At left: The Passage Keeper statue in DeTour Village was carved out of a cottonwood tree with chainsaws. It has become a local landmark, and draws many visitors taking photographs. Owners Larry and Bonnie Schlink pose with statue in their front yard on Ontario Street across from the state marina. Throughout the history of the Great Lakes, there have been many types of dedicated onlookers keeping a watchful eye for lake-going vessels to ensure their crews' safety in all types of weather. Lighthouse keepers, harbormasters, and passage keepers are just some of the many nautical caretakers who have helped vessels avoid maritime accidents.

Modern navigational equipment and instruments, however, have made such jobs, and their long maritime tradition, all but obsolete. Around the Great Lakes, many lighthouses and permanent buoys have been preserved for their beauty and to pay tribute to these once crucial jobs.

In DeTour Village, Bonnie and Larry Schlink honor the memory of those workers and their commitment to nautical safety with a 15-foot-tall wooden statue in their front yard. The couple commissioned chainsaw artist Edwin Lafayette to carve The Passage Keeper statue out of a dying cottonwood tree. The Keeper watches out for all ships passing between DeTour Village and Drummond Island.

When the couple moved to their home across from the state public dock on Ontario Street in 2006, a 125-feet-tall cottonwood tree was in the front yard. The tree, which is claimed to have been one of the oldest trees in the village, was struck by lightning the previous year and was barely surviving. The Schlinks tried to keep the tree alive, but ultimately it had to be cut down.

"It was a big tree. We hated to see it go," Mrs. Schlink said. "You'd be out on the water looking toward DeTour and that tree stood above everything else."

Instead of removing the tree completely, they decided to convert the trunk into The Passage Keeper statue. It took Paradise chainsaw artist Mr. Lafayette six weeks in the spring of 2007 to complete the statue, which has since been photographed by hundreds of tourists and is even featured on local postcards.

"I would say at least 200 people stop to take pictures of it every year," Mrs. Schlink said. "There are a lot of people that just pull over to the side of the road and take pictures."

The Schlinks can see every boat that passes through the straits from their home and they said the statue is large enough for boats, including freighters, to see it from the water as they pass by.

The statue is of a bearded man standing with one leg perched up on a rock, gazing out over the water. His right arm, which is carved out of the original tree branch, is holding a lantern over his head. In his left hand is a rope attached to an anchor that lies at his feet. The statue is all one piece, Mrs. Schlink said, except for the lantern, which was carved out of another piece of the tree. The couple wants to install a solar-powered light inside the lantern someday.

While carving, Mr. Lafayette used scaffolding to start at the top, Mrs. Schlink said, and worked his way down, keeping the old man properly proportioned as he went. She said he used five chainsaws of different sizes to carve the statue. Each year, the statue is re-covered in varnish to protect it from the elements.

"The sheer volume and size [of the statue], he had never done anything this large before," she said about the artist. "Edwin did a marvelous job on him."

The couple, originally from Pinconning, vacationed in De - Tour for more than 20 years before moving there three years ago. Since that time, they said many DeTour residents have told them how much they enjoy the statue, as well as stories about playing near that tree when they were young.

"Most people probably would have just taken the tree right down to the ground and that would be the end of it. It'd been here for so long that we felt something should honor that tree," Mrs. Schlink said. "If he could talk, I'm sure he would have told us some marvelous things."