If the postcards I find are any indication of the popularity of that form of communication, 1906 was the start of a great swell in their use, with the early 1900s being much easier for me to find than the teens and '20s.
I may be getting carried away with illustrations, but if you aren't from around there, or perhaps not even a boater, I thought they would help the with visualization of the cruise.
Going down the Cheboygan River to the center of the town, we found the men full of press reports concerning us, but hardly expecting us to heave into sight in the direction from which we came.
They gave us a berth for the boat alongside the market, and instructed the watchman to keep an eye on it. Lalonde's Inn, the principal hostelry of Cheboygan looked good to us that night.
Returning to the Coast Guard station and seeking advice concerning prospective weather, the captain of the station advised us to hurry right along to Detour at the tip of the North Peninsula.
"You've got good weather this afternoon," he said, "but tomorrow it is going to blow."
We decided to act upon this sound advice, but before shoving off we stopped to exchange further greetings with the Coast Guard Captain, and the captain of a businesslike rum chaser that had pulled in off of Lake Huron for fuel. The captain of the rum chaser advised us to run for Detour at once, and then clear from there for Thessalon, Ontario, in order to carry out our plan of following the north shore of Lake Huron into Georgian Bay. He advised this route as preferable to my plan of running south of Drummond Island, between Drummond and Cockburn Islands, and along the north shore of Manitoulin Island to Little Current.
In further conversation with the Captain of the Coast Guard, he said: "Your trip reminds me somewhat of a chap who came along this way last year. He came out of Milwaukee, I believe, and was heading through to New York. He's a writer, and I rememnber that he said he lived somewhere in California." I replied to the Captain that I thought I knew the gentleman to whom he referred. "I think Mr. Lewis R. Freeman is the man you mention." "Aye, that's the man."
On the rest of the transcontinental motor boat cruise, or from Mackinac Island to New York City, we met people in nearly every port we touched who told us of having met Mr. Freeman the previous year. If they didn't remember his name they remembered his size, and invariably described him as "a monstrous big fellow traveling with an outfit about like yours - but alone." On through Canada, through the Trent waterway, through Lake Ontario, down the St. Lawrence, up the Richelieu, and from Lake Champlain to Gotham, we touched so many places where friend Freeman had been that I almost feel that I'm retelling his story in attempting to carry the story of Transcontinental on to the Atlantic seaboard.
However, I find Mr. Freeman's account of the journey all the more interesting now that I've been over his route, and it is impossible for identical experiences to befall different parties even though they travel the same path. Although we traveled something like 4,000 miles before we picked up Mr. Freeman's Great Lakes trail, we were still a long way from New York when we arrived at Mackinac Island. This story would be far from complete without recounting at least the highlights of the cruise of Transcontinental from August 25 to October 4 and from the Straits of Mackinac to New York City.
There were twelve miles of open water to be crossed between Mackinac Island and Isle Alarquette, the southern most of the Les Cheneaux Islands. While we would have enjoyed very much running behind Les Cheneaux Island, the time that the trip would require made it a route to be taken only if we were driven in by bad weather in the open waters. With favorable weather, and a blow promised for the following day, we pulled away from Mackinac Island on the shortest possible route to Detour, thirty-eight miles off over the horizon in the haze of fog and forest fire smoke.
Isle Alarquette was not in sight due to low visibility, so we had to hunt it out with our chart course and compass. Fortunately our navigating that day wasn't as bad as it was the day we crossed Lake Michigan, and at two o'clock in the afternoon the island came into view just about where we expected to find it.
Once alongside the tip of Isle Arquette any landlubber's navigation could be relied upon for the rest of the run to Detour, for it was a plain case of going by the chart and following the shore. The gentle wind and somewhat choppy sea died down as
we cruised on through the afternoon.
We were running along a lee shore and made fair time, pulling into a landing at Detour in the shelter of a wrecked steamer piled on the beach, and arriving there at 7:30 in the evening.
Detour doesn't boast a hotel, but we found a longshoreman's wife who conducts a boarding and rooming house where we were able to procure food and lodging. By this time we were about through with attempting to camp. Too much time was lost at camping, and more than that - the early onslaughts of winter at this altitude exerted a persuasive influence that made us willing to sleep in a bed whenever a bed under a roof was available. Later in the evening we hunted up the local customs officer and got clearance papers for our boat into Canada, expecting to pull out for Thessalon in the morning.
