As in many areas of scientific research, serendipity plays a role here. Or, as Louis Pasteur noted in 1854, “Chance favors the mind which is prepared.” Chad Munger, founder of the Mammoth Distilling company in Northern Michigan, was prepared — only he was prepared to recover historic wood from another ship, the Westmorland., to flavor his rye whiskey. Like most of the estimated 4,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, the Westmorland was protected by the government. The James Bentley was owned by a Paul Ehorn, who was willing to sell the wood to Munger. 

Why Munger would be interested in using 19th century sodden wood in his rye whiskey is best explained by his sense of place, interest in history, and marketing instincts. Historic wood-infused taste distinguishes the character of the Mammoth rye whiskey. But when Munger learned about the cache of rye onboard the Bentley, he was awash with possibilities.

And, it turns out, Munger had a connection to Michigan State University, which was founded as the Agricultural College of the state of Michigan in 1855. Why that matters becomes apparent in a coincidence. The distiller’s interest in rye for whiskey met his historical interest in the disappearance of rye from Michigan farms 70 years ago because it was less profitable than corn or soybeans. At the time of the 1878 harvest, Michigan was the nation’s largest producer of Rosen rye. One of Munger’s collaborators found an advertisement from a 1934 Christmas issue of Vanity Fair for Schenley Whiskey, a popular liquor at the time. The ad read: “This whiskey made from the purest rye on earth from South Manitou Island in Michigan, Rosen rye.”

So, the plot thickens as Munger’s historic imagination meets his agribusiness instincts: Could the seeds from the 1878 varietal be regrown on Michigan soil? And if so, could it supply enough rye for his whiskey?

The entrepreneur met Eric Olson, a botany and genetics researcher at MSU. Olson told Munger that if he could recover the seeds Olson would attention to grow them in the lab.

Unfortunately, the seeds didn’t germinate. But Olson is also a genetic scientist. “The seeds aren’t dead at all,” he said. “We can revive the genes that were carried in the seeds and use modern genome sequencing techniques to assemble parts of the genome. We’ll be able to sequence the chromosomes of this rye and transfer those chromosome segments into a modern rye variety, essentially reviving a historic rye.” MSU was able to get 20 Rosen Rye seeds from the USDA seed bank. They have received permission to grow a crop of Rosen Rye seeds on South Manitou Island, Shenley Whiskey’s ad said its rye was grown: “the purest rye on earth.”

There are many treasures awaiting discovery from the cold, fresh waters of the Great Lakes; some are unintended consequences of commercial foraging. 

For the complete story and updates, check out this MSU link:

Since I paused my blog, I discovered “Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour, ” broadcast at 10 p.m. on WCMU Public Media (www.radio.wcmu.org), Central Michigan University. The program notes that the region I was exploring with this blog is home to over 55 million people on both sides of the coast. I am reminded that while I was looking out on the water from the American shore, the region is historically and currently less of a border and more of a shared space, certainly a shared environmental and recreational space. Tom Leonard, host, is set to return with a new series in January. You’ll find him on LinkedIn, where he recently posted about an environmental summer camp held in Michigan for young people. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post:

“The summer months in the Great Lakes region offer a perfect time to engage youth in local cultural and ecological adventures to expand their appreciation of the place in which they live and ultimately in reinforcing their future roles as community leaders. Unfortunately, with schools for the most part closed, many kids lack access to camps or cottages to enjoy the magical and inspirational days of summer around the sweetwater seas.

“For the past two summers I have directed such programming in the Saginaw Bay region with the help of the YMCA and numerous other partners. Given the success of the initiative, I contacted a range of individuals and organizations with the idea of expanding similar efforts throughout the entire watershed under the banner of Great Lakes Summer Odysseys. I have been heartened to hear of favorable reactions from a wide circle of friends in Canada and the US.

“The effort is in its early developmental stage, and I intend over the Christmas holidays to better flesh out the proposaI. I would appreciate any ideas you may have that could lend weight toward achieving Great Lakes Summer Odysseys activities in the warm months of 2025 and beyond!” To learn more Great Lakes Odyssey, contact Tom at tuleonard@msn.com.

I selected a photo from one of my inspirations, John Malone, who took me out on several voyages on Lake St. Clair, ending in a squall that capsized his sailboat and left us treading water long enough to never forget… In the meantime, I plan to resume my journey along the Third Coast in the new year, if not sooner.

