in this time of year up here, so I’m swimming every day I can. It’s been a busy week here in Michigan as I’ve finally crossed over into the Upper Peninsula. It’s definitely different here from what I was finding “down south” – the towns are smaller and less polished, but the people are friendly and very passionate about their region. These “Yoopers”, as they call themselves, weren’t connected to the rest of Michigan until the completion of the Mackinac Bridge in 1959, so they’ve developed independently of the rest of the state. It’s interesting to see. I’ve had a great week of lighthouses (surprise!), history and some really beautiful sights and I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve been up to this week, so here we go:
When I finished writing last week I headed out of Petoskey and hopped on Michigan 119, the Tunnel of Trees Scenic Byway. It was a beautiful road, barely two lanes wide, which bobbed and weaved up the coast through some cute little towns and beautiful scenery. I imagine it would be quite spectacular in the fall when all those deciduous trees have changed colors. The Scenic Byway ended in tiny Cross Village which is home to the Legs Inn, one of the more well-known off-the-beaten-path restaurants in the state. The Legs Inn was built by Polish immigrant Stan Smolak almost a hundred years ago and it’s still owned and run by his family today. It gets its name from the old stove legs which run the length of the building’s roof. The rest of the place is a work of art in its own right having been carved out of whatever wood or other materials Stan and his mostly Odawa Indian friends could come up with at the time. A lot of the tables are two tree stumps with a plank between them (cleaned, sanded, stained, varnished and looking really good, though). The food is from his native Poland and in a regular summer they would bring Polish students over to work at the inn. My server was from Poland, here on a student visa since before the pandemic. I had a taste plate which included a cabbage roll, hunter’s stew and pierogis, and I washed it down with a refreshing Polish beer. My lunch was very good and the atmosphere was great and it was definitely well worth the stop.
From Cross Village, I headed clear across the state to Cheboygan on the banks of Lake Huron. I went out to the State Park for a quick swim and then came back to town in the late afternoon. I visited the old Crib Lighthouse, which was very cool and made for some good black and white photos, and then just wandered around downtown for a while. Although there is definitely tourism there thanks to nearby Mackinac Island and the lake itself, Cheboygan felt more like just a regular town than most I have been in on my way up the Lake Michigan coast. To be honest, I found it quite refreshing. In my time in the Deep South and Appalachia I felt like regular towns were the norm and touristy places were the exception. Here in Michigan I’ve felt quite the opposite. That being said, there was some great public art on display including a wonderful mural of the town’s history. I stopped in the Cheboygan Brewing Company for a quick beer and they had a great fire pit outside which made conversation with strangers quite easy. From there, I had to make a quick stop into Pub 27 up the road because they had a great neon sign outside and it looked like a regular people’s bar in a regular people’s town. I was sure glad that I stopped in. The bartender, Taryn, is a 3rd generation Cheboyganer and the bar is owned by her parents who own several other business ventures in town as well. Her boyfriend, Alex, was very friendly as well and they were interested to hear about my travels and what I thought of Michigan. I enjoyed chatting with them, but I had an early start the next morning, so I called it an early night.
Thursday I was up and running at 6 a.m. to get to Mackinac Island as early as possible. I knew it was going to be busy in the middle of July, so I wanted to get there early and beat some of the day-tripper crowd. I managed to catch the second ferry of the day for the 20 minute crossing and got there before 9 a.m. I boarded the ferry in 2021 and got off the boat 20 minutes later in 1898. It felt like I had been in a time machine. I’ve been to quite a few islands in my life that claim to be “car-free” and usually the first thing you see when you get off the boat is cars. Not so on Mackinaw Island. There were horse drawn carriages there at the boat dock and not just for carrying people. Everything on the island was being transported by hand-truck, bicycle or horse-drawn carriage and the Victorian architecture of the buildings completed the scene. The history nerd in me was wide-eyed and smiling from ear to ear. I have often fantasized about being in a turn of the 20th century town, but on Thursday I got to live the reality of it. After just walking back and forth on the main street for a while and soaking it all in, I headed up to the famous Grand Hotel which truly is grand. It has the longest covered porch in the world and there was a gentleman in Victorian clothes driving a fine carriage to transport guests to and from the dock. The hotel was beautiful and the grounds were even better with well-manicured gardens and some wonderful topiary creations. From the hotel I made my way out to the old Skull Cave (which was lame and looked nothing like a skull or a cave) and then on to the cemeteries which I found interesting. Then I headed on to Fort Mackinac which was built by the British during the Revolution for fear that their fort on the mainland was too vulnerable. Having disassembled their mainland fort and moved it by ship to the island, they certainly had a more defensible position. The fort was very well restored and preserved and presented the life of the soldiers who were stationed there quite well, from the early British soldiers to the Americans who took over in 1796 (years after the war ended!). I thought one of the more interesting stories on Mackinac Island was that it had, in 1875, been named America’s second National Park just three years after Yellowstone. During the 20 years it was a park, the army unit which was stationed at the fort served as the park’s guardians (as they did in Yellowstone and elsewhere before the National Park Service was founded). The park was eventually transferred back to the state of Michigan and became the state’s first state park in 1895. After I finished at the fort, I had a quick lunch and then took a bike ride to the other side of the island. You can only peddle halfway around right now because there was a road collapse on the other side, but it was still nice to pedal out of town and see the Mackinac Bridge off in the distance and some of the rest of the island. Done with my sightseeing, I enjoyed some music in the park and then a delicious burger and a cold beer before catching the last ferry to head back to the mainland. While the weather was cloudy most of the day and there were a ton of people there, I had a wonderful time on Mackinac Island and would put it at the top of my list of things to see in Michigan.