The gale of wind that the weather bureau had forecast for August 26 proved to be no false prophecy. We arose that morning to find that Detour meant making a detour from our scheduled route if we expected to get to Thessalon that day. The wind was sweeping down from the northeast so violently that it was almost difficult to retain one's footing on land, and with thirty-six miles of open water across the North Channel between Detour and Thessalon, we knew what that meant. It would have been suicide for us to attempt to run that day. Thus, if we desired to avoid the loss of another day we had no alternative but to detour ourselves through waters that we could travel under the existing weather condition.
There were just two possible routes open to us. One was to run up St. Mary's River to Sault St. Marie, across over to the Canadian Soo, and then run around the north side of Sugar Island and St. Joseph Island. That route to Thessalon, while much longer than directly across the North Channel, had the advantage of sheltered waters to the Soo, and the lee shores of the Ontario mainland from the Soo to Thessalon.
The other possible route for us was to run along the lee shores of Drummond and Cockburn Islands. But that called for a dangerous crossing between the two islands, and a bad run through the Straits of Missasauga between Cockburn Island and Manitoulin Island. Going south of Cockburn Island also involved useless milealge, and a practical certainty of a weather tie up once we reached the north shore of Manitoulin Island. Thus our decision to go to the Soo was a sort of Hobson's Choice. It was about the only place we had a chance to go, but with the added attraction of letting us visit the great Soo Locks which none of us had ever seen.
Never having intended to go to the Soo, we had no charts of St. Marys River. A local lake captain, however, cleared this difficulty away for us by offering us the use of the three necessary charts on condition we'd mail them back to him from Thessalon where our own charts would pick up the trail again.
We got under way at 8 o'clock that morning, and in a very few minutes were heading up St. Marys River around the south shore of St. Joseph Island. St Marys River has quite a vigorous current, and the volume of water it pours into Lake Huron and Lake Michigan is certainly many times the quantity being taken out of the lakes by the Chicago Drainage Canal. The current retarded our speed considerably, and in some places where the river narrowed down we found we had scarcely four miles per hour left after overcoming the resisting force against us. Fortunately, however, there are only a few miles of swift water in the fifty mile run from Detour to the Soo. We took lunches aboard the boat when we left Detour, and from 8 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock that afternoon LEWIS, the motor we used that day, never once ceased to turn his 1,200 revolutions.
If we had felt lonesome in some of the waters in which we had previously cruised, we certainly could never say that of the St. Marys River. Never in any water on the face of the earth that I was ever in have I seen such a parade of shipping as moves up and down that river. A parade of shipping is the only term to describe it, for the ships trail one another up and down the river in an endless procession during 24 hours of every day that waters are not closed to navigation by ice.
One sees there every type of ships to be found on the Great Lakes, and carrying the name of every port of registry from Duluth to Buffalo, and from Chicago to Port Arthur. There are also many smaller packets of foreign registry; for any ship from any port on the seven seas that can pass through the St. Lawrence and Welland Canals is liable to poke its nose into this beehive of freshwater maritime commerce. Citizens of the Soo boast of the fact that the annual tonnage of shipping handled through the Soo Locks is greater than the combined tonnage of the Panama and Suez Canals and the ports of Liverpool, Southhampton, and Cherbourg; and that this staggering total is accomplished during a navigation season of approximately eight months.
Landing at the American Soo near five o'clock in the afternoon we hurried to the customs house, and changed our clearance papers to enable us to enter Canada by crossing the river to the Canadian Soo. Then after a brief sojourn with our feet under the table of a nearby restaurant we said goodbye to the United States until we would reenter into the State of New York at the lower end of Lake Champlain. Had we been expecting an ordeal with the Canadian Customs officials we'd have been disappointed. Put-putting across the river we landed at the Canadian Customs House landing. Nobody paid any attention to us whatever until I went into the building and buttonholed a customs officer, and informed him we desired to establish ourselves in compliance with Canadian laws. The officer then came out, took a look at our boat from the dock, asked a few questions, and told us to run along.
The morning of August 27 dawned without a breath of wind blowing. A high fog that hung over the country was heavily charged with the smoke from nearby forest fires fanned to a fury by the gale of the previous day. Ashes were dropping around the Soo as we shoved off for a run up the river to have a look at the locks and rapids before heading around for Hoboken. After making a run about half way up the rapids to see how they compared with the rapids of Columbia and upper Missouri, we ran to the American locks. We needed no introduction to the lock officials. Press publicity allowed them to address us by our names when we informed them we desired to go up and down the locks - just to have a look at them, and to shoot a few photographs.
The Soo Locks are comparable in size to to those of the Panama Canal, through which I had the pleasure of taking a 15-foot Evinrude outfit something over a year ago; and they are operated with precisely the same degree of speed and efficiency as the locks of Panama. Transcontinental looked rather diminutive in these great locks, and our small size was accentuated by our locking up and down with a couple of 10,000 ton ore boats. We made both still pictures and movies of the Soo Locks and rapids, but with the poor light and poorer visibility due to fog and smoke the results were scarcely more than a waste of negative stock.