Several years ago, I was struck by the growing use of cartography to illustrate conceptional regions. My understanding of map-making was ignorantly based in grade school geography class. In this case, the cartographer was discussing “food deserts.” I’m reminded of my fictional model, Fra Mauro, and his cultural mapping of the world that he was known to chart in the traditional sense.

The Third Coast has national boundaries as well as natural coastlines, or points that jut out. It’s also a “coast of nowhere.”

I began a search to learn more about how journalism, especially good travel writing, create a sense of place, thereby mapping the region with a kind of cultural overlay. I came upon “Pei Yun’s Process Journal,” from the NTU School of Art, Design & Media – Final Year Project. His topic: “Cultural Cartography.” Yun’s journal drew some interesting references from Mapping Reality: An Exploration of Cultural Cartographies, by Geoff King:

• “The fictional, once mapped, may become real.”
• Maps can overpower the boundaries of a territory, in which cartography represents the map similar to its scale of empire.
• “No existence is possible on unmapped ground. Cultural groups create their own mappings, imposing them on and writing them into the territory itself in a way that undermines the distinction between map and territory.”
• “The worlds we inhabit are largely cultural rather than natural and as such are subject to a wide variety of cartographies. None of these is fixed on any ultimate or transcendent ground.”

What’s very interesting is the observation that a map is seen as a “communication channel” for information transmitted from one place to another.” In this context it’s a medium, not a static document. What’s even more fascinating is that “data are to be taken from the real world before being encoded in map form and then decoded by the map user.”

Yun’s journal then goes on to discuss migratory maps, as the cultural migrations of this era are blurring identities of place.

These elements are all relevant in the concept of the Third Coast. The cultural map can overcome boundaries of territory, just as a static image of a lighthouse in Duluth defines place through illumination and mounds of earth below the surface of the lake defines an ancient hunting ground. It is equally defined by the indigenous canoeist who traverses the lakes to define his people’s sense of place, not generally noted in travel maps. And then, the naturalist and environmentalist defines the coast with human inhabitants as perpetrators of destruction or agents of restoration – other creatures looking on. 

And like John Hartig’s reference, we need to turn around and look at the water to understand this coast, which on occasional still days offers a reflection.

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Visual by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

I was also struct by the stark images created by photographer Jeff Gaydash, whose impression of the coast is mystical and suggests ruins in the old moorings and abandoned coastlines. However bleak and ruinous that may be, there are people thriving among the ruins and are doing interesting things. Who are they? Why are they here? What do their actions and comments say about the region? There is a sense of history being remade, as John Hartig poignantly noted that Europeans ventured here to exploit the land, its natural resources and inhabitants, to advance its wealth and civilization. Once the voyageurs went inland, they turned their back to the water, polluted it, and nearly exhausted the region of its natural wealth. However, there are many who have turned to look at the water, and to nature, for their essential qualities of survival and inspiration. As the wildfires and drought define the West Coast, as the storms and rising water define the East Coast, the efforts to restore water, land, and nature is defining this coast. As one of the characters told Fra Mauro, “It is in us all, this desire to experience the kinship that exists between our innermost being and the will that created such a kinship in the first place. As such a desire is realized, we become preoccupied with strange and uncanny aspects in Nature herself. We are almost tempted to regard them as our own moods, our own creations. For my own part, I know that the boundary between myself and nature sometimes wavers and melts away, so that I can no longer be sure whether what I see with my own eyes springs from outward or inner impressions. An experience such as this is one sure way of discovering how creative we are, and how deeply our soil participates in the perpetual creation of the world. The same invisible divinity is at work in our as it is in nature. If the outside world were perchance to perish (as it did for me in Rhodes) I know that any one of us would be capable of rebuilding it. I say here things because I believe that mountain and stream, leaf and tree, root and flower, everything that has ever been formed in nature lies preformed within us and springs from the soul, whose essence is eternity”

I’ve looked and listened for stories coming from the coast of the lake oceans of the Third Coast that help define the soul of the landscape; writers, artists, naturalists, academics are all defining a sense of place and purpose in the region, perhaps unintentionally. There is a sense of resilience and restoration. There certainly are social and political divisions here, but nature is a common space. Even there, there isn’t necessarily a sense of common purpose — and it may be idealistic to think that would, or even should happen. This isn’t entirely Midwest, and it’s not North (as the Alaskans might contend). Its identity isn’t really clear. And for many whose backs are still turned from the water, it may not even be the freshwater coast.

