With the locks behind us we
traversed the final 15 miles of the St. Marys River and entered Lake
Superior. WOOHOO! WE DID IT! The Ojibway called this lake
“Gitche Gumee” – Big-Sea-Water. Most of
us have heard of gitche gumee if we have read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha or have listened to
Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald.
The northeast winds buffeted the
starboard side of Lazy W giving us a
somewhat bumpy ride the rest of the way to Whitefish Bay. At times a drizzle of rain wet the
decks. We were all glad to see the protected,
minimalist docks of Whitefish Point come into view. Captain Frank expertly maneuvered us past the
shoal at the harbor entrance and into our slip despite the gusty winds.
A short walk down the road
through swarms of biting mosquitoes and black flies brought us to the Whitefish
Point Lighthouse and Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. We were surprised at how many tourists had
descended upon this site! We are in the
middle of nowhere! The museum is
dedicated to the fury of Lake Superior, telling the stories of the many ships
and their crews who have perished upon its water.
November is the most notorious
month of the year for shipwrecks in Lake Superior. On November 10th, 1975 the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of twenty
–nine fell victim to the infamous gales of November. Two life boats, the largest pieces of
wreckage recovered, are on display at the Museum Ship Valley Camp in Sault Ste. Marie.
The ships’s bell is on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum where
Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad is played on a continuous loop – a bit of overkill if
you asked us!
A bronze leaf depicting the Gordon
Lightfoot ballad The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald. Several more of these
leaves depicting other songs are on display in a waterfront park in his
hometown of Orillia Ontario.
We felt we had been duly
forewarned of the dangers that could possibly lie ahead so we trekked back to Lazy W – Frank and I started happy hour,
Patti and Alan took a nap.
Friday’s cruise to Grand Marais
was less than pleasant. Forty miles of
cold, gusty winds – temps in the low 50’s – rollicking waves from every
direction, or so it seemed. I knew I
wasn’t the only one counting down the miles until this trek was over when Alan
kept asking, “How many more miles?” We
were all glad to arrive at the sheltered harbor of Grand Marais. And luckily
for us there were friendly guys hanging out there to catch our lines and reel Lazy W into the dock.
Grand Marais was a pleasant surprise. There was not one, but two taverns in
town. How to choose, how to choose. We
opted for the Grand Marais Tavern on Lake Street. Not only was the Cudighi Yooper Sausage Pizza
an excellent menu choice, but the tavern itself was right next to the Pickle
Barrel House Museum! Listed on the
National Register of Historic Places (yup, that’s right!) this larger than life
pickle barrel was constructed in 1926 and used as a summer home by William
Donahey, the creator of the Chicago Tribune cartoon The Teenie Weenies.
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| Leaving Grand Marais |
Between Grand Marais and
Munising lies 42-mile long Pictured Rocks National Seashore. The name pictured rocks comes from the
streaks of mineral stain that decorate the face of the sculpted sandstone
cliffs, some of which are 200 feet tall.
The streaks occur when groundwater oozes out of the cracks in the porous
sandstone and trickles down the cliff face.
The groundwater carries dissolved minerals painting the surface with
beautiful patterns – the reds and oranges from iron, blues and greens from
copper, brown and black from manganese, and white from limonite. Of course, my pictures do not quite capture
the beauty of it.
The weather was picture perfect
for getting up close to the Pictured Rock formations. (We deserved a good cruising day after the
beating we took yesterday.) The water is deep here and Frank expertly guided Lazy W among a few tour boats and dozens
of kayakers so we could enjoy the awesome views.
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| Grand Portal Rock |
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| Painted Coves |
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| Miners Castle |
When we docked at Munising Bay
Shore Marina and were off the water we were surprised at how warm it was. We exchanged our layers of fleece and jeans
for t-shirts and shorts – had summer finally arrived on Lake Superior??
We strolled through town and followed
Alan into The Barge Inn. He thought he
was just reconnoitering for later on – Frank, on the other hand, was at the bar
ordering drinks for 3:30 happy hour and a game or two of pool. It would be rude to enter the bar and not
order drinks, Alan!
I was able to contact Ross and
Charlotte (we met them last boating season in Killarney) and they stopped by
The Barge Inn for a short visit with us.