But this story is running to too great a length. Many unimportant details must be omitted. We got away from the Soo at ten o'clock in the morning, and made good speed with the current down the North Channel of St. Marys River, north of Sugar Island, through the wide expanse of water known as Lake George, and around St. Joseph Island into the main waters of Lake Huron again. While the day was miserable from the standpoint of photography or appreciation of scenery, we could scarcely have picked a better day for making mileage. There being no wind at all we had nothing but glassy surfaces that day, and aided for thirty-five miles by the current flowing down St. Marys River from Lake Superior. The North Channel of lake Huron, which we had not dared to cross two days before, was like a pane of glass when we ran out the mouth of St. Marys River. We rounded the end of St. Joseph Island at two o'clock in the afternoon, then held a course well out to sea for twenty miles, putting in at Thessalon a few minutes after sundown.
By this time the the shortening hours of daylight had become a matter of grave concern for us, for daylight was like butter to us - there is no substitute for it. It became necessary for us to take full advantage of every minute when there was light enough for travel. This meant getting out in the morning, ready to shove off with the first rays of dawn, lunching in the boat, and never stopping except when we were compelled to do so. The part of this program which grieved Wilton and me most was the necessity of passing up some of the most excellent photographic and motion picture material. Both of us being men of photographic tastes and training, passing up some of the material that we were forced to pass up for the necessity of making mileage was something of the plight of the hunter in a rich game country and with a disabled gun.
We were far more fortunate in the matter of favorable weather in the open water areas of Lake Huron than we had been in Lake Michigan. After leaving the Soo, we had four solid days of windless weather - days that were foggy smokey from forest fires, and with low visibility, but excellent for traveling. If we could but reach the million island region of Georgian Bay under favorable weather conditions the weather would give us scant worry until we reached Lake Ontario.
Thus, we got out of Thessalon at the break of dawn on August 28, lunched at Blind River, and camped that night at Manitoulin Island within ten miles of Little Current, the principal point of human activities on this magnificent Canadian wilderness playground between Georgian Bay, Lake Huron and the North Channel.
We pared 80 miles of the transcontinental waterway distance that day in a twelve hour run. Hoping to get to Little Current that night, and sleep in a bed, we fell just ten miles short of our mark, camping for the first time in several weeks. There in cold contrast with the torrid heat of the Missouri and Illinois River country, we all but froze to death in spite of warm sleeping bags and heavy blankets.
With another favorable day of of windless, humid, and semi-foggy weather, we clipped off a fine day's run of approximately 76 miles from our camp on Manitoulin Island to Byng Inlet. By this time we were into the island region of Georgian Bay, and didn't care a great deal what the weather might do. It could do its worst, but we would still have favorable water to travel upon. No written description of this region can do it justice. One needs charts, and good charts, too, to attempt to navigate these waters, or gain any comprehensive knowledge of what they are really like. Persons who have heard of, or seen the famous Thousand Island Region of the St. Lawrence River should have a look at a large scale chart of Georgian Bay - or preferably take a motor boat through the Georgian Bay archipelago - and get some brand new ideas about islands in a group.
When I broke out our charts of these waters I must admit I received somewhat of a shock. I was convinced, at least, that when the charts were made they put the islands on the map by dusting them on with a pepper shaker. There are no less than ten thousand islands that haven't got names. It would strain the English language to attempt to name them all - these islands that range from tiny snags of rock to areas of forested land several square miles in extent. Moreover, the lowering of the lake levels during the past several years has produced a few thousand islands that were not in sight when the charts were printed. Navigating through this conglomerate assortment of islands, rocks and submerged islands is a task to tax the navigator at reading his charts and logging his position. With our little packet drawing only 18 inches of water we had little hesitation at running down the inside of everything on our day's run from Byng Inlet to Parry Sound, and another day's run from Barry Sound to Port McNicoll. But, I would be very reluctant about attempting this trip with any boat of greater draft.
I found that about the only way I could keep track of our position was to watch the chart and compass like a cat watching a mousehole, and log our route along the chart with pencil notations about every minute. If I took my eye off the job of navigating for so much as a minute it was usually to lose track of our position. Then it was a case of eyeing the surrounding landscapes, and checking with the chart and compass before we'd get ourselves located again. Despite our best efforts, and assuming three heads are better than one, we lost ourselves no fewer than a dozen times. Once we fumbled around for half an hour zig-zaging in and out between islands and snags of rock on a general south by east course before we were able to pick up our general position on the chart again. Time without number we squeaked over snarls of jagged rocks that reached upward trying to grab the bottom out of the boat. But for the clarity of the water, which enabled us to see submerged rocks where there wasn't sufficient water to let us over, I'm sure we could never have made the run throught GeorgianBay without coming to grief. A it was, we got through with no mishap greater than a single broken shear-off pin caused by striking a submerged reef with our propeller - a reef that none of us saw until after we clipped it.
