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Courtesy Mike Link & Kate Crowley
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Courtesy Mike Link & Kate Crowley
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Courtesy Mike Link & Kate Crowley
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Over five months beginning in April, Kate Crowley and Mike Link are walking as closely as possible to Lake Superior by trail, beach or road - and sometimes water. Lake Superior Magazine will carry the stories of their journey all year. And see updates on their progress at www.fullcirclesuperior.org .
by Kate Crowley (with Mike Link)
It was our longest trek across a single entity - the slightly more than two-month walk across the Ontario portion of Lake Superior’s shores.
We crossed into Canada on June 26 with close to 1,500 other walkers. I wish I could say they were all there to walk with us, but they were part of the International Bridge Walk, the one day each year that a lane of traffic is closed for pedestrians to traverse the 2.8-mile long bridge straddling the St. Marys River between the United States and Canada.
Still, it felt like our celebration, with people wearing or carrying flags of their respective countries, laughing and chatting. Young musicians dressed in naval uniforms played marching music. People stretched nearly halfway across the bridge.
For us, this extra-special crossing not only marked a significant point in our walk by entering Canada, but reunited us with two daughters, a son-in-law and four small grandchildren.
The crossing came near the end of a four-day break to spend time with family and to rest Mike’s knees, which had gotten progressively worse as we finished the Michigan shore. Mike was losing a lot of sleep and spirit. One day he told me, “I think I’ve only got a 30 percent chance of finishing the walk.” I reminded him that we had agreed that if one of us was unable to go on, the other would keep walking. The thought of me going alone seemed to improve his knees.
We knew the pace would change quite a bit in Ontario. It has the wildest, rockiest and most difficult coastline; there would be far fewer miles of sand beaches, or even cobblestone ones for that matter.
We would be walking miles on rocky ledges and jumbled boulders skirting the water’s edge. Hikers’ signposts on these surfaces are called cairns - piles of rocks of varying size and formation. They are built by other trekkers or by trail associations and they became the focus of our steps as we looked ahead for the best route. Sometimes they fell apart or were absent altogether and we found ourselves scanning the surface for any clue that would send us in the right direction.
But the best guidance came from the people we met. We had learned in Michigan and Wisconsin that Lake Superior locals are the best resource for knowing how and where to access trails closest to the Lake.
In Gros Cap, a suburb of Sault St. Marie, Ontario, we met with Mike Landmark, president of the Voyageur Trail Association. This volunteer organization is trying hard to create a contiguous trail system across the top of the Lake. Dependent on volunteers and with little funding, progress comes in fits and starts. We appreciated Mike’s help along this first segment of the Ontario route. When we visited with him, we talked about the Lake and what draws us all to it.
“It’s the wilderness,” he says. “It’s Mother Nature at her best, and it changes all the time. You don’t know what you’re going to be up against, but it’s always fun. And tomorrow will be a little bit better and a little bit different.”Crossing the province brought us to and through one national and four provincial parks, which do a marvelous job of protecting and preserving hundreds of thousands of acres of boreal forest, a few white sand beaches and the rocky shore. Trails in these parks involved a lot of rock scrambling and climbing, but the Lake was always beside us to ease our eyes and boost our spirits.
New friends were made along the way, some through Facebook and others by spending time at their establishments. Ellen Van Laar and her husband, Dan Bisson, were two of the former. Ellen is an artist and creates colorful, magical paintings inspired by the Lake and the stories of Mishipeshu, the great horned lynx of the Ojibway people and the most well-known of the pictographs at Agawa Bay. She and Dan invited us to stop at their place near the Montreal River and guided us along the rugged shore near their home. They also invited us to a potluck dinner with friends, just one example of the many generous and friendly people we met.
Because our goal was to stay as close to the shore as possible, we faced a seemingly insurmountable problem at Michipicoten River. Just west of it, a bulge of land covers 130 miles of challenging shore with uncounted peninsulas and bays - almost completely inaccessible. Half of it is Crown Land with no trails or logging roads and a shoreline that consists largely of cliffs or steep rock ledges. The other half is Pukaskwa National Park, which has a coastal hiking trail, but this summer two of the main bridges were being replaced. Highway 17 skirts this landmass to the north, but to walk the road would have taken us 12 days during which we would never have seen the Lake.
Luckily we found Naturally Superior Adventures, an outfitting-guide-instruction business near Wawa at the mouth of the Michipicoten River. Last year, we discussed plans with owner David Wells. We originally considered following the shore in sea kayaks, but David suggested a voyageur canoe, which they own and outfit. We liked the idea because of the large canoe’s connection to the Lake’s history, our love of canoeing and the chance to invite 10 people to paddle with us. It was an unforgettable journey. The Lake proved that it is in charge, as wind and waves beached us for parts or all of seven days. During one terrifying night, our assistant guide fell off a cliff and required helicopter evacuation. He is doing well, but this was more excitement than he or we wanted. The other guide and our 10 paddling companions finished the trip with a sense of accomplishment born of combat.
Once we finished the water portion - our reverse grand portage, if you will - of the walk, we returned to the trails (when we found them), to abandoned and active railroad grades, to rural roads and occasionally to the busy Trans Canada Highway 17.
At the top of the Lake in Nipigon is a wonderful, colorful new park based on the book Paddle to the Sea. Mike had carved a small replica of the original Paddle, and we carried it with us to give our grandchildren a fun connection to our trip. We took photos of this Paddle in various locations and posted it on our website under “Where is Paddle” so that other children could become engaged in the journey.
After Nipigon, the northernmost point on the Lake, our feet turned south. We were on a homeward path.
From trails on Sibley Peninsula and in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, we could see the city of Thunder Bay - another Eureka! moment when, in our mind’s eye, we saw the end of our walk coming into view.
We hiked into the city on the old railroad grade with our Ontario adviser Todd Starling, his mom, Penny, his wife, Carolyn, and 14-month-old Sierra in a backpack and our support person Amanda Hakala and her dog, Sheena. An afternoon at Fort William Historical Park was spent sharing our adventure with visitors who stopped at our table. We also shared our message of concern about fresh water in interviews with local TV and radio stations. And we never visit Thunder Bay without stopping for breakfast at the Hoito Restaurant.
We reached the Lake’s other U.S.-Canadian border at Pigeon River after 63 days and 662 miles. It was the most unusual crossing we’ll probably ever make - standing between cars lined up to go into the United States. The U.S. Border Patrol officers knew of our walk and were enthusiastic in their greeting: “We’ve been waiting for you and following you on the website.” On August 31, we stepped back into Minnesota, the state from which we started, ready for the last push to complete our Full Circle.