| In
the Outdoors
Notes from the North Country
All about us in the Upper Peninsula are the footprints of our forebears: commercial fishing boats decaying on the shores of the Great Lakes; remnants of vintage logging camps deep in the forests; rusted old head frames of copper mines; large fallow fields slowly slipping back into woods.
Not long after moving to West Branch Township, southeast of Marquette, I became intrigued by the beautiful pastoral landscape. I was drawn particularly to the stalwart old barns I saw while exploring the country roads of our new home place.
Every year since then, we go in late autumn to pay respects to the farmers who toiled here long ago. We look in wonder at the size of the hayfields they wrested from the dense forest, admire the craftsmanship of the ancient root cellars they built and marvel at the immense piles of rock they gathered from newly-plowed cropland.
On one annual journey into a past era, I noticed an elderly man dressed in coveralls leaning on a fence post and gazing out at an immense field. Eldred Swanson was happily intrigued by my interest and reminisced about the old days:
“I wish I could live it all again,” he said. “I have to live in town now, my family insists I’m not safe out here, but I miss the old days. We worked hard alright, but we still had more time for each other...the family as well as the neighbors. We always helped each other out with haying and such. There were gatherings for big feasts, card-playing and joking around.
“Did you hear about the farmer who sold an old horse to a neighbor? The new owner took the horse home and less than an hour later, it died. When the neighbor confronted the farmer who sold him the horse, the farmer replied, ‘Hmm, the horse never did that before.’ We got a lot of fun out of simple stories like that. Most of us tried to accept nature as it is, not fighting it, but trying to blend into the land and the life it gave us.”
There is an heroic symphony that flows from these old abandoned farms that those in a hurry or tethered to the distractions of modern technology do not hear or appreciate . . .
—Lon and Lynn Emerick
Editor’s Note: Comments are welcome by writing MM or e-mailing marquettemonthly @chartermi.net
“Old Farms” is excerpted from Paradise North: Seasons in the Upper Peninsula, a new Lon Emerick book, to be released by North Country Publishing on October 1, 2010.
Michigan woman completes trail system
I’ve got some of the most remarkable girlfriends in the world. In fact, I’d say they rate “one in a million.” And now, one in particular, truly belongs on the “one in a billion” list because she ranks the first woman to hike the North Country Trail from New York to North Dakota.
The NCT is the longest of the eleven National Scenic Trails. Spanning seven states and 4,400 miles, it measures twice the length of the popular 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, and over half again as long as the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. It’s daunting to even think about driving that distance, let alone cover it on foot, and to date, only nine people have accomplished the quest. On August 3, Joan Young joined that prestigious group as she walked the last 2.5 miles of her twenty-year quest finishing surrounded by family and friends near Petoskey.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” said Bruce Matthews, executive director of the NCT Association. “Joan is the spirit of the North Country Trail.”
For Young, it all started on a hike in the Manistee Forest back in the fall of 1991. That first hike, a mere sixteen miles—short by Young’s standards—changed her life.
“It was September and I was alone in the woods and it was so wonderful to recapture many of the feelings I had always had about being in the forest from the days before I was so busy being a mom and supporting my family’s dreams,” said Scottville resident Young, now in her sixties.
Raised in upstate New York, Young was familiar with the Appalachian Trail and growing up had dreams of hiking it, but adulthood brought her to Michigan and her husband and three sons weren’t big fans of outdoor adventures.
“She’s a trailblazer for all of us women,” said Marge Forslin, an active member of the Central Upper Peninsula’s North Country Trail Hikers, the first of thirty-one chapters to be chartered across the country to help maintain the trail. I admire her perseverance and determination. I have asked her to help us because we aren’t all through hikers, we’re mostly day hikers, and we need her perspective to help us think about our trail from a long distance hikers point of view.”
On that scale, the NCTH has earned high marks. Over the years, Lorana Jinkerson, club president and secretary for the national NCT board of directors, has helped many hikers passing through the Marquette area . . .
To keep up with her next adventures, visit myqualityday.blogspot.com or getoffthecouchnews.blogspot.com
—Frida Waara
|