Leaving Port McNicoll on the morning of August 31 the personnel of the transcontinental motor boat
party was reduced to two, Mr. Woodbury finding it necessary to depart for Boston by train.
He has a great ambition to finish the cruise, but circumstances that had developed during the 110 days since leaving Los Angeles made it impossible for him to continue. We had expected to accomplish the entire trip in 90 days. He had arranged his business affairs accordingly, but upon our arrival at Port McNicoll we were exactly 20 days behind our schedule into New York, and with little prospect of getting to the end of our seemingly interminable journey short of another 30 days of cruising. To further frustrate his plans he had suffered for weeks from an ailment for which a surgical operation was the only hope of relief.
About three miles down the bay from Port Nicoll we picked up the first buoy marking the entrance to the Trent Waterways. (Trent-Severn Waterway) But for this line of buoys it is certain that very few yachtsmen would ever safely find their way through the maze of islands and little snarls of rocks through which boats must wend their way up to the first lock at Port Severn. The buoys, however, make the run very simple and easy. The Trent waterways Development Association at Peterborough, Ontario had also furnished us with a splendid set of charts.
Arriving at the first lock, the lock tender recognized us almost instantly, and declared he'd been on the lookout for us for the past six weeks. At his suggestion, I went to a nearby inn while the the boat was put through the lock, and phoned the secretary of the Trent Waterways Development Association at the Peterborough headquarters. The toll on the phone call was ninety cents, but its value to us will never even be estimated in dollars. The waterways association had promised us every possible cooperation, and the manner in which that cooperation developed during the cruise through the Trent Waterways left us with a very kindly feeling toward Canada and Canadians. It was the thing which enabled us to really get acquainted with the Canadians, and to meet some of the finest people that it has ever been our pleasure to meet either in the United States or outside our national boundaries. It made the 250 mile run through the Trent Waterways one of the most pleasant portions of the entire ocean to ocean motor boat cruise, and sent us back to the United States with memories of a country and a nation of people whom we may feel proud to have as our friendly neighbor.
I may be getting carried away with illustrations, but if you aren't from around there, or perhaps not even a boater, I thought they would help the with visualization of the cruise.
 |
| Pulling out at Petosky... |
We found the Chamber of Commerce and the newspaper reporters on the job. They had the motor truck there, and a campaign of action outlined that made the removal of the boat from the water the easiest job of the sort on the entire trip. The bottom of Petoskey's harbor is solid rock. A large dray with a team of horses was driven into the water until the bed of the wagon was submerged. We ran Transcontinental over the dray, and the horses were driven ashore. Once ashore the truck was backed up against the rear end of the dray, and we skidded the boat on its keel from the dray to the truck. In about an hour from the time we drew up in Petoskey Harbor we slid the boat off the truck into the waters of Crooked Lake, lengthening our portage to six miles to avoid uncertain navigation in Mud Creek and Mud Lake. By the time we were ready to get under way the daylight was nearly gone. We therefore completed the day with a run of three miles down Crooked Lake to the village of Ponshewaing, were we found a comfortable inn with boathouse facilities and stopped for the night.
 |
It's not always easy to find a relevant postcard illustration.  |
Our run from Ponshewaing to Cheboygan on August twenty-fourth, a distance of 50 miles, was one of the most pleasant day's cruises of the entire run from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. The wind blew a howling gale all day long but did not bother us while cruising through these small and sheltered inland waters. Had we remained on Lake Michigan, we'd have been mastheaded in Petoskey that day, with the wind blowing as it did we could not have made the run of 40 miles, 20 miles offshore around the line of reefs stretched out between Lake Michigan and the Straits of Mackinac.
For those of may not be familiar with this route across the northern end of the South Peninsula of Michigan, I should mention that the entire inland trip can be made from Lake Huron to Crooked Lake, within six miles of Petoskey, by any boat that does not require more than three feet of water.
The watershed of the entire system is into Lake Huron. Crooked Lake discharges into Crooked River. Crooked River is about a hundred feet wide, and meanders literally all around Robin Hood's barn, flowing about sixteen miles from Crooked Lake into Burt Lake. It is fine, clear water, full of fish, and with a current of about one mile per hour ambling through swamp lands and forest.
