Ruth Fletcher Writings

Cabin Castle and the Fog

Moving In

Foggy days make for great retreats. Mists crawl over the water and shift the brain into other modes.

This past wet foggy week KO’d my garden plans; so I dug deep into some books instead. Good thing, ‘cause one of them, Superior Heartland by C.Fred Rydholm, a loan from seasonal Batchawana resident, John Walkley, offered up a fortuitous timely tale.

Here’s a rather long story, so curl up with your cuppa joe. Louis Graveraet Kaufman was born in 1870 in Marquette Michigan. (And FYI, his grandpa, born and raised on Mackinac Island, was an interpreter for Henry Schoolcraft.)

Kaufman’s family were into banking and it wasn’t long before Louis also became a heavy weight in the business world. Example? He gave financial prestige and know-how into the construction of the Empire State Building!

But Kaufman also liked to get his feet wet following fish up Lake Superior streams. In an attempt to marry his love of the bush with his desire for big business, he and his wife Marie decided to build a “camp”. Between 1919 and 1923, they hired 400 Scandinavian craftsmen who used their skills to erect a luxurious and rustic L-shaped Lake Superior get-away that would over shadow anything that the uber rich, i.e. the Vanderbilts, Astors, Guggenheims and Rockefellers, were building in the Adirondack Mountains. Being no strangers to extravagance, Kaufman and his wife spent five million dollars on their retreat they called Granot Loma. Today this slate roofed creation is the biggest log cabin in the world.

The Kaufmans chose a gem of a site, 5,180 acres of Lake Superior shore and woodland, close to Marquette. A small point faces a shallow, red sandstone shelf and beckons to a nearshore, small rocky outcrop that the Kaufmans call Daisy Island. Construction of the lodge included a foundation that withstands the force of November storms and the crush of winter ice jams. Labourers dug four feet into the sandstone and laid down reinforced cement to a width of seven feet. Then two storage vaults with steel doors were built into the concrete. Later, as Prohibition loomed, the entire contents of a New York liquor store were shipped and stored into these “wine cellars.” Logs came from Oregon - cut, wrapped in burlap and sent by train to Michigan.

Then, in 1927, once the 22 architects and the Kaufmans were satisfied with the completions, there was a grand opening party. Among the celebrants were George Gershwin, Mary Pickford, Fred Astaire and Cole Porter. It was a Gatsby-esque bush bash in a Lake Superior castle.

Imagine Downton Abby in log, or Titanic grandeur sitting safely on shore. Rich carpets, grand pianos and hand carved furniture. 20 bedrooms, 13 baths and 26 stone fireplaces. The massive kitchen is big enough for a staff of 25 and an eight car garage can house Rolls Royce limousines. The main sitting room is 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and 36 feet high. In the center of the ceiling, 50 animal carvings decorate a huge white pine root chandelier. A 24 foot wide fireplace mantle was once the keel of the steamship Independence which went down in the explosion at Sault Michigan in 1853.

However, no amount of money buys immortality. Louis died in 1942, Marie in 1956. Their daughter Joan took over Granot Loma. Joan’s sixth marriage was to Jack Martin, caretaker of Granot Loma since 1938. By the time Joan died in 1973, Jack was ill and needed help with the upkeep. So he hired George Johnston, who was also the police chief for Marquette.

Hold on reader, I’m getting to the punch line of this opulent story. A couple more rounds to go.

In 1977 an enthusiastic young boxer went to Marquette’s Northern Michigan University to put on a demonstration bout. You’re right - it was Mohammed Ali, heavyweight champion of the world.

Now Ali needed a bodyguard on this trip, so who volunteered? Police Chief George Johnston. Over coffee at the Holiday Inn Johnson and Ali got to talking about log cabins. Ali was bragging about his in Berrien Springs, a small town in Lower Michigan. But Johnston upper cut him when he told Ali about Granot Loma. The champ was knocked out by the place. He had to have it.

Ali had found inspiration by the shore of Lake Superior. Create a training camp at Granot Loma. Sportswriters would come and stay. Convert maid’s quarters into rooms for aspiring boxers. Use the private roads for jogging trails. Float over to Daisy Island and build a boxing ring for TV commercials.

Ali offered Martin 5, ten, then 20 million. No, no and no was Martin’s reply. He really didn’t want to sell the place. Two weeks later Ali made Martin another offer. Ten million plus 60 acres and Jack could take the rest. Or if he couldn’t buy the place, Ali was willing to rent it for $5,000 a week.

Martin was tempted but after talking with others, who were less colour forgiving than Martin, the offer was nixed. Thus fog shrouded Ali’s Daisy Island dream.

Today Granot Loma is a 575 acre National Historic Site, with a price tag of 14 million. Take time to Google the site. You can bet on it being entertainment for a rainy day.

