Up in Michigan and the Hiawatha Forest Tahquamenon River and Whitefish Bay, Michigan Day 43 - July 15, 2002  Back   |   Next

Matt and Rich Gallagher Rich and I meet at the Rectory and have breakfast. We take the ferry to St. Ignace. We ride through Michigan lumber country, a land that gave birth to the legend of Paul Bunyan. After many miles of nothing but pines and road, we both realize why people down south say Upper Peninsula is desolate and "not very developed." A lady at a gas station in Troutlake tells us she once laughed at a tourist who had asked where the nearest McDonald's was. Somebody even once asked her where the town shopping mall was located. "This is it she said." She also tells us that only three hundred people live in the county during the winter. We stock up on water and munchies supplies. Near Rudyard, a town named after Kipling (author of The Jungle Book) Rich reaches his 1,000-mile mark and we celebrate with Gatorade and Hostess turnovers. In the evening we camp at the Tahquamenon River mouth. Not far from camp is a trail that leads through black spruce and shrub swamp to the ruins of Emerson, an old saw mill town that is celebrated in Longfellow's poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." We bath in Whitefish Bay. A picnicking family gives us their left over watermelon. Back at the campsite mosquitoes drill us. The Lewis and Clark expedition and how they used animal lard as bug repellent remind me. The ranger that checked us in to the park brings us cold Faygo cola. I set up the tent, slapping mosquitoes and annoyed that my lemon grass-all natural bug repellant isn't working. Rich makes dinner. It is a sumptuous banquet of ziti with a Campbell's Clam Chowder soup/sauce. Rich Gallagher   Matt Muller