( "around Robin Hood's barn" meaning something indirect; a new one on me!)
 |
| "Around Horseshoe Bend, Crooked River, Inland Route" |
 |
| Mullet Lake, Cheboygan, Michigan |
Burt Lake, small though it is, was kicking up a nasty sea when we made our run of eight miles across it to the outlet into Indian River. Indian River is about as crooked as Crooked River, and traverses a magnificent forest wilderness before discharging into Mullet Lake. Mullet Lake is twelve miles long and four miles wide. The wind was howling down the length of it, and there we got an illustration of how infamously rough some of these small, shallow inland lakes can get under the right kind of wind conditions.
We arrived in front of Topinabee at noon, stopped there for lunch, and then went on down the lake to its own confluence with the Cheboygan River. This run down Mullet Lake was through about the same sort of water we'd encountered in crossing Grand Traverse Bay.
In the Cheboygan River we found a placid, gently flowing stream, easily navigable, and winding through pulp wood forest and farm lands. Cruising it was pure pleasure until we reached the edge of the town of Cheboygan. There we found the river somewhat obstructed by pulp logs, and encountered a dilapidated old wooden lock around a dam constructed by a paper mill for the purpose of creating hydroelectric power.
 |
| Check out the cows grazing by the mill... |
After a half-hour's search of the paper mill and the surrounding neighborhood we succeeded in locating the lock keeper, who didn't want to be bothered operating the lock until the following morning. When I assured him time was a tremendously important factor with us, and applied the proper lubricant to the itching palm, he condescendingly agreed to let us down the lock at once - provided we'd give him a lift with the rickety old gates and sluices which required the combined efforts of about four husky men with miscellaneous crowbars and leverage devices. After an hour's effort we got the pulp logs and driftwood cleared away from the upper gate, and pried the gate open.
When we got into the lock the whole ramshackle wooden structure leaked so badly that we could scarcely get the water to lower. We got down within a foot of the lower level, but the water would go no lower. The relation between leaks and outlet were exactly balanced. The lock keeper, however, was not defeated. He brought a block and fall, and with it we all but tore the wobbly gate to pieces getting it opened against the water pressure until we had a six foot crack between the two lower gates. But, that was enough for Transcontinental's five foot beam. Wilton set up his movie camera and turned the crank on shore while Woodbury and I manned the boat and shot the rapids out of the lock and down onto the level of Lake Huron.
Going down the Cheboygan River to the center of the town, we found the men full of press reports concerning us, but hardly expecting us to heave into sight in the direction from which we came.
They gave us a berth for the boat alongside the market, and instructed the watchman to keep an eye on it. Lalonde's Inn, the principal hostelry of Cheboygan looked good to us that night.
 |
| "...principal hostelry..."? There were other much bigger establishments...so, I think, Hoag was being editorial. But, Lalonde's was not the only big place in town. |
Next morning we found a gentle breeze blowing and with a murky overcast sky that was half fog and half smoke from nearby forest fires. No rain had fallen in that part of the country for weeks. Everything looked as dry and tindery as Southern California in the rainless season, except that there were no irrigated sections to relieve the monotony of this drought blighted region.
Forest fires were burning everywhere. Six different fires were in full view when we passed out of the Cheboygan River and began heading across the South Channel toward Pointe au Pins on Bois Blanc Island. We found the straits somewhat choppy, but what wind there was was blowing from the north, so we cruised across to Bois Blanc Island, got in the lee of it, and then headed along the shore towards Round Island and Mackinac Island. At noon we tied up at the Coast Guard Station on Mackinac Island.
A quaint and picturesque spot is this little summer resort isle on the cross roads of the Great Lakes. Rich in history and romance, and with only rubber shod horses as a substitute for the noise and hub-bub of motor car traffic it is as restful and pleasant a place I've ever been that is anything like it - that is Bermuda.
Returning to the Coast Guard station and seeking advice concerning prospective weather, the captain of the station advised us to hurry right along to Detour at the tip of the North Peninsula.
"You've got good weather this afternoon," he said, "but tomorrow it is going to blow."
We decided to act upon this sound advice, but before shoving off we stopped to exchange further greetings with the Coast Guard Captain, and the captain of a businesslike rum chaser that had pulled in off of Lake Huron for fuel. The captain of the rum chaser advised us to run for Detour at once, and then clear from there for Thessalon, Ontario, in order to carry out our plan of following the north shore of Lake Huron into Georgian Bay. He advised this route as preferable to my plan of running south of Drummond Island, between Drummond and Cockburn Islands, and along the north shore of Manitoulin Island to Little Current.