Fog Waves

Sun Fog

Towab Treasures

People have to live Somewhere. Home varies from a parent’s basement, a castle in Ireland or a tent outside of town, each with some kind of visible and non visible support network. But networks do much more than hold up walls.

Canada is experiencing a strong network right now. Recent wildfires in Fort Mac and beyond have turned our country into one gigantic village, bound together by a universal desire to care for each other. This need to connect goes much deeper than doubling up for the Red Cross. Signs of a collective soul have always been everywhere. Check out the 2013 lyrics in Eddie Vedder’s compelling raspy baritone in Future Days by Pearl Jam. “You came deep as any ocean, did something out there, here. And I believe ‘cause I can see our future days, days of you and me”.

The intrinsic threads that weave connections wound around the life of American born writer and activist Jane Jacobs. She spread her belief in community via her now famous 1961 book, Death and Life of Great American Cities. In it she challenged the urban planners who wanted to remove people from the heart of the city. Then in 1968, frustrated with what was happening in the United States, she moved New York to Toronto. Jacobs made the Annex, a downtown area of the Big Smoke, her lifetime home and continued her work for positive community development. By the time she passed away in 2006 at the age of 90, she had become a celebrated Canadian - so much so that each year thousands of folks hold an annual “Jane’s Walk”. And this year in the Sault, on May 4, on what would have been her 100^th birthday, people took to the sidewalks and explored local downtown neighbourhoods.

I take to the hiking trails for similar reasons. The paths and shoreline of Lake Superior are part of my community. And one of my very favourite spring neighbourhoods is the Towab Trail. This primo Lake Superior Park hike leads from Frater Road five km to Burnt Rock Pool on the Agawa River and another seven km further to the mighty Agawa Falls.

To access the trail you have to drive 3.5 km up the Frater Road, which begins at Highway 17 North at Agawa Bay. (BTW the Frater Road is in pretty good shape this spring. Thanks to whomever has been taking care of it.)

There is a map beside the parking area. It describes the route but the experience is almost indescribable. The trail begins with tree art. Twisting roots of a yellow birch wrap themselves down the sides of a head high boulder, an erratic, a leftover from glacial days. If you get to the trail before leaves and bugs make their mutual entrance, you’ll see a land where time takes a nap. Little wonder! Those mysterious flowers, the spring ephemerals - the trout lilies, spring beauties, blood root, yellow violets, Dutchman’s breeches and trilliums that fill the wide bright green spaces between the leafless hardwood trees - have fluffed up the forest floor. Songs in the clear, clean, shining creek soon become a soothing lullaby. And the precious warmth of a May afternoon is your soft blanket. This is a safe place. Delicate yet enduring connections emerge. The forest canopy protects the flowers from too much undergrowth. The stream provides water, light and sound to birds, moose and people. And ancient trees lie down to make a home for mosses and young trees. This forest village holds all the elements of a thriving community – protection, sustenance, knowledge. By the time you get close to the rushing sound of the Agawa River you are deep in a peaceful green valley of hope.

Other beautiful spring hikes have called me from the park, have made me explore community. We took the trail north of the Agawa River mouth to discover what once was a small village of people from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. We bushwhacked along the shore to follow the outline of old foundations and crunched over leaf strewn decaying can dumps. We marvelled at the fine shape of a huge rounded tire fender. But nothing speaks of interdependence, of the need for each other as the play of flower and fern by rock and water. They are powerful teachers and holders of truths.

Their gift is community and we have taken it to heart. Be it a quiet stroll through downtown Queen Street, a loud cheer for the Raptors at a sports bar or hot handed applause for an encore at Toronto’s Pearl Jam concert, the joy of sharing is fundamental.

So, thanks Nature for helping us realize that we need each other - and for showing us the way home.

TAWAUB’S TRAIL

A frothing river bed

Became a lush forest floor.

Maple towers

Gazed upon glacier’s boulders.

And then he made a path, a trail, to lead to the beckoning

Burned Rock Pool of the Agawa River.

This valley home for

Moose, bear, bird,

Violet, lily, bloodroot,

Was his domain.

This Hercules of the Northwoods,

This myth of the forest,

This Tawaub

He with the infectious grin and reverent smile,

He who poles a canoe upstream,

He who carries a 50 lb pack on his back and a canoe on his shoulders,

For 4 hours, nonstop, up the hills!

Is our wonder.

Tawaub embraced Batchawana to Agawa

But his name goes around the world.

To walk his trail leads you to the river.

To learn Tawaub’s path

Never look back to see who is following.

Never pause until Rest Time.

Never offer to do any part of another’s work

But always, always help those you can like.

Oh Tawaub,

He-who-walks-by-moonlight

He-who-comes-tomorrow

Do you rest now?

Or do your moccasins still trod the endless trail?

Tawaub was an Ojibway guide who excelled in the ways of the woods. His name graces the 5 km hike from the Frater road to the Agawa River.

