A Trip to Paradise (7/21/2009)
For trolls (Michiganders who live below the Mackinac Bridge) the Upper Peninsula can seem like a far away and exotic place. This is a place where black bears, elk, wolves, and even some moose roam. People from urban areas of the Lower Peninsula sometimes imagine the UP is still inhabited mostly by Native Americans living in traditional homes like wigwams and wearing traditional buckskin clothing. But when you cross the Mighty Mac you find that it’s not all that different from the northern areas of the Lower Peninsula.
Driving through the middle of the eastern UP is less than inspiring at first blush. It’s scrubby forests with stark dead cedar trunks in swampland, not the tall ancient forest conjured up when reading Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha (and this is the very place Longfellow was describing). But there is something about this forest. It has a quality all its own. It is stunted because it fights against the elements of wind and snow while sandwiched between two inland seas. These trees are like bent old men who have survived hardship and keep tottering on, just getting more and more grizzled.
As soon as I see the sign that indicates Tahquamenon Falls State Park I can’t help but smile. And when I come suddenly upon Lake Superior it takes my breath away. From the shore it looks just as big as the Lake Huron of my teens, just as big as the Lake Michigan of my twenties. But there is something about this lake. It is magical. So deep, so cold, so blue, so pristine, so far away. It is aptly named.
Living around water all your life you get in tune with the landscape. I know instinctively when I am getting close to water. The trees, the smell, the quality of the light, the almost imperceptible downhill slope. And this feeling always excites me. I love water. The landscapes that result from water and land meeting are some of my favorites. Dunes, beaches, wetlands, interesting rock formations—all changing as the water works its way in and through.
Before you actually reach the Falls on this drive, you drive through a town called Paradise. In town it’s an ironic name. The buildings are mostly old and mostly in disrepair. The business signs are faded and peeling. Rusted-out vehicles squat in clearings. Gravel on the side of the road is the only sidewalk. The sheriff, ambulance, and fire services are all housed in pole barns and have rather unofficial looking signs (practically homemade). But just beyond, down the road a short way, is truly paradise.
You leave the straight road for the curvy way that leads to the Falls, passing wetlands that look like they’ve been painted in watercolor. Blooming grasses soften the edge of the highway, billowing in the wind. And then the Falls.
First-timers are often advised to go to the Lower Falls first and then the Upper Falls. The Lower Falls are much smaller and thus apparently underwhelming if you’ve already been out to see the big 50-foot drop of the Upper Falls. But I actually prefer the Lower Falls. They spill gently into a deceptively beautiful lagoon-like setting. Deceptive because the undercurrents are actually deadly and many a swimmer, from Indian to fur trader to modern tourist, has perished in the gracefully swirling waters.
The Upper Falls are nice too, but they seem a bit more stereotypical as far as waterfalls go. One big ledge, one big drop, lots of water moving. And while making the trek down to the gorge at the Upper Falls doesn’t yield a great view of the Falls, it does allow you to see some fabulous rock formations and some intrepid ferns and fir trees growing right out of the rock.
On the way home, I take Lake Shore Drive which winds around the bays and points of Lake Superior. I stop here and there to look at the lake, take pictures, feel the breeze. My last stop is Point Iroquois where the Chippewa once fought back the invading Iroquois and there is now a lighthouse. Funny that it is named after the losers in the fight.
The beach there is stony and the true brilliance of millions of multi-colored stones is seen as the clear, cold water laps gently at the shore. I take a few with me to remind me of this trip. I would like to take enough to fill the bottom of my 30 gallon aquarium, but I’m lugging around my son on my hip and I’m not sure that carting off rocks is appreciated (or legal).
Eventually this trip came to its end. But it sowed seeds in my mind for future trips to the Upper Peninsula, which is not so far away as it seems and is full of wonders yet to be discovered. Maybe when Calvin is five or six, we’ll be back.