Exhausted from the long and wonderful day, I collapsed into bed, but woke up in the middle of the night a little warm and went to turn on my ceiling fan. It wouldn’t go on which was not a great thing to happen in the middle of the night. Thankfully I have a backup fan which worked just fine, but it meant that first thing Friday morning I was up and taking the ceiling fan apart. I was glad I was able to fix what was wrong myself and put it back together, but it took about a half-hour to get it done. When I did get it fixed, I headed back to Mackinaw City and decided to go see the old fort there. Fort Michilimackinac was originally built by the French, but was taken over by the British after the French and Indian War. When the British moved over to the island, they took what they could and burned the rest. The fort that is there now is a complete re-creation, but a very good one based on an ongoing archaeological project which began in 1959. There were also costumed interpreters presenting living history and some wonderful films along the way as well. It was a cool place and I’m glad I stopped. I also visited the two beautiful lighthouses in town and then the office of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association which has done a wonderful job of restoring Michigan’s historic lighthouses and opening them to the public. I had a really nice chat with the lady working there about all the lighthouses I’ve seen over the years and bought a few books to help support their cause.
From there, it was finally time to cross the Mackinac Bridge and get myself into the Upper Peninsula. At 5 miles long, the Bridge was one of the longest suspension bridges in the world when it was built and it was quite an engineering feat to get it done. On the other side, I went to visit the Father Marquette National Memorial which is dedicated to Jacques Marquette, the Jesuit priest and missionary who was one of the first non-natives to explore and map the Mississippi River. The memorial was actually really sad and there wasn’t much there. I’d love to know the politics behind it because it’s by far the worst National Memorial I’ve ever seen. The strange part is that when I was done there, I went to downtown St. Ignace and to the mission he once ran. Father Marquette is buried next to this building and there is a wonderful statue and fountain and lots of information about his life. This was more a memorial to the man than the strange, overgrown area on the other side of the highway. I’m sure there’s a story there somewhere. Inside the old (rebuilt) mission now lives the wonderful Museum of Ojibwe Culture. Though small, this museum packs in a lot of information about the Ojibwe (also known as the Chippewa). I got there about 45 minutes before it closed, so didn’t get to read it all, but I got a good taste of it and thought it was very well done. It had been a very long but wonderful day and it was definitely time for me to call it a night.
Saturday I headed along the Lake Huron coast to Cedarville and then headed north and all the way to Brimley on the coast of Lake Superior. I had made it to the 4th and final of the Great Lakes which borders Michigan and it was nice to be there. I’ve spent a lot of time on the Canadian side of Lake Superior on several cross-country Canada tours I’ve led, but very little on the American side, something I hope to change in the next couple of weeks. I headed out to the old Point Iroquois Lighthouse in Hiawatha National Forest. It’s a beautiful old light and I enjoyed taking photographs of it, even on a grim and cloudy day. From there I headed back into Sault St. Marie where I visited the famous Soo Locks which help bring large ships safely down the 21 foot drop between Lake Superior and the St. Mary River, which then leads to the rest of the Great Lakes. They are quite an impressive project, built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, and I enjoyed watching the big ships navigate through the locks from the viewing tower. From there I took a wander around town to see what was going on. Sault St. Marie reminded me a lot of Anchorage and had a real “frontier” feel to it. There was a little bit of tourism, a lot of bars, and the rest was a centralized supply and service town for the surrounding area. I’m sure the people there miss being able to cross over to the much bigger city of Sault St. Marie, Ontario on the other side of the river.
Soo Locks in Sault St Marie
I decided to take it easy on Sunday and stick around Sault St. Marie and try to get a few things done. I went grocery shopping in the morning and then hit the gym for a while, got the first proper shower I’d had in a few days and then went on to the laundromat. When I finished my laundry, I took a nice nap and then cooked for a while in a lovely park on the banks of the St. Mary River and got my week’s meals all prepared and ready to go. I was hoping to get some computer work done, but it had been a long and productive day and I decided to get a long and productive night’s sleep in to cap it off. That day was how I had envisioned my Sundays when I left home, but I’ve been so busy that it just hasn’t worked out. Maybe when I get to Wisconsin.
