Steamer Northwest, on Lake Superior,
August 11, 1903. }
We reached Cleveland just in time to catch the big liner, which cast off her cables almost as soon as we were aboard. A vessel of 5,000 tons, a regular sea ship. The boat was packed with well-dressed people, out for a vacation trip, most of them. By and by we began to pass islands, and about 2 P. M. turned into a broad channel between sedgy banks—the Detroit River. Many craft we passed and more overtook, for we were the fastest thing on the lakes as well as the biggest.
Toward 3 P. M., the tall chimneys of the huge salt works and the church spires of the city of Detroit began to come into view. A superb water front, several miles long, and great warehouses and substantial buildings of brick and stone, fit for a vast commerce.
The sail up the Detroit River, through Lake St. Clair, and then up the St. Clair River to Lake Huron, was as lovely a water trip as any I have made. The superb park “Belle Isle,” the pride of Detroit; the many, very many, villas and cottages all along the water-side, hundreds of them; everywhere boats, skiffs, launches, naphtha and steam, all filled with Sunday pleasure excursionists, the many great pleasure excursion steamers loaded down with passengers, gave a life and liveliness to the water views that astonished and pleased us.
The Lake St. Clair is about twenty miles across, apparently broader than it is, for the reason that its sedgy margins are so wide that the trees and higher land further back seem the real border of the lake. What is called the “St. Clair Flats” are the wide, low-lying lands on each side of the long reaches of the St. Clair River. Twenty miles of cottages, hotels, club-houses, are strung along the water-side, each with its little pier and its boats.
Towards dark—eight o’clock—we came to Sarnia and Port Huron, and pointed out into the great lake, second in depth to Superior—larger than any but Superior—a bit of geography I had quite forgotten.
At dawn on Monday, we were skirting the high-wooded southern shore, and by 11 A. M. sighted the fir-clad heights of Mackinac where Lake Michigan comes in. Here is a beautiful protected bay, where is a big hotel, and the good people of Chicago come to forget the summer heats. After half an hour, we turned again and toward the north, in a half circle, and by 4 P. M. were amidst islands and in a narrow channel, the St. Mary’s River.
THE WATERSIDE, CLEVELAND.