Introduction
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for nearly 7 years. It seems like just yesterday that Carolyn and I packed up our cars and drove north over the mighty Mackinac Bridge one bitterly cold, February day. When we arrived in Munising the bay was iced over and we were greeted by feet of snow that covered the streets and buildings. It was an intimidating scene. It felt as if we were transported through time and had arrived in a different dimension altogether, one where the only color was white and the wind was something I’d never experienced before as it whistled and howled across a frozen lake that appeared to extend into infinity. I wondered if we were making the right decision moving here, and if so, how long we were going to last in a place like this.
I wrote an initial blog post about our move, and then published a status update later in the year after we purchased our home. Over the remaining years I haven’t written much, just a few blog posts on our annual backpacking adventures and our hiking company, but nothing substantial about what life has been like living in a place that, at times, seems very different and far removed from the reality of most average Americans.
We have grown to really appreciate our life in the UP and specifically the area we live, Au Train, Michigan. As the years have pressed onward I find myself reflecting on my life over the past years and what this chapter of my life has meant. By all measures it is far different than the “adventuring” years. In fact, nearly the same amount of time has passed between first stepping foot on the Appalachian Trail in 2011 and finishing the Mississippi River in 2017, from us arriving in Munising, Michigan in early 2018 up until now. I look at that period of transient adventure with great fondness and (at times) envy, but the life that I have built after that is something that surprised me and something that I have grown to equally love and enjoy.
Early last December in 2023 I took the half mile walk from my front door down to Au Train Beach. We’ve walked down to the beach too many times to count as it’s a picturesque destination for a quick stroll to stretch the legs and get some fresh air. As I got pummeled with wind nearing the shoreline, I was greeted with an impressive view of the bay with ice capped sand and a beautiful sky. I’ve seen the beach and bay so many times that I’ve noticed the small changes it makes through the seasons: the way the river shifts and the dunes move, the way the ice forms and then melts, the driftwood that washes up to shore, the dune grass growing and receding, the way the water can be so calm on some days and on others so turbulent. It occurred to me that whenever I walked down to the beach, it was almost always never the same. Something was different all the time.
As I sat on the bench overlooking the cold expanse and daylight was drifting away, I looked back on the past years and thought about the changes in my own life. It was not as abrupt as autumn coming to an end and winter appearing in the form of snow, but the transition happened slowly, almost like a tree growing, where you don’t notice how tall a tree has truly gotten unless you look back at a picture of it as a sapling. Change is slow to happen this way most of the time, but change is always happening, and the world is always in transition. In many ways change is hard to notice while it’s occurring, but often difficult to comprehend once it has.
As I journey through my own life, time is a constant point of fascination for me. I think about the past and of the future a lot. Where have I come from and where do I want to go next? Time has limits and I’m always constantly reminded of this. The face I see in the mirror looks much different than it did 7 years ago. My beard is starting to grey. My body has aches and pains that weren’t there before. The way I perceive the world is different. Goals and priorities have taken on different meanings.
As I sat staring at the Lake, I wondered what it could teach me about change. If you happened to photograph this spot along the shoreline over the course of a year, how different would the beach look through the seasons? What would I learn about the practice of observation? What insights could I gain about the place that I now call home?
I had been searching for a creative project for a while but nothing had seemed to inspire me. Perhaps, I thought, this was a project I could latch on to and focus some energy. Instead of looking for the next grand adventure, perhaps what was more meaningful at this point in my life was to rediscover what was just beyond my front door and take a deeper look at the place that has now become my home.
The words and pictures that follow are an account of my year walking down to the beach and around town to take photographs, and of my life in far northern Michigan in a small town. It turned into more than a study of change, but a reflection on what a simple life is and what it means to find connection to a place.
As I stood on the beach that blistering December day, I took out my camera and turned it on. I surveyed the large expanse before me, a giant sea of freshwater that stretched on as far as the eye could see. Goosebumps rose along my flesh as the wind stung my exposed fingers. I found a composition and put my camera into focus, making sure the exposure was just right.
I took a breath and held the view finder to my eye, snapping my first photograph.
I released my breath and watched it escape into the frigid air. Deep winter would be coming soon, along with lake effect snow, more wind, and colder days. I wondered what the year ahead would bring and if I would carry through with my plan.
