A View from a Porch on Mackinac Island

“the idea that abundance was inexhaustible—that fatal Michigan word"...Bruce Catton

Written in the Fall of 1992

    The Lakeview Hotel on Mackinac Island has a large ornate, silver coffee pot located near the front entrance. Next to it is a tray with sugar, other sweeteners, cream, and throwaway cups. We guests help ourselves.

    The air this morning is cool and crisp, typical of mid-September in northern Michigan. There’s fog and mist as well. Rain fell steadily much of the night, and the remnants of that storm remain. Outside, set along the back of the high porch, is a row of cushioned lounge chairs. Other folks are already relaxing there, enjoying their coffee and the scenery. My young son and I join them.

     Rain has failed to wash away the telltale odor of horse manure. If anything, the moisture makes its aroma more pungent. Many of the Island visitors, I suspect, would scream bloody murder were this smell to greet them each morning back home. But here, among the quaint shops and stately Victorian homes, the horses lend charm and appeal. People pay good money for the opportunity to be near them.

      The rhythmic clip-clod of a horse team can be heard trotting down the side street next to the hotel. The beat slows as the team nears the intersection. I catch sight of them as they turn the corner and enter the main street in front of the porch. Their coats are wet. The driver has covered himself with olive-colored rain gear, but also looks damp. The wagon being pulled is loaded with various shapes and sizes of luggage; all protected with a blue tarp. The destination is the Star Lines ferry across from the hotel.

     Shortly afterwards another pair of horses can be heard coming down the side street. This team rounds the corner with a carriage of passengers. They appear to be a group checking out of the Grand Hotel and now heading homeward. They begin climbing out of the taxi and moving towards the Star Lines’ covered loading dock. A couple of porters, meanwhile, are unloading the luggage.

     During this activity bicyclists speed by, all of them seeming to be Island employees going to work or performing some task. A state police trooper strolls down the sidewalk, stops to chat with one of the drivers, then walks on. Other guests come out onto the porch. Some check the temperature and go back inside. Some are already dressed in rain coats or have umbrellas and take off down the street.

    My preschool son fails to appreciate the genteel quality of this setting, the relaxing possibilities. Like many of his fellow countrymen he likes to keep moving. ‘Where to’ is another question.

     Mackinac Island banned the then newfangled horseless carriage back shortly after the turn-of-the-century. The architecture also harkens to that bygone era. Small gestures like the ornate coffee pot likewise are reminders of past elegance and mannered service. But late 20th century is very much in evidence—the clothing we wear, the shop merchandise, the TV playing in the lobby, the sleek yachts in the harbor.

***

  Other history—besides the horse-drawn carriages and 19^th century exteriors—is evident on the Island. Along Market Street, a block off the main business district, are the buildings which once housed John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company.

    Astor’s great fortune began after the United States’ victory in the War of 1812 and the retaking of Michigan from the British. Before this event, fur trading in the Great Lakes region was more competitive, including British interests and independent trappers. With the former gone, Astor’s company soon became the predominant force.

    In Bruce Catton’s book Michigan ‘A History’ (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1976), it describes how the company divided the entire region around the Great Lakes into districts, with the headquarters on the Island.

   “Each district got a manager,” he writes, “who was told where to put his headquarters and instructed to set up outposts (branch offices, a modern executive would say) where he thought they would be needed. District headquarters would consist of a log cabin and a log warehouse, situated at the mouth of some river that drained a spacious and fruitful hinterland, and the outposts would be placed as far up-river as a man in a canoe could readily go, with other outposts on the smaller rivers and swampy creeks that drained into the principal steam.”

     Each fall, Catton noted, trade goods were shipped from Mackinac Island to the multitude of district headquarters and, from there, upstream to the various outposts. The goods were exchanged for furs, brought in by both the Indians and by many semi-independent trappers. The winter’s bounty was then taken from these district locations to the Island.

   A few independents, Catton wrote, survived right to the end of the fur trade, but most either made their deals with the Company or headed elsewhere.

    “Astor was devoted to the notion of making money,” said Catton. “He had one basic idea about the way to exploit the natural resource that interested him, furs; take all there was, as quickly as possible, and then go on to something else.”