I hit the road early on Monday and made my way up to Whitefish Point. The area between Whitefish Point and Pictured Rocks has often been called the “graveyard of Lake Superior” since over 300 ships have gone down in that area over the years. The most famous of those shipwrecks, perhaps, was the Edmund Fitzgerald which went down in November of 1975, when I was just 12 days old. The Fitzgerald went down just 17 miles shy of the point and the protection of Whitefish Bay just beyond it. Today, Whitefish Point is home to the small but fascinating Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum which tells the story of several of the hundreds of shipwrecks in the area, complete with photos and artifacts. It also presents a look at the life of a lighthouse keeper 100 years ago in the buildings surrounding the still functioning lighthouse and of the U.S. Lifesaving Service which preceded the U.S. Coast Guard. I was surprised at the number of tourists there on a Monday morning, but I enjoyed the museum nonetheless. From there, I dropped down into the interior of the U.P. for a stop at Tahquamenon Falls. This massive and powerful waterfall is second only to Niagara Falls in size east of the Mississippi River. It was crowded there too (it is the middle of July and family vacations are in full-swing), but I managed to find myself all alone for about half an hour at the best viewpoint of the falls in the park. I guess the hundred or so steps was a big deterrent, but I’m glad I made it down and really enjoyed the falls from that vantage point. I’m glad the thousand steps a day I was doing at home in D.C. paid off. Leaving the falls, I was off to Grand Marais and back on the shores of Lake Superior for the night. There wasn’t much to the little town, but it made for a convenient jumping off point into Pictured Lakes National Lakeshore on Tuesday. I got a campground for the night which was also crowded (I feel very claustrophobic in RV parks), but I could plug in Shadow Catcher and my computer and catch up on a little bit of work.
On Tuesday I headed into the park early and made my first stop Sable Falls. Michigan is so flat that it’s not really waterfall country, but the geology around Pictured Rocks has allowed quite a few to form in the area. It was wonderful to be back photographing some waterfalls, and the first one was a good one. Then I headed down the beach to the old Au Sable Lighthouse and saw the scattered remains of two 100 year old shipwrecks. Then I headed down to the Miner’s Castle area for another waterfall and some of the notable and beautiful cliffs of the park. I hit up Munising Falls on my way out of the park and then headed to the docks to board a sunset cruise. You really do have to see Pictured Rocks from the water to really get the full picture, and at $168 the kayak tour was a little beyond what I was willing to pay so the sunset cruise was a nice substitute (and over a hundred dollars cheaper). The boat is poorly suited to sightseeing, but probably does well in the rough seas which Lake Superior is known for. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the scenery and would definitely put it on my must-do list for the park. I was pretty tired when the boat landed and headed up the road to the casino in Christmas, Michigan for the night.
Today I was up early and back to the park to visit the Chapel Rock section of the park. The road to get out there is not paved and had a few 5 mph stretches, but it was better than many of the paved roads I’ve been on in Michigan. I was definitely glad the ranger I spoke with told me to get there early and before the parking lot filled up and the crowds arrived. I hiked down to beautiful Chapel Falls and then on to the beach under Chapel Rock, another of the well-known formations in the park. This one is cool because it has a tree growing out of the top of it. The whole formation was once connected to the rest of the cliff, but the stone fell years ago leaving only the tree’s roots to connect it to the rest of the outcropping. It was really cool. The beach there was nice, and quiet at that hour. I took a different trail home, with a short detour over to Mosquito Falls to round out my time in the park. I had a delicious pasty for lunch here in Munising and here I am at the library trying to get this post out to you.
Mosquito Falls in Pictured Rocks
And that’s about what I’ve been up to this week, y’all. It’s been a busy one for sure, but I’ve seen some really cool places and learned a lot history from this part of Michigan. I’m looking forward to exploring more of the Upper Peninsula in the week ahead. I’m going to be bouncing between Lakes Michigan and Superior as I go, but they’re pretty close together at this point so it shouldn’t be a big deal. I hope to be off to Manistique tonight and then come back up to Marquette and west from there. Next week at this time I’ll be out on Isle Royale National Park in the middle of Lake Superior. Isle Royale was at the very tip-top of my list of things to see in Michigan, and I’m so excited that I’ll be finishing out my two months in the Great Lakes State out there. I’ll be trying to get this post done before I get on the boat to go, so it’ll be a little bit shorter next week, but hopefully I’ll come back with some great photos and stories to tell. It’s a great time of year for adventures so maybe you can have one this week too. I’d sure love to hear about it, so drop me a comment or a message to my inbox. Or if it’s too hot for adventures where you are, that’s okay too. Either way, have a wonderful week and I hope to see you right back here, same time, next week. It’ll be August and I’ll be on the cusp of finishing up my Michigan travels and moving on to Wisconsin. Take care out there, and thanks for reading.
-Mike