jumpingfish

The Tahquamenon River upstream

and downstream

By the shores of Gitchi Gumi.

By the shining Big-Sea-Water.

The fair and industrious Trudy has a special place in her heart for rocks.

We turned north, leaving Lake Gogebic behind us. Two years ago, David camped there, leaving Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State park for another trip. This was that trip.

The temperatures got cooler and cooler. There were fewer and fewer cars on the road, which amazingly enough got smoother and smoother. The sun sank lower and lower into the west, throwing longer and longer shadows further and further across the road.

We followed Michigan 64 straight north through the forest until it went north no more. A yellow sign indicated our only options. The highway continued to the right toward Ontonagon. In front of us was Lake Superior. Our destination was to the left.

We turned left, eagerly anticipating four nights in The Porkies with weather in the 50s as Austin baked in the upper 90s. What a difference 17.4 degrees in latitude makes… and the largest freshwater lake in the world (by surface area).

1.

It was a gray cloudy day. Dark skies hung over the forest on the western shore of the lake. There were two people in white shirts standing alone on the beach of the camp over there. They were taller than campers — must have been counselors. They stood on the sand without moving, then approached each other, and then disappeared up a hill behind a shed.

Use your imagination if you wish, but moments later one of them emerged carrying a blue kayak down to the waterfront. Then the other carrying another blue kayak. They set them on the sand by the water perpendicular to the waterline about ten feet apart from one another. And then they disappeared again, only to emerge with two more blue kayaks which they deployed in like fashion.

This repeated until there were eight evenly spaced blue kayaks on the sand, by which time campers had begun arriving.

2.

Soon the beach was mobbed with campers lining up in groups behind the blue kayaks. Each group seemed to have what was an orange-pink traffic cone. They milled around for a few minutes, and then the groups turned into lines of kids standing behind the kayaks. And then there was silence soon followed by cheering and screaming.

From this distance it was hard to see exactly what was going on. Amid the screaming it seemed one kid from each group would put the traffic cone on their heads and race to the water, plowing headlong into the lake. There was much splashing amid the cheering. Evidently the rules required them to keep the cones on their heads as they swam away from the shore to the dock out deep and then back, where they ran up the shore to the back of their kayak and handed off the cone to the next camper.

The shouting got louder. The sky darkened. A gentle rain began to fall. The campers paid no mind, and the chaos continued: kids splashing and screaming, running and swimming, tripping and handing off the cone to the next in line. The rain began to fall harder, but the relay race continued. And then everything went quiet. The campers lined up along the hill behind the beach. Passing out awards perhaps?

3.

After a few minutes, the campers left the beach in groups, winding their way up the stairs, disappearing into the woods at the top of the hill. And then, as the rain let up, all was quiet, and the lake water turned to mirror-glass with only two people in white shirts standing alone on the beach slowly carrying the blue kayaks off one-by-one.