While we were still in Mackinaw City, we went to Colonial Michilimackinac, a 1770's fort and colonial village. It was burned to the ground in 1781, but many artifacts have been recovered. Buildings have been reconstructed and reenactors interpret the buildings. My favorite part of the whole experience was the demonstration of the muskets and cannon. If you want to check out some more of the history, here's a link to a Wickipedia article about it.
The next day we started out at the Ojibwe Museum right here in St. Ignace. It's a small place, but does a very nice job of portraying life in the Straits of Mackinac over 300 years ago when Ojibwa, Huron, Odawa and French cultures all had to co-exist in this area.
We only spent about an hour at the museum, but it was very interesting. As we left, this visitor to the garden out front was a nice diversion.
After that, we just took a drive through the Hiawatha National Forest. The forest is named for Longfellow's poem "Song of Hiawatha." (As an aside, I got so wrapped up in reading this great poem aloud to Wiley that we could hardly put it down. We'll finish reading it tomorrow.) It's about 880,000 acres that touches three of the Great Lakes. It's criss-crossed with gravel roads beside creeks, rivers and through the deep north woods. We stopped for a while on the Carp River so Wiley could wet a lure.
Meanwhile, I took a walk across this bridge and down the road a ways. Some of the trees are just starting to show some color, and the temperature is a glorious mid-1970's.
Another day, we drove east along the northern shore of Lake Michigan to DeTour (check out our route with this link to a map). Our primary goal was the lighthouse that we thought was in DeTour, but it turned out to be well offshore and only barely visible. (This picture is courtesy of an internet site.) It's a good thing we enjoyed the journey and that there was fishing and a pretty spot for me to "set a spell."
Yesterday we took another drive, this time to Paradise (Michigan, that is). Here's our route: map. We stopped to see the Point Iroquois Lighthouse. It's in a beautiful location where Lake Superior goes into the St. Mary's River. There was a massacre here when the Iroquois indians invaded Ojibwa territory.I climbed all 72 steps to the top of the lighthouse. Quite a climb up narrow steps, but the view was really incredible! Check it out.
We also enjoyed a walk of the beach of Lake Superior. We looked for agates, but didn't find even one. The driftwood was gorgeous!That's it for today. Wish you were here to enjoy this great adventure with us!
4 comments:
Wow. That is a magnificent piece of driftwood. The colors in your photo are fantastic. Of course, I loved that sweet little hummingbird - great shot. Actually, I'm surprised you saw the bird among the flowers.
Is that Wiley in the front door of the Point Iroquois Lighthouse? What was the museum like inside? I get the impression it wasn't what you expected.
In the bridge photo, I tried to imagine those were small fish in the water but I guess it was just stones. Nice shot, too.
Enjoy your videos, if that's what you call them. I could even hear the guy counting down for the canon shot. Pretty neat.
Just went back to reread your blog. Didn't get the same impression re the museum this time around. I am curious though as to what was inside - clothing, arrowheads, mostly photos - what type of artifacts?
We watched a video in the lighthouse museum about the area and then saw the keeper's quarters. It was furnished as it would have been when they lived there in the early 1900's--surprisingly homey, although I would think the isolation would be hard to bear!
You are so right. The 1970s was a glorious period for temperatures (har).
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