I looked at Lady Superior one last time as daylight exhaled its final light. I’ve seen her a thousand times, yet she still impressed me. An easy thing to do when you stretch into infinity, your horizon a simple blurred line separating water from sky and the stars and the moon and everything else beyond.
After a final glance, I turned around and began walking home, a pale moon just beginning to rise over the barely visible silhouette of tree line to the east.
I’ll be back again soon, I whispered to Lady Superior underneath my breath.
Don’t go anywhere without me.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
January
Au Train is a small town of about 1,000 people (65% year round residents) that rests along the southern shoreline of Lake Superior in Alger County, Michigan. There is only one traffic light (a singular blinking yellow light) that straddles the M-28 corridor, which is the main road that connects the town of Munising 15 miles to the east and the largest city in the UP, Marquette, 30 miles to the west. It is a quiet town that in the summer months sees an influx of visitors. It’s quieter in the winter months but the snowmobile trail that runs through town brings in its fair share of tourists, as the small Au Train Grocery is the only gas station within 15 miles. There are no sit-down restaurants in Au Train, but the Grocery has some of the best pasties in all of the UP, or so it has been said, and The Outpost has pizza and ice-cream. What else would you possibly need?
We live down a dead-end road in the Village of Au Train, on a dredged out section of the Au Train River. We have a few neighbors but maintain our privacy due to the many trees that surround our property. The woodland on our property is dominated by jack pine with a few maple and birch trees intermixed. Our backyard provides a nice view of the Au Train River with tall grasses and alder bushes that grow along the banks. In the winter months the river freezes and you can see deer and other wildlife using it as a trail.
Winter in Au Train starts in mid-November but tends to pick up in intensity once December comes along. The potential for lake effect snow is most prevalent in December and January when Lake Superior is still warm from the summer months but the atmosphere is cold. This difference in temperature is what creates lake effect snow. The predominant winds are from the north and northwest, which blows snow bands in our direction. Most of our snow comes in the form of lake effect snow rather than system snow, although we do get the occasional large snowstorm that pushes in from the west. On a good year, Au Train can receive up to 250 inches of snow in a single season.
Average high temperatures are usually somewhere in the 20s, and it rarely gets too cold (single digits or lower) during the day. Being close to the lake moderates the temperature. If you were to drive only 10 miles inland it would be much colder (and inversely, much hotter, in the summer). Lake Superior creates its own weather patterns and it is a force of nature not to be taken lightly.
Winter is a very quiet time, with periods of immense silence punctuated by the hum of snowmobiles from the nearby trail and the waves crashing against the shelf ice that begins to build along the shoreline. Each season has its own personality but winter is perhaps the most photogenic. The different ways the ice freezes along the lake, the layering of snow, and the way the sun remains low in the sky, offers the opportunity for unique, always changing landscapes.
I took my half-mile walk down to the beach seven times during January to photograph the bay. Sometimes the weather was pleasant, but more often it was challenging, with wind and snow and short days brining darkness to the late afternoon hours.
January is in a lot of ways the true start of winter. December gives you a taste and makes you adjust to the snow and cold, but by January, you more or less have settled in and snow and wind and cold days become the norm. It’s foolish to really even think of warmer weather. If there is anything I’ve learned living here in the winter it is to take each day one at a time. It will snow a lot, sometimes 3-4 times a week. The key is to embrace this phenomenon and try to enjoy the bounty.
It’s this embracing mentality that gets people through the cold and snowy months. You have to be tough to live here, that much is true. And perhaps a little bit (or a lot a bit) crazy. I think everyone that decides to live here year round may have a screw or two loose upstairs, myself certainly included.
But once you get into the swing of things, it really isn’t so bad. Sometimes, I admit, I rather enjoy it.
January 1st
January 8th
January 12th
January 13th
January 15th
January 17th
January 23rd
February
The days get slightly longer by February but the snow and wind still remain. At this point ice has mostly overtaken the bay and builds up in mounds along the lakeshore. In normal years you can walk out on the ice shelf but you have to be careful. The scene once you’re out there is alien. It’s almost as if you’re walking somewhere in the arctic ocean and at any minute a polar bear will emerge from around the next sheet of ice.