    By 1834 he had done precisely that, selling out just as the fur trade began its decline. What was left was a wilderness stripped of its abundant wildlife. The Indian tribes, whose society was based on this wildlife, had both witnessed and took part in their own cultural doom. With the land no longer fruitful, all they could do is make the best deal possible with the American government. “By 1842, Indian title to all lands within the state’s boundaries had been relinquished,” said Catton.

    Beyond the wooden buildings that housed the American Fur Company is another reminder of the Island’s past. The ramparts of the fort stretch along the high bluff which now overlooks a grassy square and the marina. The stone walls are white-washed, the various buildings are also painted white, but accented with the weathering gray of wood-shingled roofs. You can sip a refreshment or order a meal where soldiers once stood guard at this strategic locale.

   From our Revolutionary War days to the start of the 20^th century, the fort remained part of our military defense. It’s hard to conceive the lightning-fast  technological advances that took us from soldiers manning this picturesque outpost to our time of nuclear submarines, computer-driven aircraft, and missiles able to make turns as they head towards their designated targets.

* * *

   The Island has beheld or been part of other booms and busts, ebbs and flows, which have comprised Michigan’s remarkable history. The Grand Hotel, built with white pine, is a reminder of the heyday of the lumber industry and the summer tourists first brought here after the Civil War by railroad and steamship companies. There was the copper and iron ore bonanza to the north along the Lake Superior shores of the Upper Peninsula, and in the populated cities to the south the start of the great automobile manufacturing empire that literally put much of the world inside vehicles powered by internal combustion engines and revolutionized nearly  every aspect of daily life—from farming techniques to where we lived and worked to teenage courtship to shopping habits.

   Bruce Catton wrote that “the idea that abundance was inexhaustible—that fatal Michigan word (has) dominated thinking about the state from the days when Commandant Cadillac’s (French) soldiers arrived at Detroit until his name became a brand of car.”

    The inexhaustible furs were trapped out, the inexhaustible forests of white pine were cut down, the plentiful veins of iron ore and copper have been well mined, the railroads and steamships surrendered their importance to freighters and the automobile. Now we—present-day Michiganders—are observing with much trepidation and uncertainty the decline of our state’s role as ‘automobile center’.

   Government services, career opportunities, income expectations, our own and our children’s futures, and much more are being reexamined, rearranged, and, in many situations, downscaled. We’re learning that man-made resources—just like the earlier natural ones—are not limitless or guaranteed for any length of time.

* * *

    The summer visitors still come to the Island. The beauty of the place has remained despite all those other changes. And people’s need and desire to break away from their routines continue. Most of us relish a bit of leisure, a touch of elegance, and a semblance of those long ago days.

   The horses passing by this porch where we sit are part of the seductive lure. But the future, for us and for Michigan and for our country, will not be found by searching for ways to reclaim previous grandeur. The automobile may remain an important part of our long-range future, but probably (like fur trade) its salad days are now history. Like our grandparents, great-grandparents, and their ancestors, we need to move towards new opportunities, new visions of Michigan’s tomorrows.

    And also, as we gaze off into the distance… at the beautiful expanse of waters, at the green forests which have recovered the land, at the lakes and streams, at the farms and villages and cities, at the manufacturing plants and business districts and schools and churches and government offices… we need to take heed of the lesson. Today’s bounty is not inexhaustible. We are stewards of the land and waters. Of the civilization we have inherited, and of the children and grandchildren we now raise. As we move towards those tomorrows, it is our duty to do right by them. To sustain what has been given us.

* * *

Postscript: As noted at the start of the article, this piece was written a little over 30 years ago. I re-published it in the News & Views a couple of years ago (or maybe more), so readers of that newspaper may recognize it.

The uncertainty of Michigan as an automotive manufacturing center, which I referred to in the composition, has had its ebbs and flows in the years since then: At times the future seems sunny while other times, like in 1992, dark clouds appear on the horizon. Now it’s ‘all things electric,’ so who knows what direction the industry will take and where Michigan will fit in.

Current concerns about climate change and the dire environmental impact it’s having seem to dovetail with the historical lesson Bruce Catton offered—one which I had wished to emphasize. The need for good stewardship of the natural world was called for then and the need has only become more compelling given what’s transpiring.

The preschool son with me on the porch is now 34, with a two-year-old daughter. We have other, older grandchildren as well, and more recently great-grandchildren arrived on the scene. What lies ahead for them and others of their generation, I cannot say, but ‘our duty to do right by them’ remains.

Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and the editor-publisher of the Fowlerville News & Views.