CHAPTER VII.
Lake Huron — Eastern shore of Michigan — Face of the country — Picturesque view — Rivers — Grand — Saginaw — Cheboy-e-gun — Natural scenery — Fort Gratiot — White Rock — Saginaw Bay — Thunder Bay — Bois Blanc Island — Drummond's Island — British Troops — St. Helena Island — Iroquois Woman's Point — Point La Barbe — Point aux Sable — Point St. Vital — Wreck of the Queen City — St. Martin's Island — Fox Point — Moneto pa-maw — Mille au Coquin — Great fishing places — Cross Village — Catholic Convent.
Lake Huron, which, with Lake Erie and St. Clair, washes the eastern boundary of the southern peninsula of Michigan, is two hundred and fifty miles long and its average width is about one hundred miles. Its depth is about eight hundred feet. The southeastern shore of Michigan presents a level surface covered with a dense forest, at points meeting the edge of the bank. The trees of this heavily-timbered land, with their massive shafts standing close together, "cast a gloomy grandeur over the scene, and when stripped of their foliage appear like the black colonnade of a sylvan temple." In advancing into the interior, a picturesque and rolling country opens to view, covered with oak-openings or groves of white oak thinly scattered over the ground, having the appearance of stately parks. The appearance of the surface of the country is as if it was covered with mounds, arranged without order, sometimes rising from thirty to two hundred feet in height, producing a delightful alternation of hill and dale, which is sometimes varied by a rich prairie or burr-oak grove.
The principal rivers of the State are the Grand, St. Joseph's, Kalamazoo, the Raisin, the Clinton, the Huron, and the Rouge. The Grand is two hundred and seventy miles in length, and has a free navigation for steamboats which ply regularly between Lake Michigan and Grand Rapids, a distance of forty miles. The Saginaw empties into Lake Huron and is navigable for sixty miles. These, with the others we have named, interlock their branches running through different parts of southern Michigan, and while they beautify the landscape they afford water-power and fertilize the soil.
The river Cheboy-e-gun is the largest stream in the northern portion of the lower peninsula and empties into the Straits of Mackinaw opposite Bois Blanc Island. At its mouth is a village containing two steam saw mills and one water saw mill. A light-house stands a mile or two east from this point. Brook-trout, bass, pike, pickerel, and perch, are caught at the entrance of the river. In the fall and spring numerous water-fowl resort to the upper forks of the river and to the small lakes forming its sources. These lakes also abound with a great variety of fish, which can be taken by spearing.
The natural scenery of Michigan is imposing. The extensive tracts of dense forests, clothed with the richest verdure, fresh as when it first came from the hands of the Creator; the prairies and lakes which abound, the wide parks, whose soil is entirely covered for miles with large and rich flowers, present a striking and agreeable contrast. The beech and black walnut, the elm, the maple, the hickory, and the oaks of different species and large size, the lind and the bass-wood, and various other kinds of forest trees, plainly indicate the fertility of the soil from whence they spring. Grape vines often hang from the branches a foot in circumference, clustering around their trunks, or thickening the undergrowth along the banks of rivers; and, while the glades open to the sun like cultivated grounds, the more thickly-timbered forests, shut out from the sky by the mass of vegetation, present in summer a gloomy twilight.
In traveling along the main roads of Michigan, splendid tracts of park-like lawns sweep along the path for miles covered with flowers, broken by prairies, thick forests, and lakes.
Fort Gratiot stands at the foot of Lake Huron and commands the entrance to the upper lakes. Advancing along the western shore of this lake the voyager sees a long, alluvial bank covered with a forest of pine, poplar, beech, and hemlock.
On advancing further the banks become more elevated until they rise to forty feet in height. About fifty miles from Fort Gratiot, a large rock rises to the surface of the lake, a mile or so from the shore, which is called the "White Rock." From the earliest period this rock has been regarded as an altar or a landmark. It was to the early voyagers a beacon to guide them in their course; but to the Indians it was a place of oblation, where they offered sacrifices to the spirits of the lakes.
Saginaw Bay is a large indentation of the shoreline like to that of Green Bay in Lake Michigan, but not so large. Near its centre are a number of small islands. Twenty miles from its mouth stands the thriving town of Saginaw. From the northwesterly cape of Saginaw Bay to Flat Rock Point, the shore of Lake Huron presents a bank of alluvial soil, with a margin of sand along its border intersected with frequent masses of limestone rock, in some places ground to fragments by the surging of the waves.