The Third Coast is the edge of two countries, connected across narrow straits in a couple areas. The U.S. Coast Guard and Homeland Security agents patrol it. 9-11 defined it as a region of risk, illegal trafficking, and social difference — even as it pertains to environmental management. The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 helped define a shared responsibility to preserve and protect the inland ocean. We have that much in common.

There is a lot of history in the region, even underwater on the lake beds, that helps inform, if not define the region as less a place to settle and build community than to create commerce that furthers economic gain. There are plenty of folks who create communities around the work, as well as farmers, artisans, and others who are here because of the region, however it’s defined. The Michigan poet Michael Delp once wrote about what he defined as “The Coast of Nowhere,” a region where the large bodies of water, inland lakes, and rivers help define the landscape — a theme that Jim Harrison alludes to in his work. Delp writes, “I take in the coastline, the river where it enters the lake. Somewhere inside, this landscape comes back together, each tree where it belongs, and the sky: the way the sky looks from the deck, looking due south toward the peninsula, staring hard into that middle distance two miles out into the middle of Green Lake, that spot where nothing seems to happen, only empty space, watching from the coast of nowhere, I tell myself, a spot where I send the worst of everything to straighten itself out.”

I’ll continue looking and listening for those who define the Third Coast in hopes I can develop a better understanding of those who inhabit this space.

Story written by Dennis Archambault

Photograph by Jeff Gaydash

Leary’s interest in the music culture of the region is academic as well. He focused his master’s work on the Great Lakes region through the remarkable story of CKLW. In the 1960s, the regional manufacturing economy was humming, largely driven by the automotive industry. Detroit was also producing great pop music: its trademark Motown soul music and the hard rock typified by the MC-5, Stooges, and later White Stripes. Detroit had radio stations, but for what can only be explained as an accident of history, a Canadian station adopted a dynamic format, with a remarkable music director and sensational news department. “The Big 8” took the best of Detroit rock and Motown, mixed it with required “Canadian content” and produced a dynamo that had listeners throughout the region, dipping deep into Ohio and well into Michigan. It dominated the pop music market for over 30 years offering a format that mixed music common to white and black audiences in a way that had no precedent nor a successor. 

In his University of Windsor paper,  “Breaking the States: Windsor’s Gateway Radio Market (1967-1999),” Leary focused on CKLW and 89X, a later, edgier format that held a measure of popularity. His paper was as much a study of the local radio industry as a cultural statement. The study is worth considering from that perspective. What’s interesting is a comment regarding the struggle of Canadian artists to define a musical culture within the dominance of the Americans — ironically, through a Canadian broadcasting signal:

“Concern has been centered upon the aesthetics of Canadian music created throughout the second half of the 20th Century, and how it fails to separate and distinguish itself from American popular music. An aesthetics approach seems almost absurd when considered within a borderlands context such as Windsor, though, which is so heavily integrated regionally with its American neighbor.  The cultural fluidity of the region is extensive, as seen through the daily cross-border flow of business, workers, leisure seekers and the numerous intermarried Canadian-American families on both sides of the border. To imagine a uniquely distinct Canadian culture developing separate of this daily experience is unimaginable. Thus the aesthetics-based arguments on Canadian music are non-applicable within such a borderlands context. Cultural influence crosses the border freely in both directions and this is experienced especially through the media broadcasting. This reality would prove to be a significant obstacle for the federal government in applying its cultural nationalist agenda and would result in a watered down version for the border communities.”

Leary, who also hosts “Traveling Salesmen Radio Hour,” a radio show on a college-based station in Windsor, CJAM,  has taken his interest beyond the the music industry to explore the broader question of what the culture of the Ontario region is, as reflected in song. “I’m a traveling songwriter. I’ve always had this sort of weird feeling that I’m like a used car salesman traveling across the country, singing songs, picking up here and there.” Leary is researching the music of the area north of Lake Superior on down to Lake Erie. “Ontario is a really big province,” he says. “You can drive from Toronto to the Manitoba border and it would take you  24 hours. Up in northern Ontario the songs tend to be more resource based — a lot of mining songs, lumber songs, resource extractions, working class songs…In Southern Ontario it’s more commercial, attached to New York ad Michigan.” Unlike the Canadian West and East coasts, Ontario doesn’t really have an identity. It has a lot of territory, a lot of Canadians, but its culture isn’t really evident — outside of the American influence. Yet, along the border there is a sense of place, he says — a fusion of what it means to be in an industrialized region.