Clearing a Path for 2016

Well well. We have an extra day, one to add to the other 365! Here we come leap year 2016.

The leap years have to pop up every four years to keep our seasonal names attuned with astronomical events. Otherwise, one day we’d end up with the winter solstice occurring in what we call July.

With any New Year comes the usual practice of listing notables from the previous 12 months. But since this is a leap year, I decided to flash forward instead of flash back.

Keeping in mind that nothing in 2016 is certain (except 13 new and 12 full moon phases) here’s my list of 16 things to look forward to.

1. The joyful feeling you get when you lend a helping hand. Humanity shines when we grab the opportunity to pay it forward in line at the grocery store, smile back at a baby or open the door for a laden down person.

2. The chance to give yourself a pat on the back for learning new “stuff.” Sometimes wandering the streets of today’s digital village can be overwhelming. This week I found an efficient way to back up my computer and organize desktop files. Aaaah!

3. Sunny spots, places where you can have a quiet sit and feel the kind warmth of Old Sol. One of my favourites offers a sheltered view of the lake, even when charging winds whip foamy tops off of the waves.

4. Adventure stories. This is a cool thing. I still remember Katelyn and her horse, Whiskey, meandering along the shoulders of the road. Who knows what Highway 17 North or the waters of Lake Superior will deliver. By the way, Katelyn and Whiskey made it to Manitoba, where Whiskey is spending this winter. Katelyn took the bus back to B.C. where she is working until she starts her ride again in the spring.

5. Puzzles to solve. I found a few brain teasing, although sometimes mind numbing, challenges in a great library book. The Codebook by Simon Singh shows an undeciphered, 1820s code that is supposed to lead to buried treasure. The book also lists the Morse code, which I hope to learn - just for fun.

6. Watching plants surface. Last fall I transplanted the rhubarb bed (for the umpteenth time). This spring I’ll be anxious to see if the reddish tips find their way up through the ground.

7. The emergence of the Pink Lady’s Slippers (aka Cypripedium acaule). The moccasin - shaped flowers appear in the same spot year after year. No matter how freezy the winter or how warm the spring, these bulbous beauties just keep coming back.

8. The different ways to move over snowy ground. So far this year, close to the shore, there has been little need of snowshoes and scant opportunity to ski. No frozen pond skating – sigh, but a recent bootwalk over a few cms of the white stuff was a treat. The forest floor, not yet frozen solid, felt sqooshy and soft, almost like Caribbean sands. (No... I’m not going to cheat and include a trip south in the list. )

9. Crisp perspective of the cold. Snow outlines every tiny twig. Stars and planets are diamonds scattered across black velvet. Frost flowers are a temptation to pick. And clear, mid-day magnetic skies are a deep hypnotic blue.

10. Mosquitoes and blackflies! That’s right! They are food and strength for the beloved spring peepers, the melodic warblers and...the elusive trout. Besides, we’ve learned to survive pesky bugs with screens, bugnets, deet, mosi-q and by seeking the windy places.

11. Loons. Each fall, once their spotted summer feathers turn to the soft grey and white winter plumage, these plaintive voiced water birds take off for the south. Where do they go? Will I see them again when I swim out front?

12. Photos from friends and relatives. There will be beach gatherings, picnics and more joy to share.

13. Books. I like the paper kind and am lucky to be looking at two Christmas gifts - Canoe Country by Roy MacGregor and The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. A stormy winter day, the woodstove. Need I say more?

14. Music. Yes, yes, always. There are new tunes to enjoy i.e.: Adele’s latest, 25. The old ones still give off their charm too. I love to watch the lake breath in and out while listening to my scratchy, vinyl version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

15. A trip, maybe, to Pukaskwa National Park. Last summer we discovered a tent that can accommodate cots. Yay - glamping!

16. And, finally, giggles and laughter from the grandkids. Or any kids in fact. (Now that says it all!)

So here we go gang. Let’s all jump into life and find a Very Happy, Very New Leap Year.

January waves

wind blown waves

Christmas lightens A New Year once again

ELF ON A TREE

Holiday seasons can tug at the heart. And is there much more of a memory trigger than a box of Christmas decorations? This year, after we hauled ours down from the attic, I came across a card that students made for me the year I retired from teaching. That flashback to Christmas concerts and all the excitement of the December classroom, made me dig up one of my old stories. I wrote it in December of 1993 during the first of the seven years that I taught at C.O.Somes.

My years at Somes were fantastic. The former three-room public elementary school at Batchawana Bay had a partial view of Lake Superior, sported a terrific rink and was a place of learning for some of the most awesome students ever. They often inspired me to write and hence this “true” story from 1993. It’s my version of Elf on a Shelf.

