Ohio and Michigan go to war, I drive around Lake Superior and do dishes.
I hadn’t used my camper since I got back March 30 after living and working from it for three months in the southwest. I think I was a little burned out; usually I would have taken a summer camping trip well before August, but 3 months in a 17 foot long living space gets a little cramped. Finally I did manage a somewhat epic trip recently when I spent 10 days traveling around the full 1,300 miles of Lake Superior on what is touristically branded as the “Lake Superior Circle Tour.”
I wanted to do a big trip as a test run for next winter’s trip (destination TBD), because I just outfitted my camper with a second lithium battery, glued two flexible 130-watt solar panels to the roof (to prevent this from happening again), and popped out the 13×15 sink, replacing it with a deeper 15×15 sink—two inches that made all the difference in my dishes doing pleasure (a normal sized dinner plate can now lay flat in the sink). The solar and the new battery also did its job, and not once did I come even remotely close to needing to plug in to an electric site. I am not a doomsday prepper, but I am now totally set up to live off grid in the zombie apocalypse.
I’ve been to Minnesota’s North Shore—that roughly 150 mile stretch of highway from Duluth to Canada—quite a few times, but I haven’t seen the greatest of the Great Lakes from many other vantage points. So I started off by heading east through Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP), then through Canada, finishing with the portion I knew best.
Once, when I was about 9, my mom and dad and brother and I went camping as far as Thunder Bay, Ontario. What I remember most from that trip is my brother and I meeting two Canadian boys, teenagers who asked if we’d ever considered sending Ronald Reagan a “bag o’ shit.” I think it stuck in my head for a couple reasons: the swearing, which I wasn’t allowed to do, and the dislike of an American president who my dad loved, and so I couldn’t understand why someone would want to send him a bag of shit. Plus, could you even send a bag of shit through the mail? And would be the one to shit in the bag?
In Wisconsin I stayed in the cozy Amnicon Falls State Park, just southeast of the town of Superior. With a river meandering through it and an old covered bridge over a waterfall, its wooden shingles covered in thick moss the color of bright limes, I felt like I’d gone back to simpler times … times when bridges needed umbrellas.
Amidst towering red pines, the park’s hiking trails were woven through with roots and warmed by the filtered sunlight that trickled through the trees to the forest floor. Walking on roots and springy pine needles and the detritus of centuries of worth of trees—the decay and renewal of life in the forest—tends to sweep your worries away and bring a calm over you. Time begins to be marked by your footfalls instead of a clock. Different landscapes feel different on your feet. These aren’t the dry stone trails of the desert southwest, nor are they the trails of your average city park—they are much older and really do feel in places like you’re walking on springs, a little bounce in your step. Occasionally being in an environment where everything isn’t sealed up and sanitized and covered in concrete is a good reminder that cities are only a tiny portion of the earth, and that other ecosystems offer contrasting experiences.
After a night at Amnicon, I hit the road for the Black River Harbor Recreation Area (which had several fantastic campsites right on the water), officially entering Michigan’s UP. I tried fishing (to no avail) in a cozy harbor as the waves of Superior crashed against the breakwater of gray boulders protecting the harbor. After a couple days at Black River and some hiking in the nearby Porcupine Mountains (the “porkies”), I continued through the UP to Bay Furnace Campground in Hiawatha National Forest. But by the time I arrived at 9:30 p.m., the campground was fully booked. I knocked on the campground host’s motorhome door and he suggested I head to the adjacent town, Christmas, MI, to “camp” in the casino parking lot. It was raining, and I was done driving, so I took his advice, and, after predictably losing $40 on slots and having a couple gin and juices, I hit the sack.
First thing in the morning I was back at Bay Furnace where I was able to secure a spot for the night (if you plan ahead, there are two incredible spots right on the water here), then spent the day hiking in Pictured Rocks National Seashore, where the weather-worn cliffs of Lake Superior display their layered histories of time and pressure through epochs of geological patterns, while below the cliffs, turquoise water that looks more appropriate to a tropical paradise invites you to take a dip. From the Pictured Rocks visitor’s center, I walked a mile or so through the forested seashore to the sands of Miner’s Beach—one of the highlights of my trip. The sand was white, the water blue, and the brave were swimming. I kicked off my shoes and waded in.
While sitting around I noticed some garbage on the beach—an empty pack of Marlboros—the brand I used to smoke when I smoked. Lately I’ve been walking around picking up garbage in my neighborhood because it pisses me off. But littering in such a pristine place is truly a shame, so I vowed to pick up the empty pack when I left. Then a man came up, picked up the pack, checked it for cigs, and tossed it back down. I figured he was looking for cigs and was disappointed. So when I grabbed the box and found that it was full of sand, I shook it and was surprised to see 5 cigs fall out. Back into the pack they went, and into my pocket. Later that night, I smoked some of my righteous reward at the campfire (because for some reason I always crave a cig at campfires). Then the next night, I smoked the last few. Then I cleaned up my act. Overall, I guess I was pleased that I picked up the garbage, but sad that I will evidently eat and/or smoke garbage as long as that garbage contains a drug.
About the UP
I’m not sure I’d ever been to the official UP of Michigan, but if you look at a map, the UP has no business being part of Michigan. It is clearly part of Wisconsin, which makes one wonder how that happened. That story, it turns out, comes from the time in American history when Michigan went to war with Ohio—and not the college football kind of war.
It turns out that there was a boundary dispute in 1835 between the state of Ohio and what was then the territory of Michigan. Both claimed a 468-square-mile strip of land bordering the two states known as the Toledo Strip, a narrow ribbon that included the Maumee River and its access to Lake Erie, and thus lots of shipping $$$ opportunities.
When Michigan petitioned for statehood in 1835, it included the disputed territory within its boundaries. Ohio disagreed. Both states deployed militias on opposite sides of the river, where soldiers taunted each other in what became known as the Toledo War—but neither side fired a shot. Eventually, the federal gov’t stepped in and brokered a deal where Michigan could become a state and have the UP if it gave up the Toledo Strip. At the time it was seen as a losing deal for Michigan, but Wisconsin, which didn’t exist then, was the real loser, because this huge chunk of land that isn’t even connected to Michigan is now Michigan’s. Delaware must have been watching this at the time, thinking, “Oh dear, I hope no one looks at a map.” Anyway, eventually the UP produced tons of valuable minerals, and now, tourism. Besides Minnesota’s North Shore, the UP is the busiest stretch of the Circle Tour.
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