When he’s not touring, Leary conducts research for Canadian universities. He’s interested in another aspect of the region’s shared culture — the Underground Railroad, which connects Black Americans and Canadians. He’s fascinated that as CKLW was pumping Stevie Wonder hits hundreds of miles an every direction, he and other Motown acts were playing small venues in Chatham, Ontario. Their fans from Detroit followed them to the shows, likely to join relatives and friends in Canada.

Leary says life in the border space of Windsor-Detroit is unlike anywhere else in Canada. “I have a lot of really close friends in Detroit. A couple years of being disconnected from that has been a real drag.” Leary looks at culture partially through a historical lens noting that the narrowing of the waterway was at one time all French territory — a settlement on the northern side and one on the southern side. Even with the border, it has really all been one natural place. Only when the the United States implemented Homeland Security measures following the 911 terrorist attacks, and then the pandemic shutdown of the border from both sides, did it feel like Leary was stuck in another place, with radio now longer carrying the music culture across the border as it once did, even if it was a Canadian radio station broadcasting mostly American music. 

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Photo of Ron Leary provided by Ron Leary

The voice of the indigenous people in the Great Lakes has a place in federal government. Bryan Newland, former chairman of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe) on Lake Superior, has been appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of Interior. He previously served as counselor and senior advisory to the Interior’s Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs in the Obama Administration.

Newland’s Twitter account identifies him as “a father… also a miserable & insufferable Detroit Lions fan.” Another feed gives us another perspective. This text accompanies a photo of a windswept, snowy lake view: “Woke up to this scene today. Watched an otter snag a very big fish for breakfast. Then, I watched a very large bald eagle swoop in to steal that fish and fly through my yard with it.”

An attorney specializing in Indian affairs and faculty member of the Michigan State University College of Law, Newland has written in Indian Country Today about the breakdown in communication between the federal government and tribes. “Policies that fail to improve the lives of Indian people, and an adversarial relationship between tribes and the federal trustee. I also know that federal officials have a lot to learn from their tribal counterparts about effective governance.”

Many of us who are not close to the relationship between Native Americans and the federal government lose sight of the fact that we are different nations in the same territory. President Clinton established the requirement of federal government to consult with tribes in 2000 — the first time the federal government admitted a responsibility to communicate. President Obama enforced that, and President Biden has taken the step to allow a Native American lead government consultation with indigenous people.

Law and politics was part of family conversations when Newland grew up. “I always wanted to join in those conversations, and I always had an opinion about the subject of the day,” he told LawNews.com. “As I got older, I became more interested in matters of fairness, and public policy.  The law seemed to be a natural fit for my interests.”

Newland was the first student admitted to the MSU Indigenous Law program. Law and civic duties is a value he has passed on to his family. He has also written a column, “On My Fishbox,” for the Bay Mills News. He received an award for Best Column Writing from the Native American Journalists Association.

It’s significant that in his background statement on Twitter he lists himself as “Father.”

“My hope for my children is that they find fulfillment, and that they give to their communities. I want them to always be connected to our home in Bay Mills, no matter where they live,” he says. “As for our tribe, I want our children to stand on the shoulders of their ancestors and make our community a place where people can make a living, live a life, and continue to share with one another.”

Trusting consultation with the federal government is critical to tribal leaders; certainly that hasn’t been the case throughout history. “It is the cornerstone to sound action, decisions and policies that will advance our relationship with tribal communities,” Newland writes. “Honoring our nation-to-nation relationship with tribes and upholding the trust and treaty responsibilities to them is paramount to fulfilling Interior’s mission.

“Meaningful consultations ensure we center tribal voices as we address the health, economic, racial justice and climate crises — all of which disproportionately impact American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“I am – and we are – listening and learning.”

