Michigan 101: Water Wonderland.

Where ever we move in Michigan a river or lake... or a Great Lake...is not far away. The Department of Natural Resources reports there are over 11,000 lakes in the state! Above is a canal feeding into Cass Lake in Oakland County where my brother lives. A view of lilies on the canal is below.

My dad bought a cabin on Lake St. Helen, 2,400 acres big, seen below. Most of the land fronting the lake is undeveloped. Eagles can be seen regularly there.

When we lived in Lansing, Michigan we were a short few blocks from the Grand River, pictured below, which stretches from near Hillsdale, where we lived for seven years, to Grand Rapids--252 miles! Every year the city holds a day to clean up the river shore.

Of course Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes. My husband remembers taking a ferry from the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula, and the excitement of the opening of  Big Mac bridge that now spans the Straits of Mackinac (Mac-en-aw), which is 5 miles wide.

For several years our family rented a cabin near Cheybogan on the Straits of Mackinac. We could walk a block to the shore and watch the freighters cruise by.

On that trip we took the Sunset Cruise under Big Mac. It was impressive!

Another year we rented a cabin in Tawas on Lake Huron. My husband's grandmother was born in Tawas.

Shipwrecks remains can be found along the Great Lakes. Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is located near Alpena, MI on Lake Huron.

The Tawas Lighthouse.

My husband took our son camping in the Upper Peninsula while he was growing up. They visited Lake Superior. The scenery is spectacular! Shipwreck remains near the Hurricane River, Pictured Rocks and Miner's Castle along the coastline.

One of our favorite cabin rentals was on Lake Louise on Thumb Lake, site of a cottage community and a United Methodist church camp which my husband attended as a teenager. You drive through a deep woods to get there. The cabins are nestled in the trees so the shoreline looks natural.

For four years we lived a few blocks away from the White River and White Lake. They had a marina and the channel from the lake leads into Lake Michigan. In the early 20th c. the lake was badly polluted by a tannery. I have a 1966 Life magazine article on White Lake with piles of old hides still in the waters.While we lived there they were exploring ways to clean the polluted lake sediment.

The White River Lighthouse sat where the Channel from White Lake entered Lake Michigan.

When we lived in Norton Shores we were  just on the other side of a sand dune from Lake Michigan. A few blocks away, Mona Lake was dying because of the runoff from fertilizers used on the lawns of the houses along the lake shore. It is part of the Muskegon Watershed. The city of Muskegon is on Muskegon Lake, which covers 4,149 acres and feeds into Lake Michigan. It was one of the most polluted lakes, but starting in 1985 a massive clean up of polluted sentiment has brought it close to being taken off the Most Polluted list. 

We still live withing a few blocks of Lake Michigan, so close that we can hear the waves roar in high winds. Last October we went to the beach to take photos. The whipping sand was so bad, I was spitting out sand for a long while after we left.

During the summer thousands come to the bed and breakfasts, camping ground, marinas and cabins to enjoy the beach.

I was born near the Niagara River, which runs between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, interrupted by Niagara Falls. I grew up on Dad's motor boat.

When I was a girl Lake Erie was a dead lake and Niagara Falls frothed from phosphorus pollution in the water. In 1972 President Nixon signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement which set limits to pollutants dumped into the lakes. Huge progress was made in cleaning up the lakes. But the battle is ever going. Invasive species and new pollutants are always being introduced. Mercury in our fish. Algae blooms. Zebra mussels.

Today micro beads from cosmetics have been found in our Great Lakes. Thankfully, some of the cosmetic companies are already acting to phase out their use. But in the meantime the pollution continues. And this product never goes away. Micro beads are plastic and they are not biodegradable. No one knows what the impact of micro beads in the food chain means. It is the latest pollutant to threaten our water.

We can not relax in our diligence to keep our waters pure and clean. We each need to consider the choices we make. We can read labels to learn what is in the products we buy, and choose to use all natural ingredients. We can change our expectations, how we spend our money, and how we impact our environment. Our water and our air and the future of our children is in our hands, and our job as stewards of the earth is one of the most important responsibilities we have.