In further conversation with the Captain of the Coast Guard, he said: "Your trip reminds me somewhat of a chap who came along this way last year. He came out of Milwaukee, I believe, and was heading through to New York. He's a writer, and I rememnber that he said he lived somewhere in California." I replied to the Captain that I thought I knew the gentleman to whom he referred. "I think Mr. Lewis R. Freeman is the man you mention." "Aye, that's the man."
 |
| Read it here... |
However, I find Mr. Freeman's account of the journey all the more interesting now that I've been over his route, and it is impossible for identical experiences to befall different parties even though they travel the same path. Although we traveled something like 4,000 miles before we picked up Mr. Freeman's Great Lakes trail, we were still a long way from New York when we arrived at Mackinac Island. This story would be far from complete without recounting at least the highlights of the cruise of Transcontinental from August 25 to October 4 and from the Straits of Mackinac to New York City.
There were twelve miles of open water to be crossed between Mackinac Island and Isle Alarquette, the southern most of the Les Cheneaux Islands. While we would have enjoyed very much running behind Les Cheneaux Island, the time that the trip would require made it a route to be taken only if we were driven in by bad weather in the open waters. With favorable weather, and a blow promised for the following day, we pulled away from Mackinac Island on the shortest possible route to Detour, thirty-eight miles off over the horizon in the haze of fog and forest fire smoke.
Once alongside the tip of Isle Arquette any landlubber's navigation could be relied upon for the rest of the run to Detour, for it was a plain case of going by the chart and following the shore. The gentle wind and somewhat choppy sea died down as
 |
| c. 1910 - Main St., Detour (I think it really is De Tour Village) |
We were running along a lee shore and made fair time, pulling into a landing at Detour in the shelter of a wrecked steamer piled on the beach, and arriving there at 7:30 in the evening.
Detour doesn't boast a hotel, but we found a longshoreman's wife who conducts a boarding and rooming house where we were able to procure food and lodging. By this time we were about through with attempting to camp. Too much time was lost at camping, and more than that - the early onslaughts of winter at this altitude exerted a persuasive influence that made us willing to sleep in a bed whenever a bed under a roof was available. Later in the evening we hunted up the local customs officer and got clearance papers for our boat into Canada, expecting to pull out for Thessalon in the morning.
The gale of wind that the weather bureau had forecast for August 26 proved to be no false prophecy. We arose that morning to find that Detour meant making a detour from our scheduled route if we expected to get to Thessalon that day. The wind was sweeping down from the northeast so violently that it was almost difficult to retain one's footing on land, and with thirty-six miles of open water across the North Channel between Detour and Thessalon, we knew what that meant. It would have been suicide for us to attempt to run that day. Thus, if we desired to avoid the loss of another day we had no alternative but to detour ourselves through waters that we could travel under the existing weather condition.
For those readers, who, like me, are not familiar with this region, the towns and the general vicinity of Seault St. Marie on both sides of the border are called "The Soo".
 |
| St. Marys River connects Lake Superior (top left) to Lake Huron (bottom and right), Wikipedia CLICK FOR DETAILED MAP |
The other possible route for us was to run along the lee shores of Drummond and Cockburn Islands. But that called for a dangerous crossing between the two islands, and a bad run through the Straits of Missasauga between Cockburn Island and Manitoulin Island. Going south of Cockburn Island also involved useless milealge, and a practical certainty of a weather tie up once we reached the north shore of Manitoulin Island. Thus our decision to go to the Soo was a sort of Hobson's Choice. It was about the only place we had a chance to go, but with the added attraction of letting us visit the great Soo Locks which none of us had ever seen.
Never having intended to go to the Soo, we had no charts of St. Marys River. A local lake captain, however, cleared this difficulty away for us by offering us the use of the three necessary charts on condition we'd mail them back to him from Thessalon where our own charts would pick up the trail again.
We got under way at 8 o'clock that morning, and in a very few minutes were heading up St. Marys River around the south shore of St. Joseph Island. St Marys River has quite a vigorous current, and the volume of water it pours into Lake Huron and Lake Michigan is certainly many times the quantity being taken out of the lakes by the Chicago Drainage Canal. The current retarded our speed considerably, and in some places where the river narrowed down we found we had scarcely four miles per hour left after overcoming the resisting force against us. Fortunately, however, there are only a few miles of swift water in the fifty mile run from Detour to the Soo. We took lunches aboard the boat when we left Detour, and from 8 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock that afternoon LEWIS, the motor we used that day, never once ceased to turn his 1,200 revolutions.
