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Photo by Mike Link
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The author negotiates a submerged sandstone ledge on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
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Photo by Kate Crowley
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Husband and hiking partner Mike Link finds that crossing the mouth of a river into the Lake can leave its mark.
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’s the 29th of June and we’re standing on a wave-washed beach, with the wind blowing hard against our sides, much like the day we began our walk around Lake Superior two months ago in Duluth. Only today we are near Sault St. Marie, Michigan, and just across this narrow channel of water is Canada.
A week ago I first caught sight of the white wind generators on the highlands across the water. It stopped me in my tracks; here was proof we had walked nearly halfway around the Lake. Last summer, as we scouted our route, we hiked around those giant pinwheels. And here I was looking at them from a beach in Michigan - a beach I had reached, on foot, over nearly 700 miles. In some ways, it is too big to grasp. At times, I look back at dark shapes of peninsulas jutting into the Lake and wonder: “Did we really walk from there?” We did. Each day we get up, put on our hiking shoes, grab our trekking poles and return to the trail. Such as it is.
Mike has been responsible for finding our route. I call him Path Finder. Early in the trip, I'd whine when the distances walked didn’t match what he had predicted. Then I realized that since I had not volunteered to figure out the routes and was all too happy to let Mike handle this thankless task, I could no longer complain when we walked 14 miles instead of 11 or 12, even if my feet were sore and my legs tired.
We entered Michigan May 11 when we walked away from the campground at Saxon Harbor. It was a gray day and very windy by the Lake (again). We couldn’t walk the shoreline because of high cliffs, so we had to be satisfied with the sound and glimpses of the pounding seas through people’s yards.
Since that day, we’ve walked every possible type of beach on this south shore, around 4-foot tall and wide boulders, over the smallest gravel and everything in between. Walking on gravel and small cobbles is our least favorite surface; up there with tackling busy Highway 48 from the Houghton Canal to Baraga State Park. When forced onto highways, we quickly put on our earphones and try to drown the roar with audiobooks. Since we are too exhausted to read for pleasure in the evening, this has been a good way to enjoy some literary escape.
Our best walking surface is wet, hard-packed sand, found at the edge where the waves wash onto the beach. A perfect beach has that wet edge and is flat (probably 1 percent of those we’ve encountered). Most often these edges are on a slope and we trudge with one foot (generally the left) lower than the other. This can lead to misalignment and discomfort in the legs, feet and hips. To make shuttles easier for Amanda (our support person), we’ve occasionally reversed our route to head clockwise, which also gives our left legs a break and our right feet spend the day down slope.
In Michigan, we also experienced partial immersion in the Lake to stay close to shore between Agate Bay and Freda.
Mike had thought the stretch unwalkable, but when we got to Freda (a leapfrog ahead), in my binoculars, I saw cliffs with a ledge of negotiable shore beneath them - or so I decided. Mike was glad I made this call. When we actually walked it and found no dry ledge, he was off the hook. We were happy for our Gabel trekking poles for balance as we waded through frigid, thigh-deep water over slippery, submerged sandstone shelves.
I fretted about slipping and soaking our expensive, hard-to-replace electronic equipment, including three cameras. By working together, Mike leading the way, we made it safely around several outcrops. It took time for the feeling to return to our feet and legs. Once it did, we discovered an escape route over the top of the cliffs to the stamping sand beach below Freda.
We didn’t know about stamping sands until last year. Stamping was the process used to crush ore to recover the desired metal, in this case copper. What is left is not really sand, and tons of it were dumped along the shores decades ago. Nothing grows in this residue because of arsenic released in the process. It’s difficult to cross since it does not compact when wet, like sand. We avoided these surfaces.
Michigan replicated our friendly experiences in Wisconsin. We interviewed people across the Upper Peninsula, seeking their perceptions of life on the Lake. We had been featured in several U.P. newspapers (and Lake Superior Magazine), so many had heard about our trip. More than once, people came to the beach in front of their cabins and hailed us: “Are you the ones walking around the lake?” Or my favorite, “Are you the famous people?” To which I heartily responded, “Yes!” while Mike said, “Well, we’re walking around the Lake.”
Dorothy and Ed Hajala saw us as we came up their bay - Hermit Cove east of Gay. Dorothy popped out from her front yard, asking, “Are you the ones walking around the Lake?”
“I said you’d probably be coming down this beach today,” her husband called, coming up behind her. “We read about you in the paper, and we have some friends who told us about meeting you last weekend.”
Dorothy invited us on their patio for a cold drink. We took water, and Ed assured us they had a deep well with “really cold water.” He had been headed to the sauna when we arrived, with bare feet and shirt partially unbuttoned, but said it was no problem. He had to wait for it to heat up. We sat, talked and swatted insects.
Dorothy was so enthusiastic about meeting us that she took a photograph with the new digital camera from her grandson. “Now I can show people that you were really here.”
We had several encounters like this one, where people offered cold beverages and a chance to sit.
The last occurred not far from Whitefish Point. It was another sandy beach and one of the beautiful sunny June days we so enjoyed. As we passed a cabin, two couples hailed hello. One dog came down to greet us and followed. Mike called out, “He probably wouldn’t want to go all the way with us.”
They asked, “Where you going?”
“Around the Lake,” Mike said, and the two women jumped out of their chairs, exclaiming, “They are the two walking around the Lake!”
They offered us something to drink - beer, soda, water, wine? - and introduced themselves as Chris and Chris King (yes, same for husband and wife) and Pat and Thelma Godin. Pat was brother to Chris (the wife), and this was their family cabin.
Seeing us on the beach, they had wondered if we were that walking couple, but figured no since we didn’t tote big backpacks. We explained about using lighter gear on shorter days. We sat in their Adirondack chairs, sipped our drinks, ate cherries and chatted about our trip and their history on the Lake. Thelma, a part-time school employee, called to alert friends farther up the beach that we were there.
Michigan has the most Lake Superior shoreline. It took 49 days to walk it, including breaks in Sault Ste. Marie, Houghton and Marquette. Its shore was more developed than in Wisconsin, but again the amount of garbage was minuscule. Curiously we still found lots of deflated balloons, just as in Wisconsin.
One word kept popping up when we asked people their opinions about this great Lake - magic.
“It is a magical Lake and certainly stirs the soul,” says Jim Northup, superintendent of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
“We think it’s magic,” says Peg Kauppi, owner of the Mariner Restaurant in Copper Harbor. “We think it’s amazing that we could be living here.”
Rich Varecha, owner of Mountain View Lodges, agrees. “It’s magical. Every day is different, every hour is different, every minute is different. Just a beautiful Lake.”
And so we head into Ontario, fully expecting the magic to continue.