Michigan 101 Part III: Greenfield Village Quilts

Growing up in Michigan means school visits to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.  Henry Ford collected historical buildings from all over America, including the Wright Brother's bicycle repair shop and Edison's laboratory. He also collected American artifacts of all types, from train engines and Presidential cars to woven coverlets and quilts. It is a beautiful place to visit. One visit I photographed the quilts I saw in the houses there.

A simple cabin represented an African American home during the depression. The quilts were made of salvaged cotton from clothing perhaps, but surely not just meant for warmth. They add beauty and color to the newspaper wallpapered walls.

A 19th c house had a whole cloth whitework quilt and a Candlewicking quilt on display.

I am sorry I did not change how I saved my photos so I know which houses the quilts were displayed in. Here are some more.

This rug photo I labeled as being from the Noah Webster House. It is amazing!

There are some great quilts in the Henry Ford Museum that are not on display. You can learn about them at Quilting Genuis, a virtual tour of the collection http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/quiltinggenius/default.asp

The museum has a collection of quilts by Susan McCord. Most quilters would recognize her Trailing Vine quilt.You can find her quilts at the Quilt Index:
 http://www.quiltindex.org/search_results.php?keywords=Susan+McCord&search=go.
 Barbara Brackman, Shauna Christensen and Deb Rowden 's book Susan McCord: The Unforgettable mastery of an Indiana Quilter can be found at:
https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1040

Fons and Porter published Quilts from the Henry Ford, which includes patterns to make 24 quilts.

http://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/store/Quilts-From-The-Henry-Ford.html

Other links for more information about the Henry Ford Museum quilts include
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/06/newly-discovered-susan-mccord-quilt.html

http://blog.thehenryford.org/2012/02/cozying-up-to-a-new-acquisition-susan-mccord-triple-irish-chain-quilt-circa-1900/

My Michigan 101 Part II: Old Barns and Endings

On an autumn visit Up North many years ago my son, my dad and I went wandering the back roads. My son took photographs of old barns my dad had discovered.

 

 

One wonders who built these structures and what their dreams and hopes were. And what happened to cause the farms to be abandoned. Change is hard, but a part of life. Each day we rise with our goals and hopes, and at day's end we don't always find ourselves where we expected to be. And yet there is a beauty to it all, a beauty in the death and  decay of once green vibrant leaves and in the ending of  each day.

My Michigan 101

Michigan  consists of people who live near work and own a cabin Up North where they go to enjoy life away from work. There is a LOT of Up North in Michigan, which roughly starts halfway up the Lower Peninsula and continues into the Upper Peninsula.

Up North consists of open country, farm land, forests, inland lakes, rivers, and the Great Lakes. People who live below this demarcation are called Trolls, and the Trolls who visit Up North tourist towns are called Fudgies. Because a lot of fudge is made and sold in these tourist towns. We use our hands to show where we live. I currently live Up North in Pentwater, which is south of Ludington and north of Muskegon on the sunset side of the lower hand.

Pentwater is a tourist town overrun with Fudgies for two months of the year. It has a natural marina, sand beaches, and lovely views. Charles Mears State Park campground is here, and a large marina. After Labor Day the Fudgies disappear. By Thanksgiving even the permanent folk disappear: they are called Snowbirds, as they travel to warmer climes for the winter. Pentwater folk only need to travel inland to escape the brutal Lake Effect snows and wind! Some of our Snowbirds go to Metro Detroit and Chicago, some to Arizona and Texas.

 

Mears was one of the 19th century lumber barons who cut down the virgin forests to rebuild Chicago afte its great fire. We used to live in Muskegon, with it's own State Park and its lumber baron, Hackley. Michigan history in the late 19th c was shaped by the men who decimated the forests.

