Local economics
Friday, 8 August 2014
Hey, a Great Lake! This is Lake Michigan, near the northern shore; the other end laps on Chicago’s toenails. I like this limestone bed that I’m standing on—it acts rather like a shelf along this section of the shoreline. That lighthouse is modest; it’s on the pier off Manistique aiding navigation into and out of the small port. Mostly it’s used by pleasure boaters these days, although the park where I was standing to take this is named after a ship that went down in the late 1950s, about 23 miles offshore. Twenty-foot waves are tough on marine craft.
Two summers ago, if I remember right, it looked like the paper? mill in town would close—a huge blow to this community, which otherwise is managing to hold on with a high school, small harbor, and I think a small clinic. Turned out that at the last minute it was sold, and continued in operation.
Meanwhile, over in Gulliver, the yard seems to have the largest stockpile of logs we’ve ever seen there. Acres. Not sure if it ships into Manistique, or farther west. Pretty sure, though, that the logs leave 1) by rail, and 2) towards the setting sun.