Manistique area tour
Sunday, 4 October 2009
We took a purposeful touristy wander down the Garden Peninsula, to explore the Fayette Ghost Town, which was abandoned by 1900. Or at least, the iron processing the company town was established to do left in the late 1890s, and few people could have stayed in the dwindling community very long after that. This town was so tony they had a race track! We were fascinated by the limestone cliff on the north side of the harbor mouth and by the silvering piers that held up the docks, as much as anything.
We made a dash north from Fayette to Kitch-iti-kipi, and made it into the park before it closed, and rode the second to the last raft trip of the day. F. counted thirty-five lake trout languidly enjoying the cold waters. I thought there was more algae/plantlife in the spring than I’d seen before, but maybe it was the slightly overcast light. A very special place; its charms are difficult to describe.
We were sustained for these excursion by lunch at the Three Seasons Restaurant, on the east side of Manistique. I had whitefish (don’t know if it was from Lake Michigan or Superior), and we shared a pasty as an appetizer. Very yum.
We played footsie with rain all day, and our timing turned out to be impeccable. We had hoped to make this a Lake Superior day, but our decision to head south instead turned out to be per-fect!