The one track of virgin fores left in Michigant is Hartwick Pines, and has some wondrously huge trees there, the kind the Native Americans would have experienced as a normal forest once upon a time. Some are 350 years old!

Michigan has the longest freshwater shoreline in the country, and the second longest coastline. We have 36 million acres of forest remaining. We are the country's largest producer of asparagus, right here in Oceana County. Eagles, coyotes, black bear, turkeys, and wolves have rebounded in numbers all over the state. Even in Metro area, deer are causing traffic accidents. There is a Peregrine Falcon in the park down the street near our Metro Detroit home.

Then there is the southern tier of the state, with Metro Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. Grand Rapids was famous for its furniture industry, Flint for cars, Battle Creek for cereal and Kellogg's sanitarium. And Kalamazoo for its use in the song I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo. And it is the home of Gibson guitars. Detroit is now famous for being bankrupt and considering selling art from the Detroit Institute of Arts one of the premier art museums in the country. They have one of my favorite works, Coxtopaxi by Frank Church: http://www.dia.org/object-info/baeac490-f496-4a17-b917-dd0216d11492.aspx

Trash Picking

I come from a long line of  trash pickers. We see potential usefulness in stuff others toss out.

When I was a little girl walking to Philip Sheridan Elementary School I remember seeing the trash out along Rosemont Avenue and every now and I saw something in the trash that did not belong there. I would fret and worry and wish I could save it.

My brother even decorates with trash. Like stuff he finds in the canal in back of his house. He pulls up some pretty good stuff!

My Grandmother Gohenour worked in the Goodwill store in Tonawanda, NY which gave her first pick. I wore old flannel nightgowns from the Goodwill when I was a girl because there was no heat in the upstairs bedrooms of the 1830s farm house.

A family friend worked for the school system and before he hauled the trash to the dump he'd stop by the house. I remember rummaging through the books and claiming what I wanted. One book I found was a 1929 edition of "The Cradle of the Deep" by Joan Lowell, the story of a girl growing up on her dad's "four-masted, windjammer rigged schooner engaged in the copra and sandalwood trade between the islands of the South Seas and  Australia." Oh the adventures she had! I also found "The Adventures of Benjamin Pink" illustrated by Garth Williams. I read that to my brother many times. It was about a rabbit lost at sea who becomes king of a monkey island.

Here is my greatest trash picking story.

Back in the 1970s a family friend found a picture in the Tonawanda, NY dump and gave it to my brother who was living with our folks in Clawson, MI. Dad put it in his basement Man's Cave, which had dark wood paneling, a bar, a pool table, and a dart board. The picture was still hanging there in a dark corner when Dad passed and I inherited the house. I brought it upstairs into the light and realized it was really cool! It was real ART and not a print. The matting was yellowed and stained. I asked my brother if he wanted it, and when he said no I took it to a frame shop.

The framer removed the back paper and removed the art from the frame. It was a pastel. Underneath the mat was handwriting. The artist's name was Alfred W. Holdstock and the painting was titled Lake des Allumettes. The detail is amazing.

When I got home I went online to research Holdstock.  Between 1850 and 1870 he painted First People around Montreal, the Ottawa River, and the Thousand Islands.

Holdstock was born in Bath, England in 1820 and educated at Oxford University.  Around 1850 he emigrate to Montreal and taught drawing at the Government National School. He died in 1901 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The Isle Aux Allumettes in the Ottawa River was inhabited in ancient times. The Iroquois Indians exterminated the Algonquin tribe around 1650. The Algonquin chief Tessout was ambushed by the Iroquois near the Allumette Rapids. The island was uninhabited for 170 years. On 1836 there were still only a few families on the island. Holdstock wanted to capture a dying way of life.

The origin of the name Allumettes, meaning matches, is explained here:
http://www.isle-aux-allumettes.com/municipality/history.php?PHPSESSID=1f5055065e40f97ed57c4f6de148fe88

We had the pastel framed. And its now our favorite piece of  'trash'!