In 2024, however, the winter was very mild. We did not get a lot of precipitation and the weather was warm. The surface of Lake Superior freezes on average around 60% according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), but during 2024 it only froze around 2% by mid February. Some years you can walk for a tenth to a quarter mile or so out into the bay on frozen waters, but this year was a little different and you weren’t able to do much of that at all. I wonder how climate change will impact Lake Superior in the long term. Will we see warmer winters with less ice and snow? Or was this just an abnormality and next season it will return to normal? As global temperatures trend upward, it will be interesting to observe this change in real time and what the lasting effects will be on the Great Lakes.
Since moving to the UP, Carolyn and I have picked up a few new winter hobbies. Perhaps the most enjoyable is snowshoeing. We can walk from our house to a two track that takes us into the Hiawatha National Forest. We have a large 8 mile loop that we like to do from our house that takes us through the forest and to the east end of Au Train Beach, passing by frozen Scott Falls near M-28. We then walk a mile along the beach to the Au Train river and then take off our snowshoes to finish the loop by walking on Au Train Forest Lake Road back to our house. We try to do this at least once every year as it’s a fun adventure we can have without driving anywhere.
I’ve also gotten into cross country skiing. I bought a pair of skate skis a few years back and have really enjoyed spending time on the weekends hitting the trails at nearby Valley Spur. Skate skiing has become a great alternative to winter running. Valley Spur is a wonderful area that has over 30 km of groomed trails. Last year I spent several weekends at the lodge volunteering which was a fun experience. Duties included stoking the fire, collecting donations, and answering questions about the trails. Friends show up and it’s a nice place to connect and talk. Having worked from home now for nearly three years I find that I’m not socializing much with people during the week. Especially in the winter, this was a good way to connect with others and talk to someone other than Carolyn. I think she appreciated the time away from me and getting the house to herself!
Running becomes a little more difficult in the winter but we both still take the time to get out there and do it. We are lucky that the main road through Au Train is paved which creates a nice surface to run on during the winter months. At times it is just packed snow, but without this road it would be nearly impossible to run anywhere else. Au Train Forest Lake Road has some vehicle traffic but it is often very quiet during the winter. Snowmobilers use the side of the road to connect to vacation rentals and to get to the main trails. At the two-mile mark running south, beautiful Au Train Lake emerges, an 830 acre body of water that completely freezes in the winter. On weekend morning runs we usually spot a variety of huts out on the lake as fishermen try their luck. The lake is stocked with walleye, northern pike and perch and the huts stay out there for most of the winter.
A lot of time spent in the winter is dedicated to snow removal. I have a large 306cc blower with a 28” mouth. It’s powerful. My driveway isn’t too big but it is not small either and takes around an hour or so to clear off, shovel the driveway, and remove snow from the edges of my roof. Yes, you read that correctly. I am a proud owner of a roof rake. It is an important piece of snow removal equipment as it prevents ice damming on the edges of my roof. The first year we moved into the house, the winter of 2018-2019, we got an incredible amount of snow and I let it all pile up on my roof not thinking anything of it. I ran into some big problems that year and now I make it a habit to remove about 2-3 feet of snow from the edge of my roof each storm. It’s much easier to keep up with than letting it accumulate. This has been a good strategy for me for the 5 winter seasons that have followed. I have a wonderful neighbor, Richard, who has a plow and will sometimes remove the snow from the beginning of my driveway. It is a big help and a testament to how people look after one another here.
Along with raking the roof I make it a habit to remove the snow from the back deck. I could let it pile up but I guess I like having the deck clear of snow. I snow blow a path around my house so I can get to the back deck and also around the other side of the house so I have a path down to the basement. Since we can’t access our basement from inside the house, I need to make sure a path is cleared to the door on the outside.
Sometimes I’ve found myself doing snow removal activities 3 or 4 times a week (sometimes more!). During the 2021-2022 snow season I kept a record for how many times I performed snow removal activities. I got up to near 50 that season before I stopped counting. The county does a (usually) good job of clearing our road and the surrounding roads. Even after a good dumping, the roads are cleared fairly quickly and we’ve never found that we are stuck homebound.
