Les Cheneaux
By Helen Shoberg 484-2626 mink1@cedarville.net

Mother's Day was beautiful and sunny and the weather continues to be warm and beautiful. The leaves are popping out on the trees and the snowbirds continue to show up in the Les Cheneaux Islands. In church on Sunday, we welcomed many back from their winter in the southern climates.

We have lost a number of senior citizens this past week, Hugh Wagner, a summer resident of Boot Island, whose family has a lot of history in the Les Cheneaux Islands, and Jean Pinder Burtt, a former Cedarville postmistress many years ago whom many may remember, who died at her home in Zephyr Hills, Florida. Ethel Mielke, our good neighbor on Islington Road for so many years, and Gordon Charles, a syndicated sports columnist for many years. Gordie was a friend of my husband, Con, and made several fishing excursions with him throughout the islands.

A visit with my friend, Joyce Plewes in Zeeland, and enjoying the tulip festival is over once more and it was a real confidence booster to find that I can still drive that distance and handle all of the Grand Rapids city traffic. As I tiptoed through the tulips in Holland, it was such fun being with all of those people again. Having grown up in that area, visiting is there is almost like going back to my childhood.

E-mail messages were piled up on my computer when I arrived home. One of these was special, being from Jean Baker Karloski, a former Cedarville resident, a graduate of Cedarville High, and a subscriber of The St. Ignace News/Weekly Wave. There was a story on the television news a couple of weeks ago about a Ferris State University student who had collapsed. This young man was Brian Gilman, a roommate at Ferris, of our grandson, Josh Izzard. Josh had a part in Brian's resuscitation. Jean's letter reads as follows:

"We had the privilege of meeting Josh at Ferris two weeks ago when we went with our best friends, the Gilmans. Their son, Brian, was a roommate with your grandson, Josh. They had a reception for the people involved in resuscitating Brian after he collapsed at the gym on Ferris campus. A lot of Brian's classmates were there, as well as Josh, and so I asked Brian which one was Josh, because we had heard a lot about him. We were introduced to him and asked him where he was from. I was excited to hear that he is from Cedarville, and so mentioned to him that I had graduated from Cedarville. We continued to talk about Cedarville and people we both knew."

Bruce Patrick's story about the Mackinaw boat continues:

"About this Mackinaw boat and others, I wonder how the Indians, years ago, bent these hard planks! They always heated the common nails red hot, and let them cool. These were used to fasten planks to the frames. Also they got a cracked cedar tree for each rib and whittled each down to size. One could get these cracked trees out along the outside shore line where winter snow had drifted over them. They retained their cracks and had to be whittled down to about two inches square.

"Another part about these Mackinaw boats: where did they get the lumber to plank these boats? I found a place on an island north of Drummond Island where people had chopped down big cedar trees. There were split pieces off the sides of huge cedar trees. Some of the splits did not split just right, so were left. They had green moss growing on the sides. So this must be how they got planking. These split pieces were drawn-knifed down to needed thicknesses. I still can't figure how they bent these planks. We use a steam box now-a-days."

Margaret Pavey won $100 in the Lions Club raffle May 8.

I'm closing with a poem sent to me by Dorothy Soudokoff, who has a cottage on Marquette Island. Dorothy's grandson, Connor Laffin, 12, who is a sixth grade student at Riverside School in Fishers, Indiana, and whose parents, Bill and Denise Laffin have a cottage on Bagnell Road in Cedarville, wrote a poem about the Upper Peninsula that is worth repeating here:

"Summer in the U.P."

The strong white fog and murky water dull your sense of sight. Now you must rely on your keen hearing for the buzzing of the thin, clear line.

This is fishing in the U.P.

The smell of the fresh, pure air clears your mind while you stare at the beautiful pink and red shades of the half-risen sun over Lake Huron. The lake is like glass. Smooth, undisturbed, and silent, but soon to be a wild place.

This is 7 a.m. in the U.P.

Now you inhale the fishy odor of the lake and give a thumbs up. At first, you see everything clearly, but now sharp shards of water are stabbing your eyes. You grasp the soft handles as tight as you can, but still do a flip into the water. Your spine shivers as your feet touch the cold, oozing muck and seaweed from the bottom of the lake.

This is tubing in the U.P.

The seagulls are retreating out into the colorful horizon. They give out one last cry and then are on a short vacation. You are in bed thinking about today's adventures. You can't sleep because you are too busy thinking of tomorrow's endless opportunities.

This is summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

- By Connor Laffin