If we had felt lonesome in some of the waters in which we had previously cruised, we certainly could never say that of the St. Marys River. Never in any water on the face of the earth that I was ever in have I seen such a parade of shipping as moves up and down that river. A parade of shipping is the only term to describe it, for the ships trail one another up and down the river in an endless procession during 24 hours of every day that waters are not closed to navigation by ice.
One sees there every type of ships to be found on the Great Lakes, and carrying the name of every port of registry from Duluth to Buffalo, and from Chicago to Port Arthur. There are also many smaller packets of foreign registry; for any ship from any port on the seven seas that can pass through the St. Lawrence and Welland Canals is liable to poke its nose into this beehive of freshwater maritime commerce. Citizens of the Soo boast of the fact that the annual tonnage of shipping handled through the Soo Locks is greater than the combined tonnage of the Panama and Suez Canals and the ports of Liverpool, Southhampton, and Cherbourg; and that this staggering total is accomplished during a navigation season of approximately eight months.
Landing at the American Soo near five o'clock in the afternoon we hurried to the customs house, and changed our clearance papers to enable us to enter Canada by crossing the river to the Canadian Soo. Then after a brief sojourn with our feet under the table of a nearby restaurant we said goodbye to the United States until we would reenter into the State of New York at the lower end of Lake Champlain. Had we been expecting an ordeal with the Canadian Customs officials we'd have been disappointed. Put-putting across the river we landed at the Canadian Customs House landing. Nobody paid any attention to us whatever until I went into the building and buttonholed a customs officer, and informed him we desired to establish ourselves in compliance with Canadian laws. The officer then came out, took a look at our boat from the dock, asked a few questions, and told us to run along.
The morning of August 27 dawned without a breath of wind blowing. A high fog that hung over the country was heavily charged with the smoke from nearby forest fires fanned to a fury by the gale of the previous day. Ashes were dropping around the Soo as we shoved off for a run up the river to have a look at the locks and rapids before heading around for Hoboken. After making a run about half way up the rapids to see how they compared with the rapids of Columbia and upper Missouri, we ran to the American locks. We needed no introduction to the lock officials. Press publicity allowed them to address us by our names when we informed them we desired to go up and down the locks - just to have a look at them, and to shoot a few photographs.
The Soo Locks are comparable in size to to those of the Panama Canal, through which I had the pleasure of taking a 15-foot Evinrude outfit something over a year ago; and they are operated with precisely the same degree of speed and efficiency as the locks of Panama. Transcontinental looked rather diminutive in these great locks, and our small size was accentuated by our locking up and down with a couple of 10,000 ton ore boats. We made both still pictures and movies of the Soo Locks and rapids, but with the poor light and poorer visibility due to fog and smoke the results were scarcely more than a waste of negative stock.
But this story is running to too great a length. Many unimportant details must be omitted. We got away from the Soo at ten o'clock in the morning, and made good speed with the current down the North Channel of St. Marys River, north of Sugar Island, through the wide expanse of water known as Lake George, and around St. Joseph Island into the main waters of Lake Huron again. While the day was miserable from the standpoint of photography or appreciation of scenery, we could scarcely have picked a better day for making mileage. There being no wind at all we had nothing but glassy surfaces that day, and aided for thirty-five miles by the current flowing down St. Marys River from Lake Superior. The North Channel of lake Huron, which we had not dared to cross two days before, was like a pane of glass when we ran out the mouth of St. Marys River. We rounded the end of St. Joseph Island at two o'clock in the afternoon, then held a course well out to sea for twenty miles, putting in at Thessalon a few minutes after sundown.
 |
| Both of these postcards are probably of a Thessalon 10 to 15 years before our boys pulled in there. |
By this time the the shortening hours of daylight had become a matter of grave concern for us, for daylight was like butter to us - there is no substitute for it. It became necessary for us to take full advantage of every minute when there was light enough for travel. This meant getting out in the morning, ready to shove off with the first rays of dawn, lunching in the boat, and never stopping except when we were compelled to do so. The part of this program which grieved Wilton and me most was the necessity of passing up some of the most excellent photographic and motion picture material. Both of us being men of photographic tastes and training, passing up some of the material that we were forced to pass up for the necessity of making mileage was something of the plight of the hunter in a rich game country and with a disabled gun.
We were far more fortunate in the matter of favorable weather in the open water areas of Lake Huron than we had been in Lake Michigan. After leaving the Soo, we had four solid days of windless weather - days that were foggy smokey from forest fires, and with low visibility, but excellent for traveling. If we could but reach the million island region of Georgian Bay under favorable weather conditions the weather would give us scant worry until we reached Lake Ontario.