Perhaps the biggest hazard of the winter is driving on M-28, the main road that connects Munising to Marquette. In spots it is exposed to the lakeshore, which during a lake effect event, can produce white-out conditions. It’s normally not the volume of snow that is the problem but the visibility. We’ve had many drives on this road where our knuckles were just as white as the view through our window. The rumble strips on the road offer a good guide in the event you cannot see at all. Hit the rumble strip on the right, correct to the left. Hit the rumble strip on the left, correct to the right.
It’s saved my ass more times than I care to admit.
February 2nd
February 17th
February 18th
February 25th
March
March is a long and difficult month. By all measures it is still very much winter although by now the snow has started to decrease in intensity. Average temperatures tend to creep up through the month but it is still cold and below freezing. The ice cover on Lake Superior is typically at its highest, except for 2024, which saw a massive warm-up which melted the majority of the snow and eliminated virtually all lake ice on Superior.
By this month we are already 3+ months into winter and fatigue starts setting in. Skiing and snowshoeing are still the primary hobbies but thoughts migrate to warmer months. Days become significantly longer which improves the mood and brings generally sunnier afternoons before the cold night creeps back in.
The majority of winter is spent indoors although we try our hardest to get outside everyday for some type of exercise. Carolyn and I have our own hobbies that keep us busy inside. She is a reader and crafter and I have a video game habit and also enjoy cooking. Over 2024 Carolyn has learned how to brew her own Kombucha and has gotten quite good at it. She also spends a lot of time cross-stitching which she gives as gifts and is also working towards submitting some of her art to the UP State Fair in Escanaba next summer. Winter is a good time to experiment with new recipes which is a fun activity on lazy Sunday afternoons.
Winter is also a good time to plan for the summer months and warmer activities. I often daydream about the next backpacking trip and where I want to go. Getting out of the UP is critical for our mental health, even though we do enjoy it here. Sometimes you just want to get a little taste of a big city or go to a new location. One thing that we both really miss is access to decent restaurants. There are a few spots we’ve found that we like in Marquette, but sometimes all we want to do is chow down on some Chipotle, which sadly is about a three hour drive away to the closest one. When you live in a place like we do, you are pretty much forced to cook the vast majority of your meals at home. I like cooking (most of the time) so this doesn’t bother me much, but it would be nice to have the option to get a quick meal out if we wanted to without driving to Munising or Marquette.
We do all of our grocery shopping in Marquette. A Meijer opened there in 2019 and we are very grateful that it did. We take the trip to Marquette about once a week to stock up on groceries. It’s about a 45 minute drive to Marquette, which really isn’t too bad, although we both often think it would be nice if we lived a little bit closer. I write down a menu for the week in my notebook and then collect all the ingredients at the store. During our trips to Marquette we will almost always have a meal out. Our favorite spot lately has been the Big Boy in town for breakfast. You can laugh all you want, but the Pick 5 deal is pretty sweet, and very reasonably priced. Are there better breakfast spots? Sure. But you’d be hard pressed to find something else that balances service, quality and value so well!
Other restaurants we visit routinely are La Catrina, which is a Mexican eatery, the 906 Bar, which has good sandwiches and burgers, and if we are feeling fancy or celebrating an occasion, the Delft Bistro, which is a classy establishment that offers something a little more chic.
If we want something quick, our main go-to is Taco Bell, followed by Subway or Jimmy John’s. There’s a lot of decent restaurants in Marquette and they even got a Panera Bread and Texas RoadHouse over the last year. Other big chains include Red Lobster, Applebee’s, Culvers and Buffalo Wild Wings.
Big city living!
March 5th
March 8th
March 11th
March 17th
March 14th
March 18th
March 18th
March 21st
March 28th
April
Ah, yes, my least favorite month of the year. April. Winter still has a firm grasp in the beginning of the month, while spring is trying its hardest to tug it along into the next season during the end.
April can still have its fair share of surprise snowstorms. During our first year living in the UP 28 inches of new snow were received just before Easter around the end of April. At the time, I wondered if spring and summer would ever arrive, but indeed, given enough time, warmer temperatures did return and began to melt all of the snow.
