Around Lake Huron by
Scooter
(This 755th Buffalo
Sunday News column was first published on September 18, 2005.)
My scooter-riding camping adventure this year took me 1,280 miles
around Lake Huron in August. On the trip I learned much history that is not
easy to come by, as I found no books about Lake Huron in Michigan and Canadian
bookstores. Every other Great Lake was well represented, but not
Huron.*
There are several reasons this lake is so little publicized.
Perhaps most important: not one city bordering it has a population as great as
the Buffalo suburb of Amherst. Also, as I learned, the British embarrassed us
there in the War of 1812.
Heading north from Port Huron toward the Michigan thumb, I passed
through an area that was devastated by 1871 and 1881 forest fires, the first
coincident with the better-known Chicago fire. There were many deaths and
thousands left destitute. Today that entire shoreline is like that of Lakes
Erie and Ontario: cottages along the lake, farmland and second-growth forest on
the other side of the highway.
Public access to Lake Huron in
Michigan
With one difference, however: Every 10 to 20 miles, a well-tended
roadside park with clean restrooms provides public access to the lake.
My route skirted Thunder Bay, appropriately named for its storms.
The steamship route between Lake Erie and Lakes Michigan and Superior follows
this side of Huron, but the infamous 1913 hurricane that sunk eight ships drove
so many of the 178 drowned seamen's bodies onto the opposite Canadian shore
that they had to be carted away in wagons.
The Mackinac bridge took me above the island fort that was quickly
captured by the Canadians at the outset of the War of 1812. Then in 1814 they
turned back an attempt to retake it by a superior U.S. force. We had to wait
for the Treaty of Ghent to get it back.
Lakes Michigan and Huron are actually separate bays of the same
lake hung like a saddle over Lower Michigan. On the other hand, there is an
elevation difference between Huron and Superior at Sault Ste. Marie. There the
sault - French for rapids - drops more than 20 feet in the St. Mary's River
connecting the two lakes. Locks carry ships between them.
The Americans who failed at Mackinac did capture Fort St. Joseph,
which guards this Huron-Superior connection. But they only destroyed an empty
installation, the British having abandoned it earlier to move to Mackinac
Island. Later, the second most exciting Great Lakes action (next to Perry's
victory) took place near here, when in a Hornblower-like episode, a small
Canadian force, attacking from bateaus, captured two U.S. schooners.
Then I met another reason Lake Huron is little known. From just
east of Sault Ste. Marie to the south end of Georgian Bay - over 300 miles - I
would not see what one sailor called the "rocky ironbound shore" of
the lake. The roads closest to the lake were far inland and took
me all the way east to Sudbury before finally turning south. Even
then I saw nothing of the lake until I reached Port Severn. A few
miles further my scooter took me down to the bay shore at a town
with a striking Indian name, Penetanguishene, where I could
finally test the water temperature with my hand. It was
pleasantly warm and I should have stopped for a swim..
I would, however, find important history at the French River. At
the mouth of this river in 1615, Samuel de Champlain first visited Lake Huron -
probably preceded by two others: Etienne Broule and Father Joseph LeCaron. To
my surprise I learned here that Huron was the first of the Great Lakes to be
discovered by Europeans. Instead of ascending the St. Lawrence River to Lake
Ontario, explorers first followed the Ottawa River on through Lake Nippising
and the French River to Georgian Bay. Thus the discovery of the lakes is
ordered: Huron, Michigan, Superior and only then Ontario and finally
Erie.
