In the spring of 2022, I ticked an item off my bucket list: taking a circle tour around Lake Superior—the wildest, most remote of the Great Lakes. I started my trip in Houghton, Michigan, and drove westward in a clockwise circle.
More than a week in, and I had seen and experienced so much: a chance campsite encounter with a fox, sunrise on a hilltop over Lake Superior, an ancient canyon with an arctic microclimate.
By the time I left Pukaskwa National Park in the lake’s far northeast corner, I was in the final stretch. Before setting out, taking two weeks to trek around Lake Superior sounded leisurely. Although I didn’t feel rushed, it was a steady clip. All I wanted was to slow time down and find some stillness.
Old Woman Bay
That pull reached its apex at Old Woman Bay, a gorgeous and quiet stretch of sandy beachfront nestled between the rocky hills on a lonely stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway. I pulled over, grabbed a book and my banjo, and hopped out of my car. Some spectacularly warm weather made that final day in May 2022 magical. It felt like peak summer. I was in just the right place at exactly the right time.
I had only just arrived, and my first thought was, ‘I have to make it back here. I have to come back.’
In my travels, one of the greatest pleasures I’ve experienced is finally seeing a place for yourself after seeing images and videos online, in books, and on TV. Being able to drink in a place and taste it for yourself after having it described and depicted, that’s quite something. But what of this? What of a vista of an unlooked for vista of such magnificence? After hours driving through the wooded hills, I was in my own beachside paradise—right in plain sight, but so far from the rest of the world it feels like my own secret.
These moments, for me, are like the winter sun. All you can do is quietly feel the warmth, knowing it will pass in a matter of minutes or hours and may not be back again for days—weeks. It will be back, but there’s no telling when. I wanted to pull the breaks and make time stop for me.
I left the beach for Batchawana Bay—driven, always, to stay one step ahead of the sun as it sank toward the other end of Lake Superior. I stayed in a cabin run by couple Dana and Robert. Even though it was a bit early in the season, I couldn’t believe I was the only guest they had. This is a great place to stay, just be aware that the bugs were pretty bad in the wooded areas adjacent to the beachfront. Something like this would be way out of my price range in Michigan, so I was only too happy to put up with a few bugs.
The following day, I drove to see the Agawa Rock Pictographs—about 50 minutes north of Batchawana. Little did I know that the park was closed. The weather was sunny and warm again and with nothing else planned, I made a snap decision to drive back to Old Woman Bay. Once in a while, the winter sun shines two days in a row, doesn’t it? Feeling nostalgic for a trip I took as a teenager with my dad and grandpa on a seaplane out of Wawa, I drove back up for lunch.
The next day, I drove back to Michigan—but not without a stop at The Breakfast Pig in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. This is one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. If you’re south of the border, do yourself a favor and cross the river for one of the best meals you’ll ever have.
Full Circle: Back in Marquette again
Home again. Well, sort of. Back in my home state of Michigan, anyways, which always feels like home to me.
After two weeks of exploration and nonstop driving, I spent the final days of my trip hunkered down in Champion Township, just north of Marquette, in a fantastic wood cabin built by a group of friends 20 years ago. I let myself embrace a little stillness, building fires in the wood-burning stove at night while I listened to stories I downloaded on podcasts. As a writer and a literature PhD who is not very good at sitting down and reading for extended periods, I am always looking to get into touch with an older way of storytelling. Not audiobooks, mind you. Stories that are actually created with the intent to be told orally. Two of my favorites, which I listened to throughout the trip, are Wolf 359 and King Falls AM.
I got my love of the outdoors from my dad’s parents, who used to take me and my little sister out camping every summer. I wasn’t much of a camper at 10—and I think even less so as I became a teenager—but those memories were a seed that grew with me into my 20s and beyond as I’ve turned back to the forest, water, and wild to find myself.
My grandma (Gammy) used to lead my sister and me in a chant in the back of the camper, “You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream.” I couldn’t end my trip without a stop at Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone.