April is my least favorite month because it is truly a transition period from winter to spring. There is often either too much snow or muddy and messy conditions persist as the deep thaw descends over upper northern Michigan. Not enough snow for winter sports, yet not enough dirt for trail running and hiking. Depending on the roads and weather, it is often possible to get some early bike riding in, but this would be a special occasion not possible in most normal years. Perhaps the only good thing about April is that it starts to become noticeably warmer. Temperatures will return into the 40s (maybe even the 50s!) and you begin to smell the earth again which has been hiding beneath a blanket of sterile, frigid air, for nearly six months.
Songbirds such as red winged blackbirds, robins, sparrows, yellow warblers, and others will return to the area during the very end of April, along with migratory geese and trumpeter swans. As the temperatures rise so do the songs of these avian wonders with increasing intensity and volume. Once dormant chipmunks and squirrels also begin scampering around the yard again as hunger motivates them to find food.
One thing I notice during the spring, which I don’t see often in other months, is an increase in river otter activity. Thin layers of ice are slow to melt along the river which they seem to enjoy playing on. There is a den along a portion of our riverbank near our gazebo, but they are pretty elusive a lot of the time, and we don’t see them too often. But when we do, however, it is certainly a special treat.
April 4th
April 9th
April 10th
April 24th
April 30th
May
By the first week of May, the snow is mostly gone. Some larger mounds are slow to completely melt out, especially in heavily shaded areas, but by the second week of May, it would be difficult to find any left. At the same time, remaining lake ice begins its final melting stages, leaving behind large icebergs that shrink day after day until they too are only a distant memory.
Much warmer weather returns which primes the growth that is soon to follow. Buds begin to form on the maples, elm and birch, while green grass slowly emerges from the dead, yellow stands of the prior years’ tall reeds that grow along the river bank. Some years it takes a while to see this green revolution. Temperatures fluctuate from warm to cool and a surprise frost is still possible even as Memorial Day nears. But the transition always happens, and when it does, it brings a sense of joy and hopefulness.
One of the best parts of living in Au Train is the river and the many waterways that it connects to. By May, ice has melted out and we can start paddling the river again. The Au Train river begins in a basin eight miles as the crow flies south and then begins its initial descent northward through a narrow, shallow and unnavigable channel that eventually deposits into the south end of Au Train Lake. From the north end of the lake the river starts back up again and winds its way north through tall banks. Several houses straddle the banks in this section before the river reaches the first bridge, Cameron Crossing, which is a popular put-in spot for kayakers and canoeists. The next five miles are a stunning paddle through the Hiawatha National Forest. The Au Train River is sandy and shallow, winding through a combination of wetlands and mature white pines that hover like giants over the small, gently flowing river. Near the end of this stretch the river passes beneath the second bridge, named Doucette. For most people this is the end of their journey, but the river goes on for another 2.5 miles before it reaches its final destination at Lake Superior. Our house rests along this stretch, in an offshoot that, I’ve been told, was a result of dredging many many years ago.
The river in its final stretches is much wider and deeper. Wetland habitat with tall grasses and reeds dominate the immediate stretch near our home, and then turns into a mix of woodland and private residences that overlook the river. From our backdoor, it is a two mile paddle to the mouth along this stretch, and this is perhaps one of my favorite things to do in the spring, summer and fall when the weather allows for it. There is something very novel about launching from your back yard and then, 50 minutes later, emerging into Lake Superior. I’ve paddled this stretch countless times and it is always enjoyable. The river is gentle and slow flowing in this section, which makes it possible to paddle up river without too much additional effort back to the house.
Several years ago Carolyn and I purchased stand-up paddle boards which, in my opinion, was probably one of the best purchases of any sports equipment in recent memory. We also have an old aluminum canoe, a 70s era Ouachita, which I purchased from someone off Craigslist when we first moved here. The model is the same model of canoe that I used on my descent of the Mississippi River in 2017, so it is very special to me and I consider myself quite lucky to have found one. We don’t take the canoe out too often, preferring the paddleboards, but it’s nice to have a few different options.
By Memorial Day weekend we see more tourists around town. It’s the start of the summer season and there is much to look forward to.
May 3rd
May 6th
May 12th
May 13
May 15th
May 16th
May 20th
May 21st
May 31st
June
By June summer has mostly arrived although the beginning of the month can still see cooler temperatures. All the leaves are out on the trees and spring flowers are abundant in the forests. Trilliums and white primrose blanket the forest floor as wood fern begin to sprout from the soil and hyacinth emerge from growing grasses.
