I'm once more back at the computer, tapping out the Les Cheneaux news for this week. After more extensive back surgery, recovery is going very well and I feel blessed to be able to get around.

During my absence, we missed two lucky Lions Club raffle winners. The first winners were Glenn and Sue Rye, who won $100 on the April 18 drawing. The second was Shelley Koster, winner of the $500 prize April 25. Congratulations to all.

Waiting for me at home was an e-mail from Patrick Fitzgerald, a former Les Cheneaux resident who now resides in Iowa City, Iowa. Pat was catching up on The St. Ignace News reading when he came across a story that was in this column about the deer and wild turkeys that were in the backyard of our daughter and son-in-law in Sault Ste. Marie. Pat's home in Iowa City backs up to some timber, and the family has had as many as nine deer and 13 turkeys in their yard at the same time. An

interesting sight for them one day was when a deer stomped his front paw at a raccoon that was sneaking too close to where the deer were feeding. Pat and his wife are in the process of moving from Iowa City to Allen, Texas, near Dallas.

Now another story from Bruce Patrick's memories unfolds:

"This is about Muscolunge Point, which protrudes out into Musky Bay. There is a channel through this point, but it was really not complete. There was land at low water on both sides. A man by the name of Polish Pete came to Pleasant Point, put coffer dams on both sides, pumped the water out, and dug dirt out on each side to make the channel deep enough for a rowboat to go through.

"This Polish man had a house built by Barney Neal. It was about 12 feet by 14 feet, one room. It was built six feet off the ground, thus he could have a box stove under it, on the ground. He made a fire in this old iron box stove. There was a steel radiator over the stove for heat to pass into the upper room

where he lived. There was a workshop above, the same height, for which Barney Neal did woodwork. In fact, he built a very nice lapstrake rowboat that took him years to build, for he worked only once in a while, over several years, to complete this boat. The man dug on the channel from time to time, and gradually got that done. So a rowboat channel was finished, making a point on the island.

"Now while all this was going on, a three story hotel was built on this point. It was named the New Muscolunge Hotel. It was three stories. It had a crib dock for the Arnold steamers to land at. It ran one summer and during the first fall, after the tourist season was over, it burned down. My father told me about it. The concrete walkway that was around it is still intact, from the huge cottage around and down to the boathouse."

The above is only a part of the story. Next week we'll find out what else was happening on that point.