It was great reconnecting with them.
Summer was short-lived. The winds started blowing out of the north
late Saturday evening and didn’t stop until late in the afternoon Sunday. The temperature plummeted and Sunday’s high
was just in the 50’s but felt much colder.
The marina gave little protection from the blustery north winds and the
boats were bobbing every which way in their slips. The tour boats to Pictured Rocks didn’t even
leave the docks! While we were chilled, our dock mates made the most of the
situation and showed us how to sunbathe Yooper style! And one of these couples even lent us an integral piece to the Weber grill (it leapt overboard at the dock here) so that we could still grill our Cudighi sausages.
We heard that the place to be on
Sunday night in Munising was back at The Barge Inn for karaoke and
bagpipes. We couldn’t resist! And we all agreed that between the four of us
there would be no singing. But as soon
as we walked through the door, Patti was commandeered by the bagpiper/deejay and
enticed to warble a few notes of My Girl. She set the tone for a great night of dancin’
and shaggin’. Luckily for the other patrons,
there was no more singing by anyone in our group! What fun!
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| KAARAOKE!!! |
With such beautiful weather we
could not resist anchoring out in Grand Island’s Trout Bay for an evening. The hook set on the very first try. We launched the dinghy to walk the beach; we
played cards; we grilled our Cudighi Yooper sausages; we drank the day and
night away.
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| One last look at Bridal Veil Falls at Pictured Rocks National Seashore before heading to Trout Bay |
The next morning we set out for
Marquette, the largest city in the Upper Peninsula. Unlike most towns in the
U.P., Marquette was founded not on lumber but on iron. Once Michigan’s first iron range was
discovered in 1844 at Teal Lake, it was clear that a harbor was needed for the
transportation of the iron to steel-making facilities. Marquette was selected
and to this day, iron ore remains the main commodity handled at its docks.
There are two massive ore docks
dominating the harbor. Iron ore extracted from the mines is transported by rail
to the top of the structure, dumped into the 150 ‘pockets’ each with a hinged
chute that lowers and then drops the ore into the hold of the vessel docked
along its sides. From 1932 to 1971,
twenty-four million tons of iron ore left Marquette via this now decommissioned
ore dock in the Lower Harbor. The
working ore dock is further along the lakeshore near Presque Isle State Park.
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| Stub of Lower Harbor Ore Dock |
The elevated steel trestle leading
to the Lower Harbor Ore Dock wound its way through Marquette for 70 years. The
concrete trestle abutments were removed in 2000 and the right of way from the
shoreline to 5th Street has been repurposed. Part of the right of way is now this colorful
little linear park known as Rosewood Walkway.
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| Umbrellas over Rosewood Walkway |
We made plans to join a walking
tour of the Lower Harbor ore dock but so had every other visitor and local
resident in Marquette. We decided to
forego being herded like cattle through downtown and opted instead to dine at
Lagniappe Cajun Creole Eatery on Washington Street. This restaurant came highly recommended by
boaters we had met along the way and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal at this
little bit of New Orleans in Marquette, Michigan. Our waitress explained that
Lagniappe is a Cajun word meaning ‘a little something extra.’ Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!
All good things must come to an
end. On Thursday, July 20th
it was time to bid goodbye to our best cruising partners, Alan and Patti. The four of us drove 165 miles back to Sault
Ste. Marie where they had met us and left their car a week earlier. Just outside of Marquette along Route 28 we
were surprised to see sand hill cranes feeding in the fields! Traveling by car gave us an entirely
different perspective of the Upper Peninsula.
Without a car we would never have experienced the town of Christmas with
its giant-size roadside Santa Claus or known that the town of Newberry had been
designated by the state legislature as Michigan’s Moose Capital. It would have been great to see one!
After re-provisioning Lazy W, we returned the rental car to
Enterprise and made plans to leave Marquette.
There is plenty to see and do here and we will have to re-visit the town
on our return trip. We made one last
outing after dinner – hiking up the steep hill on Washington Street to attend
Thursday’s Music on 3rd Street.
Bands, musicians and singers performed at bars and on street corners as
far as the edges of the campus of Northern Michigan University. My favorite sign board:
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