Thursday, June 15, 2023
I came to L'Anse for one reason and one reason only. It's the closest town to Mount Arvon. At 1,979 feet, it's the highest point in the state of Michigan. For those of you scoring from home, this is my thirty-third high point.
From L'Anse, it's an easy drive east. The Zion Lutheran Church is the landmark. Roland Lake Road is the easy part.
The road dead ends by Roland Lake and Ravine River Road. From there it's 8.4 miles of roads that seem to just get worse as you drive along. It's a mix of washboard, washouts, short but steep climbs and water filled potholes of unknown depths. Add to the mix a few bulldozers, bucket loaders and dump trucks and it makes for a bit of a challenge. At one point I did stop the car, get out and scout the path ahead. I drove a few branches into the ground as markers. Long stretches of the road were taken at 10-15MPH.
Unlike the loose sand road out to the lighthouse, I felt I had to do this one, it was a bit less of an option. It was also the only road to my destination. The good thing, every split in the road had a marker pointing me in the right direction. However, I still questioned my sanity numerous times during the drive.
Eventually, I did make it to the parking area and the short walk to Mt. Arvon's peak.
There's a trail to an overlook, too...
For the drive down, I kept the car in low gear and took it slow. When the operator of the bucket loader saw me, he finished the scoop of dirt and pulled off, allowing me to pass.
To someone's credit, there were plenty of blue diamond signs pointing the route up, and plenty of arrows pointing the way out. The 8.4 mile drive took me forty minutes, and that was just to Roland Lake.
Back in town, I picked up a coffee and tried to find the trail parking for the Falls River trail. The place Google sent me had a bunch of "Residents Only" signs. I asked at the Visitor's Center and they gave me directions to a small lot along the railroad tracks.
There was a freight train waiting just up the tracks, idling. I took a shot of it. It was on my phone. Cross the tracks and follow the blue blazes.
Just west of downtown L'Anse sits a shrine to Bishop Baraga. He grew up in Slovenia and was raised speaking both Slovenian and German. When Napoleon invaded, suddenly he was being taught French as well. In school he was also taught Latin and Greek. He entered the seminary after completing law school.
In 1830, Father Baraga left for America. While assigned to a church in Cincinnati, he started learning the language of the Ottawa tribe, eventually being sent to an Ottawa mission to continue his mastery of the language. He would go on to publish the first book in the Ottawa language, a prayer book. When he was reassigned, he also learned the Ojibwa language and published a book of hymns in their language. He also published what we in modern times would refer to as an Ojibwa to English dictionary.
In 1943, he founded a mission in L'Anse and was given the nickname the Snowshoe Priest due to his willingness to travel great distances in the dead of winter in snowshoes.
The turnoff for Silver Falls is seven miles out of town and easy to find. A half mile down a decent dirt road and you're there. This is where my phone chose to lock up and die. I've used it so much this trip for photography, directions and texts that it feels weird not to have it working, or even on me.
The crazy thing is, I don't see any T-Mobile places until I get to Traverse City, over a week away. Hopefully, I'll be able to recover some of it from their version of the cloud. Time will tell.
L'Anse sits on the edge of the bay. Across the water is the Keweenaw Peninsula.(pr;Kee-when-ah) That's where I'll be headed tomorrow.
In the park is the city's bandshell. Through the summer they do live music on Thursday's. Tonight's band was Chad Borgen and the Collective. I had never heard of them, either. But, it's live music so I'm in. Especially if it's free.
When it's rainy or cold, they move the shows to Greenwood Arena. It's their local hockey venue.
As for the band, it was mostly country songs with some old rock-n-roll mixed in later in the show. There's not much on Youtube, but you can get an idea here:
I took a walk during intermission and came across their trophy case. For a town of 1,900 people there are certainly a great deal of hockey trophies.
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