Les Cheneaux
By Helen Shoberg 484-2626 mink@cedarville.net

The Queen Anne's lace along the highways and in the fields is taller and more abundant that I can ever remember. That, along with yellow tansy and the wild daisies that were so prevalent earlier this year, has made my frequent drives to St. Ignace very pleasant.

The rain of last Wednesday was certainly welcome after the unusual heat that we experienced for several days. We complain about the cold during the winter months, but forget the unpleasantness of temperatures nearing 100 degrees. I never thought that I would ever long for air conditioning, but for a few days last week, that was the case. At least we are not in Chicago or some of the other cities that reached 112 degrees. Can you imagine?

At my home, it was nice to see Johnette Shoberg once again. Johnette is the wife of Con's nephew, Wayne Shoberg, and they now live in Arizona. Wayne is the son of the late Tigner and Frances Shoberg, who were residents of Pickford. Johnette returned for her Pickford 50th high school reunion and to enjoy Hay Days in Pickford.

The Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show weekend is coming up and the schedule of events should keep everyone happy, including cocktails, a pork barbecue, musical entertainment, and a street dance on Friday evening. A pancake breakfast, the Festival of

Arts, more music, and the Antique Wooden Boat Show on Saturday are planned.

The summer is once again going so fast. One can already see the evenings growing shorter, so everyone should get out and enjoy what is left. Of course, September and October are my very favorite months, with cooler weather and less frenzied activity. It's a time to settle in and reminisce about all the enjoyable visits and activities that took place during the summer months.

Bruce Patrick's story this week was brought about by the story of the Mackinac/Manitolin Island race that was written in The St. Ignace News last week. The mention of Gore Bay sparked this memory. I remember writing about this incident a few years ago when I heard it from Bob Hossack. However, that was a long time ago and, told in Bruce's words, it is a little different and an amusing story:

"Years back, in fact maybe 100 years ago, my grandfather had left a town on the north shore of Lake Ontario. He had been evicted from Canada for working on Sunday. I do not know the name of this town. So he went overland to Georgian Bay and there he and his wife and three children stayed for the winter. His children were Maud, 8, Ross, 7, and Joe, 6. William (my grandfather) worked in a lumber camp all winter and come spring, he obtained a 21-foot sailboat.

"During the late fall, a barge being towed ran into a reef near Gore Bay. It had a deck load of barrels of whiskey. The salvage tug that went out to try and pull the barge off could not remove it, so they took the barrels of whiskey off and ran them in to Gore Bay. There they put them into a wharf which was built on pilling. When the ice froze up, the residents of the town went on the ice, under the dock, and bored holes with augurs up, hitting the bottoms of the whiskey barrels. They drained every barrel by boring many holes. Come spring when the ice went out, there was no whiskey left!

"My grandmother said you never saw so many parties all that winter. The residents had a grand and glorious time all winter!

"The next spring, William A. Patrick came by sailboat to the Les Cheneaux Islands, where he became a lumberman, making cedar ties by broadax."

It must have been "party time" in Gore Bay all during that winter. The above story reminds me of the wreck of the gasoline tanker in the Straits, which we wrote about a few weeks ago. Necessity is the mother of invention, or is it ingenuity?