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Succumbing to that Lure
 A
pulsing excitement grabs me when I approach Lake Superior’s shores.
There’s a snap and pop as gusts of wind echo between granite cliffs.
Old Man Winter is obviously reluctant to let go of his grasp, with snow
still playing hide-and-seek under shadowed balsam branches. But
winter’s time is short. Frisky spring is already at the portals,
sending warm breezes to entice the spicy arbutus blossoms from their
cover.
I grow anxious. After my gypsy travels away for the last 10
years, Lake Superior’s lure has pulled me home again to stay. Will the
ice be releasing its hold on the lake as I remember of past seasons?
Will I find blue water on the horizon and tell-tale remnants of ice
melting along my favorite stretch of sandy shore? On the way, my path
takes me through the forest. I recall the early hepaticas from other
springs. Or perhaps I can spot delicate spring beauties with their
white blossoms nodding along the forest floor. They, too, are part of
Lake Superior’s lure.
But first, the lake. Every spring and especially this spring,
I feel the urge to touch the boulders that were instrumental in
defining boundaries of our landscape so many ages ago. I strain to
listen for Lake Superior’s fresh waves pounding against the beach and
boulders, free at last from winter’s ice.
Because every spring is a renewal, I appreciate again the
glaciers. On a warm spring day some years ago, I sat on a granite
boulder where the Wawa River flows into Lake Superior. The Canadian
forester beside me showed me a different perspective of our shared lake.
He talked about the glaciers. Fingering the needles from a
nearby pine, he described the scraping and heaving of heavy ice until I
could imagine hearing their sounds. In their passing they had left only
boulders such as the one upon which we sat, massive formations that
were too solid to move. Pushing northern beaches relentlessly south
across what is now Lake Superior, they dropped part of the once-Ontario
sand along these ridges and into my own back yard.
Then the forester spoke of progression of time on his side of
the lake. Shallow soils were deposited grain by grain deep into the
crevices with topsoil layers across the landscape. He said these soils
contained nutrients of the exact mix to nourish the vast forests that
now cover much of Ontario’s Lake Superior region.
Waving his hand northward, the forester said, “Where would we
be without the glaciers? Instead of these forests that I love, we would
be left with the sandy shores of northern Michigan and the farmlands of
Wisconsin.”
Thus I was reminded that the glaciers created something unique for each of us who love the lake.
But there were more tasks for the glacial age. Along with
exposing the Wawa boulder, the shifting ice gouged out this inland sea.
Along its path, the icy movement honed out the rapids that would become
St. Marys Rapids at the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie.
Ontario’s Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, 60 kilometers
northeast of Thunder Bay, holds some clues. At the bottom of the cold
100-meter-deep canyon, sliced through the forest by the last ice age,
grow remnants of arctic-alpine plants that lay hidden under snow until
late spring. Undoubtedly these plants and more would have grown
abundantly in an earlier age.
The blessings of living near Lake Superior can be found at places like Wagner Falls at Munising, Michigan. Photo by Tom Buchkoe
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Before recorded history and with the warming of our region,
animal migration began. People followed. Reasons for kindling their
campfires along this great body of water can only be surmised. However,
First Nations people pitched their tents in what is now Ontario and the
United States of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. While Mayflower
Pilgrims were settling into their lifestyle at Plymouth Rock around the
early 1620s, the inquisitive young French explorer Etienne Brule was
gazing up Lake Superior’s rapids to what would become the twin cities
of Sault Ste. Marie.
About 50 years later, explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du
Lhut pitched his winter camp above these same rapids. Du Lhut had
sneaked out of Montreal with seven fellow Frenchmen and three slaves,
determined to find this lake. Winter passed. They watched spring
arrive, with fish leaping in the rapids. Then they set out to follow
Lake Superior’s south shore to the area that would some day wear the
explorer’s name - Duluth.
As I come home again, I ponder the elusive magnet that draws
us to these shores, attracting personalities as contrasting as the lake
itself. The fur trade was in the mind of Du Lhut - to ease tensions by
forging a treaty between the Ojibway and Dakota Sioux. Others came for
iron, copper, silver, nickel and gold.
For the next 200 years, explorers, fur traders and voyageurs
were lured to this vast body of water with its rivers, imposing cliffs,
and islands. It is said that Duluth’s first settler, George P. Stuntz,
was attracted by the landscape.
I have one friend who keeps returning to Marquette to view the sunset from Presque Isle.
Another woman, Peggy Burkman, fell in love with the lake as a
kid and has been in love ever since. Now a biologist with the Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore at Bayfield, Wisconsin, she says, “Lake
Superior’s many moods inspire me, and its size and consistency ground
me and connect me to the land.”
Innkeeper Ned Basher at Rossport, Ontario, was first enticed
into his secluded harbor while sailing. “It’s different when you can be
right down at the water and touch it,” he says.
Ages pass, but the lure remains. Lake Superior’s shore is now
cut with a living diorama of deep bays backed by granite outcroppings
and towering cliffs. Pockets of beach hold sand and pebbles streaked
with the region’s ore. Lake Superior is fed and kept alive by more than
200 rivers surrounded by northern forests, wildflowers, an enough
wilderness for mankind and animal alike.
What is the lure?
For average folk such as I, it is to simply live near this
awesome lake. It is to feel the fresh Lake Superior breezes. It is
spring hepaticas and arbutus. It is wintergreen growing in the shallows
below Wagner Falls at Munising, Michigan, and all of the other free
blessings found here.
This issue’s Journal writer:
Dixie Franklin left her birth state of Texas in 1963 and fell
head-over-heels in love with Michigan and Lake Superior. Ten years ago
she was pulled away to roam other parts of the world. Now she is back
home in Marquette County to stay, she says. The prize-winning
freelancer is the author of two books entitled Michigan, as well as Haunts of the Upper Great Lakes, Faces of Lake Superior and others. She is on the advisory board of Lake Superior Magazine.
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