Ontonagon, MI

September 23, 2016

“The Land of Silent Seasons”

Moving to Ontonagon (On-to-nag-on) was a piece of cake, even in the rain: we checked and double-checked all our cotters and hookups: no separation of truck and trailer on our watch! Our home for several nights is at the River Road Campground. River Road is a private campground right beside the Ontonagon River, which empties into Lake Superior a few feet to the west. Like all the campgrounds in this area, even the State Parks, the campsites are in a grassy area with a sporadic, haphazard design. Here in this part of the world, they mow their driveways, they don’t pave them: and instead of old junk cars on the lawns, they have old junk boats… right on the front lawn. Again, why live here if you don’t own a boat?

Ontonagon is a small village nestled between the Ontonagon River and Lake Superior. When we arrived we pulled in for gas, and it was “free hot chocolate and coffee” day. Everyone in town was at this gas station, what a nice thing to do! As we drove around, checking out the town, we noticed the most popular establishments were Bars n Grills – yet on the opposite and balancing end, were all the church establishments… probably one church for each bar…. The ‘village people’ must fill the bars in the evenings and then fill the churches, to repent, on Sunday morning. (See what not having a lot of sunshine does to your psyche? Just kidding).

We have had rain for 5 days straight and more than that, intermittently – I am so tired of the rain, clouds and dreary weather. Sure explains ‘why’ all these green lush, healthy forests!!! Not to mention how hard it is on the cameras.

It rained off and on all night, and as I was falling asleep, I kept picturing blue skies and sun streaming down from the heavens: please! As it turned out, it is sunny this morning – Glory, Glory, thank you! This far north the sun is lazy and doesn’t get up till around 8am – or at least it doesn’t crest the trees till then. We will have breakfast and get out early – just in case the sun is fickle up here in Ontonagon. Maybe even a bike ride through town…

In this small village is a museum that features the ‘Ontonagon Boulder’ a 3,708-pound copper mass that sparked a copper rush in the 1800’s. The U.S. government confiscated the treasure, and it is currently in the possession of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. The village also has a lighthouse and the tours are conducted out of this small museum. Since it is a nice day we will venture out to tour the lighthouse for a mere $5.00/each. Since it is past the high season of tourism, we were the only two guests on the tour.

The Lighthouse tour guide, Dave, was very informative about the lighthouse, the village and it’s people (we’re sure we got our monies worth). The other lighthouse tour we did – was by boat at the Apostle Islands, and we could not step off the boat at the ‘light’ so this was a terrific walking tour through the lighthouse. We learned from our Apostle Island boat tour guide that the ‘keepers’ could not sleep at night and had to keep the light burning from 1 hour before sunset until 1 hour after sunrise, but we didn’t realize the ‘keepers’ could not sleep in the day either, they were only allowed to ‘cat’ nap. Not my kind of job.

The Lighthouse is owned by the Historical Society and they have done a great job with restoration, upkeep and furnishing the building with period specific furniture – some of the furnishings were specific to the lighthouse and the Keepers that lived in the ‘light’, and other treasures were supplied from the museum. The lighthouse and grounds were very well maintained.

We climbed up to the steeple where the light emitted ‘light signals’ to the ships in the harbor, and saw where the ‘Fresnsel’ lens would have been. The actual Fresnel lens from this lighthouse is in the museum where we booked the tour. This particular lens (5^th order) was made in Paris, France and is prismatic in structure. The 5^th order stands for the size of the lens: they range from 0 in size up to 5^th. The 5^th order is the smallest; the 4^th is twice as big as the 5^th; the 3^rd is twice as big as the 4^th and so on. The USA purchased two ‘0’ lenses and installed one of the HUGE lens’ in Hawaii and the other in Alaska. In this day and age almost all of the Lighthouses in the harbors and along the coasts of the USA have been de-commissioned: technology has won and now ships rely on GPS almost exclusively.

The Ontonagon ‘Keeper’ made $400.00/year and one of the keepers’ of this lighthouse had 8 kids – I guess there’s not much else to do in this cold, frigid climate in the winter. I can’t imagine having that many kids in a very rustic ‘primitive’ lighthouse with only 2 small bedrooms!!! The keeper’s wife died shortly after her 8^th child was born: that’s one form of birth control.

When we booked the tour, we asked how long the tour lasted, and the lady said, about 1 – 1½ hours. We did get our $’s worth… It was a two-hour tour for us. Thank You Dave.

As we finished our tour the sunshine was disappearing and we were a bit chilled, so we stopped by “Connie’s” for a cup of hot chocolate, “The best hot chocolate in town” was the recommendation. We also shared a tuna melt sandwich, as it was already going on 4pm, this would be a delightful dinner with wonderful food.

We then traveled over to Saint Vincent de Paul’s Thrift shop for Patti to drop off a couple of things – or trade in, as the case may be. In Safford, before our cruise, we went to the SVdP’s there and purchased all our warm weather beach attire; so now in Michigan, we will get our winter attire.

September 29, 2016

Today we took a drive through Houghton, MI and on up to Copper Harbor to check out the colors – making sure we didn’t miss them. It is a 2-hour drive, not counting photo ops, and it IS a scenic drive. We would drive through areas along side the road where the trees were vividly changing; then we would drive through other patches where the leaves were still all green – the micro-climates vary so much within a few miles. Those in the ‘know’ say Oct. 7^th will be the ‘peak’ for Copper Harbor color. We enjoyed lunch, a fresh fish sandwich, dah, it’s Lake Superior…

As we drove home, we even discovered a Walmart outside Houghton – glory be !

September 30, 2016

Woke up to a soupy fog this AM – sooooo hard to wake up (and get up) in the mornings when it is overcast or foggy… Since it is a cloudy day, we will check out Bond Falls about 45 minutes south of Ontonagon. Yes, it may be a 45-minute drive, but it seems to take us twice as long, because of all the pictures I take along the way. We also spend a fair amount of time backing up and turning around for a possible photographic ‘masterpiece’.

At the turnoff to Bond Falls was a small convenience store, minus the gas – in place of gas for sale, they had all manner of live minnows (for fishing) swimming around in tubs. Some of the minnows were 6 – 8” long, I can only imagine what manner of fish these babies bring in. We made our donations for snacks and water and headed the rest of the way, 4 miles, to Bond Falls.

Bond Falls is wider than it is high – the rocks in its path help the water to cascade into a wide pool, then on down the small river outlet. Being mid-day made the task of picture taking more difficult because of the glare, but I managed to get a few nice ones anyway. If I were to guess, I’d say the falls were about 15 – 25 feet high and maybe 50 feet wide. This waterfall was nice but it is not Bridal Falls in Yosemite! Yet, if you factor in that the highest point in MI is just under 2000 feet, it’s a nice, very nice, waterfall. It just doesn’t get the thunderous roar of a waterfall that has tumbled hundreds of feet.

Leaving the falls we decided to go to “Old Victoria” a mining ghost town. Victoria was a copper mining commune, back in the day. The four log buildings have been historically restored and you can tour them – they are furnished with period specific treasures, just like the lighthouse we toured in Ontonagon. This site boasts a volunteer who will give you a tour and share the miners’ stories in pictures and lore.

We retrace our path back to Ontonagon and contemplate a campfire, but the recent rains and fog have left everything damp, even our wood inside the topper. Maybe another day…

We will be moving up to Copper Harbor on the 6th of October and there is no phone reception in that area – at least for Verizon… So we will be incommunicado for a few days. Till then…