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Photo of Bryan Newland taken from his Twitter account

The sturgeon moon is a highlight in seasonal transition that brings us to autumn, “a moment to let go and enter the new,” according to blogger Antonio G. Traverso. The sturgeon moon also coincides with the festival of green corn, which occurs in late summer and links to the maturation of the corn crop. This occurrence also serves as a religious ceremony, practiced mainly by indigenous people in the eastern forests and the Southeast: Creek, Cherokee, Seminole, Yuchi, and Iroquois. Corn is not eaten until the Great Spirit has been thanked. Tribal members also give thanks for the wheat, rain, sun, and good harvest.

The sturgeon moon is a ritual of letting go, according to Traverso. It’s akin to similar therapeutic exercises in Western culture. An exercise he describes begins by taking two pieces of paper. During the day, on the first page, write everything consistent with “I am releasing all emotions and regrets from my Body, Mind, and Soul.” On the second page write, “Today I’m creating my future.” Everything you want to do, realize, create, manifest, and be. Eventually, you go to an open place and burn the page of disappointments, allowing the smoke to symbolize “everything that is listed to the Great Spirit or God or Creator as liberation.” You also burn the second page, Turing the ashes into the ground — Mother Earth — with the intention of “planting seeds for tomorrow and every day after.”

Prayer, the word, is related to the word for sturgeon in the Potawatomi language, “Nama.” Sydney Martin, of Bradley, Michigan, tells the story of the sturgeon as a sacred animal, “the one who intercedes for us to the creator, specifically on the weather, making it storm or rain or snow.” As Martin tells it, the Potawatomi were exiled from Michigan during the 19th century “Trail of Tears” saga. When federal officials came to Michigan to remove tribal members from the state’s southwest region, they hid in the woods along the Kalamazoo River. “When the sturgeon would come through there once a year, the Anishinabek (Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Oshawa tribes) would take those; we could dry that and we would have enough food to last our families a year.” Martin extends the significance of the sturgeon as a source of nourishment for the Potawatomi hiding in the woods to the present day, surviving the 2011 Enbridge 6B pipeline break, which released an estimated 1.1 million gallons of diluted bitumen or tar-sands crude-oil into the Kalamazoo River, upstream from the sturgeon spawning grounds. Sturgeon, of course, is an endangered species. “the sturgeon is protecting the sacred river for us — not just Indians but for the whole earth. They probably are doing things that none of us know anything about. They probably are cleaning the river.”

Next month, on Sept. 19, folks in the Milwaukee region of Wisconsin will celebrate “Return of the Sturgeon” as part of “Harbor Fest.” There will be a blessing of the sturgeon and a sturgeon release ceremony. 

Post written by Dennis Archambault

LaSalle, like other French explorers, was navigating the area of North America claimed by the French in hopes of identifying a route to the Pacific Ocean. What they found, ultimately, was the Mississippi River, and a route to the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of gold, which the Spanish plundered in Mexico, they found an abundance of beaver — prized for hats and garments — and timber.

Unfortunately, the Le Griffon falls into the category of maiden voyages gone bad. It made its way to the mouth of Green Bay in modern Wisconsin and disappeared on its return trip with 6,000 pounds of beaver pelts. Great Lakes researchers Steve and Kathie Libert, and their company Great Lakes Exploration Group, LLC, have spent 20 years trying to prove that the Le Griffon sank among the Huron Islands. This year they published Le Griffon and the Huron Islands, with Mission Point Press.

“For 342 years these islands have held the secret resting place of the Holy Grail of the Great Lakes.”

Hundreds of ships have sunk in the Great Lakes since that voyage, captivating the imagination of shipwreck hunters. I wrote earlier about a book of poems, Harborless, written by Cindy Hunter Morgan, which created impressions from the loss of several vessels. But the uniqueness of this one, its historical connection to the early exploration of the Great Lakes region, and the story of Steve Libert make it a worthwhile read. Libert became intrigued “by the mystery of the ship’s demise as an eight grade student in Dayton, Ohio — a long ways from the Great Lakes. “My interest began the day my teacher reached over and touched my shoulder and said out loud in class, ‘Maybe one day someone in this class will find it.’”