Thus, we got out of Thessalon at the break of dawn on August 28, lunched at Blind River, and camped that night at Manitoulin Island within ten miles of Little Current, the principal point of human activities on this magnificent Canadian wilderness playground between Georgian Bay, Lake Huron and the North Channel.
We pared 80 miles of the transcontinental waterway distance that day in a twelve hour run. Hoping to get to Little Current that night, and sleep in a bed, we fell just ten miles short of our mark, camping for the first time in several weeks. There in cold contrast with the torrid heat of the Missouri and Illinois River country, we all but froze to death in spite of warm sleeping bags and heavy blankets.
When I broke out our charts of these waters I must admit I received somewhat of a shock. I was convinced, at least, that when the charts were made they put the islands on the map by dusting them on with a pepper shaker. There are no less than ten thousand islands that haven't got names. It would strain the English language to attempt to name them all - these islands that range from tiny snags of rock to areas of forested land several square miles in extent. Moreover, the lowering of the lake levels during the past several years has produced a few thousand islands that were not in sight when the charts were printed. Navigating through this conglomerate assortment of islands, rocks and submerged islands is a task to tax the navigator at reading his charts and logging his position. With our little packet drawing only 18 inches of water we had little hesitation at running down the inside of everything on our day's run from Byng Inlet to Parry Sound, and another day's run from Barry Sound to Port McNicoll. But, I would be very reluctant about attempting this trip with any boat of greater draft.
I found that about the only way I could keep track of our position was to watch the chart and compass like a cat watching a mousehole, and log our route along the chart with pencil notations about every minute. If I took my eye off the job of navigating for so much as a minute it was usually to lose track of our position. Then it was a case of eyeing the surrounding landscapes, and checking with the chart and compass before we'd get ourselves located again. Despite our best efforts, and assuming three heads are better than one, we lost ourselves no fewer than a dozen times. Once we fumbled around for half an hour zig-zaging in and out between islands and snags of rock on a general south by east course before we were able to pick up our general position on the chart again. Time without number we squeaked over snarls of jagged rocks that reached upward trying to grab the bottom out of the boat. But for the clarity of the water, which enabled us to see submerged rocks where there wasn't sufficient water to let us over, I'm sure we could never have made the run throught GeorgianBay without coming to grief. A it was, we got through with no mishap greater than a single broken shear-off pin caused by striking a submerged reef with our propeller - a reef that none of us saw until after we clipped it.
Leaving Port McNicoll on the morning of August 31 the personnel of the transcontinental motor boat party was reduced to two, Mr. Woodbury finding it necessary to depart for Boston by train.
He has a great ambition to finish the cruise, but circumstances that had developed during the 110 days since leaving Los Angeles made it impossible for him to continue. We had expected to accomplish the entire trip in 90 days. He had arranged his business affairs accordingly, but upon our arrival at Port McNicoll we were exactly 20 days behind our schedule into New York, and with little prospect of getting to the end of our seemingly interminable journey short of another 30 days of cruising. To further frustrate his plans he had suffered for weeks from an ailment for which a surgical operation was the only hope of relief.
About three miles down the bay from Port Nicoll we picked up the first buoy marking the entrance to the Trent Waterways. (Trent-Severn Waterway) But for this line of buoys it is certain that very few yachtsmen would ever safely find their way through the maze of islands and little snarls of rocks through which boats must wend their way up to the first lock at Port Severn. The buoys, however, make the run very simple and easy. The Trent waterways Development Association at Peterborough, Ontario had also furnished us with a splendid set of charts.
Arriving at the first lock, the lock tender recognized us almost instantly, and declared he'd been on the lookout for us for the past six weeks. At his suggestion, I went to a nearby inn while the the boat was put through the lock, and phoned the secretary of the Trent Waterways Development Association at the Peterborough headquarters. The toll on the phone call was ninety cents, but its value to us will never even be estimated in dollars. The waterways association had promised us every possible cooperation, and the manner in which that cooperation developed during the cruise through the Trent Waterways left us with a very kindly feeling toward Canada and Canadians. It was the thing which enabled us to really get acquainted with the Canadians, and to meet some of the finest people that it has ever been our pleasure to meet either in the United States or outside our national boundaries. It made the 250 mile run through the Trent Waterways one of the most pleasant portions of the entire ocean to ocean motor boat cruise, and sent us back to the United States with memories of a country and a nation of people whom we may feel proud to have as our friendly neighbor.
(To be continued)
 |
| The Trent-Severn Waterway was finished in 1915 and became obsolete almost immediately as freighter sizes had so increased they could not use the canal. Instead the trains carried cargo off loaded from the freighters. |
No comments:
Post a Comment