The week before Christmas this year was an especially magical one. We hadn’t yet encountered any of the usual Northern Ontario bouts of snow and ice. The playground was a wide open space where grasses shone golden from light reflecting off the lake. And at recess, the children, so happy to be wearing shoes instead of boots couldn’t stop running. They would gleefully toss off their coats and race over the hard frozen ground to the edge of the bush. That’s where the trees rose up and covered a small hill behind the school.

After one particularly sunny afternoon recess the children all came tumbling inside, talking about the leprechaun that they had seen hidden amongst the trees. Each day the leprechaun hype rolled into the classroom along with all the other pre-Christmas Santa talk. The children could hardly contain themselves. By the time the bell rang on the last Friday morning before the holiday, I could see that their excitement was about to overflow. But... I got lucky. It was a wondrous, snow-free, sunny morning and I knew I could settle their bouncy natures by going for a quick walk around the playground. Our goal was to “look for the leprechaun” before we started classes for the day.

The children followed, and then led me across the field. When we came to the edge of the trees, one of them said, “There Miss - over there!” So off we went amongst the trees to search for the elusive elf. With great delight they exclaimed about every hole beside a root being a leprechaun’s home and every collection of sticks here and there being his woodpile. Some of the children started tripping, falling, laughing and saying “The leprechaun is pushing me down!”

We wandered through the bush for a few more minutes and then I gathered up my students for the return walk to the school. As we lined our way back across the field, one of the children pointed at the trees and said, “I see him! I see him! I see his golden eyes shining!”

The others stopped and tried to spot the golden eyes. Some even agreed that they saw the glimmer too. After a few moments of questioning, we continued the trek to the classroom, satisfied with the success of the outing.

I wondered to myself how the reality of this leprechaun would compare to that of the red-suited elder who would later Santa his way into the school. Then one of the students asked me in an anxious voice, “But what if it’s a bad leprechaun?”

Oh, oh I thought. Think fast Ruth.

“Well,” I said, taking a breath. “He can’t be a bad one because this is a beautiful place and you are happy people and only good leprechauns can stand being around beauty and happiness.”

Thanks kind elf and Merry Christmas kids.

And a Very Very Happy Beautiful New Year too!

More Light

That's why

Today another prism hangs in my window. True, the crystal disc splits the low winter light into the familiar reds, purples and greens. But yet they somehow shine with a difference onto the floor and walls.

Words split up like that too. Like Anthropocene. Anthropo means human. Cene means epoch. Apparently that’s the new name for our current time period. Our previous epoch, the Holocene, which began 10,000 years ago, after the last ice age, is now over.

I’m not too convinced of that but at least the weight of last year’s Polar Vortex is over - I think (fingers crossed)! These beauty days of a snowless beginning to December are enough hope for that.

Many times these past few days the lake has shown its magical side. A walk along sand and cobble brings you to the warmth of summer. And before the morning’s first light, the moon turns soft wave foam into silver.

Pink morning clouds over the Bay

This week I had the opportunity to chat with a woman who spent many a Christmas along the shore of Lake Superior. Laurie Penno (Renner) grew up in the Coldwater River /Agawa Bay area, about 150km north of the Soo. In the summer her father Lawrence Renner along with his brother, George, ran a tourist lodge at the mouth of the Coldwater River. Summers were spent playing beside creeks, exploring the shore and one spring she had the company of a pet moose! Before freeze up she and her family boated down to the Agawa Beach north of the Agawa River, where they had a cabin for the winter and were closer to other families.

Penno and I chatted about Christmas in those days. “The Eaton’s catalogue would come out and then the orders went to Frater by the ACR train,” she said on the landline from her home in Iron Bridge.

“We always went out and cut a tree down,” she said. “Mom had a box of decorations we’d always use. We didn’t have lights cause there was no electricity but we did have tinsel.”

Tinsel or “icicles” are the long stringy decorations a person used to thread over the tree branches, one silvery sliver at a time. Penno used to enjoy holding the thin icicles over her hand and delicately hang them in place, adding a shimmer to the tree.

“I like the way the tinsel moved when you walked by,” she said.

Then she laughed, “But you have to watch your cats! For some reason they like to eat tinsel.”
But we no longer live in the times of no electricity, lightless trees and Santa shipments on the ACR train. And yes , Anthropocene is now the way of things. To survive I guess we'll have to pay more attention to our relationship with nature. And although we can't go back in time, we can use some of the wisdom from those who survived the past epoch. Commenting on the overabundance of today's electronic stuff, Laurie Penno said, " It was much better in those days.We didn't have much but we sure were happier."

Want to share your story? Your ideas and memories of what nature shared with you? I would be pleased to add your voice to the many that have appeared in my column.Contact me the old fashioned way at Box 4, Montreal River Harbour , On, P0S 1H0 or email me at lakefx8@gmail.com and let's chat. Maybe we can put some light into the subject.