As researchers, the purpose of the book is to document their assertion of the “correct” geographic location where the ship sank, the building methods used in 17th century French ship construction, and assembling supportive cultural materials. In addition, the book reveals the location of the huron Islands where Libert believes the ship went down, and “the exciting discovery of a colonial-age shipwreck, precisely where historical documents place Le Griffon’s final moments.” He stops short of identifying the shipwreck as Le Griffon, but the implication is there.

“Le Griffon ended her maiden voyage among these beautiful islands. The confusion as to where these islands were located in present time added to the mystery of the legend. Some historians believed they were in Lake Huron, others in the Beaver Island chain in Lake Michigan.”

Allen Pertner, a shipwreck interpreter, in an analysis included in the book, said Le Griffon was “a new ship for the New World. I see in her what I take as provisions for surviving ice…This wreck has a lot to say and we should listen. If ever there was, this is the time when we need to remember what (J. Richard) Steffy wrote: ‘Research and reconstruction are contributions, recording is a debt.’”

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Woodcut of Le Griffon/Wikipedia

There’s much to be said about the benefits of being separated from the mainland. The provinciality can be a healthy, humane alternative to the metropolis, as noted by Jane Christmas who wrote The Pelee Project: One Woman’s Escape from Urban Madness.

But how remote can you be, really, if you’re not retired with a good retirement account? Unless you’re a farmer or work for the Pelee Island Winery, you have to make money somehow. And tourism is, at best, one of your jobs.

Talking to residents, you get a sense that they like the detachment from the mainland. You might find similar sentiments among anyone living in a remote town, but when you’re surrounded by water, you realize that your connection is timed by the schedule of the ferry or the small commercial airplane. And like most remote towns and villages, internet service has been slow, at best. There is a sense of place and pride of not being connected to the craziness on the mainland. Yet, they are connected and need to be. They need power from the mainland. They need a health clinic and an emergency transportation system. They need a high speed internet — for both the islanders and their seasonal visitors, many of whom are increasingly becoming remote workers.

Recently, the Canadian provincial and federal governments agreed to a $20 million project to connect the island to high speed broadband service. That’s a boon for Pelee. But it’s also another tether to the reality of the world many on the island would rather be disconnected from.

In a sense, islanders want it both ways: the isolation that an island provides, but the connectivity that makes it seem like you never left the digital world. Of course, the digital world in itself celebrates isolation between people who are only miles apart on land. As I observe my weekly designated day disconnected from the internet, I wonder if connectivity will be a good thing for the island. I’m afraid that like the rest of us, Pelee islanders are at risk of succumbing to the digital connectivity that fosters dual realities. In this case, dual remoteness. Just as social media has created a virtual reality — and distance from our other reality — increased access to the internet could exacerbate that, while at the same time reducing the distance that gives an island its allure.

Proponents say that the broadband will enhance sustainability. Irek Kusmierczyk, an Ontario provincial minister said, “For the 300 permanent residents of the island and up to 4,000 seasonal residents, this means they’re unable to participate in our rapidly evolving digital world through employment, education connecting to digital classes, businesses, commerce, and healthcare… Reliable connectivity is not just an internet line and a luxury, it really is a lifeline.”

Yes, it could literally be a lifeline in terms of telemedicine connection. But will it really contribute to sustainability? Sustainability of an island, or any remote place, relies on the ability of human beings to communicate and create bonds built on trust and common good. Community. Pelee Island was known to have a convenience store for islanders, farmers who grew household crops like corn, tomatoes and beans — available at locations where visitors wouldn’t know. And when the tourists go away in the winter and the water occasionally freezes, they are alone, together.  Jane Christmas offered a perspective of how the islanders get by as a remote community — and how they relate to an outsider. 

Pelee Island, and other residential islands in the Great Lakes, have been isolated in extreme ways by the coronavirus pandemic. Pelee Island will have experienced its second restricted tourist season. A decade ago, the island had a promotion campaign that promoted the relative tranquility — “Peleeisland.calm” — that comes with being distant from the chaos of daily urban life. They valued a slower way of life and greater personal relationships. But they looked for the next boat that ferried visitors to experience their world, dine at their restaurants, and taste the wine at their winery. They relied on support from the Provincial government and a complained when that support was inadequate. The isolation that they cherished came at the cost of government neglect. In reality they needed the power cables that run from the mainland. They needed some form of medical evacuation. In short, they needed to be connected from the place where they sought to be disconnected.

The new broadband connectivity will threaten the remoteness of the island, and threaten it with a different kind of remoteness. Having the internet will connect islanders with the rest of the world; and, they will experience a new kind of remoteness.

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Photo of Pelee Island, Ontario

Lake St. Clair isn’t technically a “great” lake. It’s a relatively small body of water that is connected to the St. Clair and Detroit rivers. It’s kind of a large backyard pool for sailers in Michigan and Ontario who don’t have to go far for fresh air and water after work. It’s challenging enough to be interesting — and some experienced sailors would say that it can be as challenging as the ocean. I wouldn’t know. I now know that Lake St. Clair is known to have sudden squalls. 

One pleasant — arguably perfect — July afternoon, John invited me and a few of his other friends for an outing. Oddly enough, we didn’t take any beer or food. I don’t think he meant to be out long. We typically went out into the freighter channel — probably not a good idea under any weather conditions. The lake was pretty busy on Sunday afternoons, especially with regattas, so we would get away from the crowd and enjoy the open water. We raised the main sail and spinnaker and had a smooth glide for some time. John was proud of his “starter” boat. Boating is somewhat of an addiction — you are always looking for the next, larger boat. While he was detailing the boat, I eerily remember John saying that the manufacturer said the boat virtually unsinkable. 

Then, out of nowhere, the wind whipped up in a fury. Rapid swirling gray clouds mixed with white clouds, obscuring the sun. We had been riding the edge and were now soaring faster than I’ve ever gone in that boat. We were taking in water. John ordered the spinnaker down. The waves were rising a good four feet. I rushed to the front and yanked on the spinnaker. It wouldn’t come down. I gave it everything I had, but I couldn’t bring it down. Usually, it came down pretty easily. John and I traded places as he went to the  front of the boat and I took the tiller, a role I was unaccustomed to. More water was rushing into the boat as we kept on the edge. John finally freed the spinnaker and then got the main sail, but the boat was filled with water. Someone found the life jackets. I don’t recall ever seeing them. Someone gave me one, but I never had a chance to properly connect it around my waist.

However long we struggled to maintain an even keel, I can’t say. At some point we were all in the water. The boat was overturned. I thought of Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat.” We were all clinging to the hull of the boat, missing one of the passengers — Carl. I noticed that the boat was slowly descending. I remember saying to John, “I thought you said this boat was unsinkable.” “I did,” he said. At some point there was little left of the hull. John knew that when a boat sinks, it creates a vacuum. It was almost a cliche, but John, as captain, yelled, “abandon ship.” We all pushed off and in a less than a minute were distant from one-another, negotiating the waves.

Because my life jacket wasn’t properly secured, only my head was above water — the rest of the jacket floating perpendicular to my body. I knew enough about treading water from Boy Scout training that I could keep my head above water. I also had to ride the waves as they pulled me up, then crashing down, underwater. I had to time it so I got a breath of air before going under. This happened over and over. I was tiring, but kept riding the wave up, then crashing down. I swallowed a lot of water and eventually vomited. Someone said that could have saved my life. 

I have no idea how long I was out there. At some point, I saw a distorted image of a large yacht motoring toward me. It reminded me of the cartoon, “Clutch Cargo,” which projected boats in a distorted angular way like the artist Cassandre’s commercial posters that gave them dynamic power. I yelled “help,” while riding up the wave, before crashing under. I can’t imagine they heard me, but I kept yelling. They did see me, but the closer the yacht came, the larger the waves. I thought, how ironic, it’s going to take me under for good. I played the waves remarkably well — long enough for someone to throw a life preserver. I remember thinking that this was right out of a movie. I swam to the preserver and latched my arm around it for dear life, literally. They pulled me up and I fell on the deck of the boat unable to move at first. I noticed John and a couple of his passengers. They were Canadians.

The yacht motored in a direction where Carl would be. We found a pair of boat shoes. I thought that was ominous. John mentioned, it was smart thinking. I guess you’re supposed to get rid of your shoes when you’re treading water. Fortunately, Carl was an able swimmer. He survived without a life jacket and was pulled up on another yacht.

We all survived. 

The boat was salvaged, but to my knowledge, John didn’t sail again. I have been on boats, but haven’t sailed again, either.

Post written by Dennis Archambault

Photo of John Malone by Dennis Archambault