Perhaps the one thing that June is known best for is the almighty mosquito. Snowmelt from the long winter along with spring rains from May produce nutrient rich hatching grounds once the temperatures begin to warm. You’ll spot a few, pesky lone travelers at first, drunkenly buzzing about haphazardly, perhaps even minding their own damn business, and then, a few days later, swarms of the darn things will descend upon the land in end-of-times magnitude, attacking any piece of exposed flesh available. Just as the weather is warm enough to wear a t-shirt outside, you better think twice, as only the toughest of souls would even brave such an act. They are so bad that any yard work, including lawn mowing, must be done with long pants and a shirt as well as a bug net. Oh, your wrists were exposed? Too bad.
After the first hatch, it’s always a good sign if the temperatures dip back into the 30s, even just for one night. Better yet if an unexpected freeze comes along. The cold could kill the first hatch and create space for a milder bug season. Some years this happens, which is nice, but for others we aren’t so lucky. Most of June is spent running from the car into the house, or from the house into the gazebo, especially in early morning and at dusk, when their activity is at its most electric.
Your best friend is a bat that may happen to take up residence in a nearby tree or in the barn. We can sometimes see them flying around at night which is a special sight, and on a few occasions, have even seen them sleeping in our barn. Bats love mosquitos just as much as I hate them, so as far as I’m concerned, they are welcome to live in my backyard for however long they want.
Blackflies are not as common where we live on the immediate river, however, you’ll certainly find them a short walk away in the nearby Hiawatha. Blackflies don’t tend to stick around too long unlike the mosquito. Our mosquito problem loses steam closer to the end of June, and by July, they are still there, buzzing about like annoying nincompoops, but are much more manageable and less blood-thirsty.
With June arrives the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. We are still in the Eastern Time Zone even though we are far enough west to be in Central Time, so the sun does not set until close to 10:30 on June 21st. It’s nice to have so much daylight available even if it may be harder to fall asleep at night.
Thunderstorms may start to develop in June, although we get fewer storms compared to locations further south in Michigan and Wisconsin. Even so, they are fun to watch roll in over the river or the lake. The sound of rain hitting the river and falling on the house is comforting. It replenishes the river levels and makes the plants grow and is necessary for a functioning ecosystem. The only bad part is the mosquitos that follow.
You just better hope you’ve made friends with a few bats.
June 10th
June 22nd
June 24th
July
Summer has fully arrived. Warmer days fill long daylight hours and some may even be hot enough to go swimming, which has, overtime, become one of our favorite summertime activities. The Au Train River is much warmer than Lake Superior and becomes a popular swimming spot in the summer months. Cars fill in at the upper parking lot as beach goers spread their blankets, chairs and umbrellas along the beach. It’s hard to imagine that just a few months ago you would be so brave to even consider this summertime activity a possibility.
On hot afternoons we’ll hop on the bikes and take the short ride down the street, beach towels and a book tucked underneath our armpit. The ride through town is busier then, with many cars parked at The Outpost and the Au Train Grocery, and people walking and biking on the street from their various vacation rentals nearby down to the shoreline. It’s quite a different scene compared to the calmer off-season months, but it’s (mostly) nice to see the tourists in town as it means money coming into the community for the businesses that rely on it.
A number of AirBnB type rentals are scattered all over Au Train. Some are on the river, along Au Train Lake, and others in more remote woodland locations. There’s a National Forest Campground on the south shore of Au Train Lake that serves as a more rustic getaway for car and tent campers. There is a wonderful trail called the Song Bird trail that meanders for two miles through picturesque maple and beach forest and along bubbling Buck Bay Creek. Other popular destinations include Au Train Falls which is a short few miles drive south from Au Train Lake. And if you are up for an adventure, the Rock River Canyon Wilderness is not too far to the west through winding, tree-lined dirt roads that take you to a spectacular trail to Rock River Falls.
Outdoor summertime recreational opportunities are numerous in this small area. Whether it is fishing, paddling, bike riding, swimming, running, or lazing on the beach, it is a special area that connects visitors to nature and paints a quintessential image of what the Upper Peninsula is all about.
During the summer we often joke that we live in vacationland. For the most part, this is true. After lazing for the afternoon at the beach, soaking up the sun and trying to capture all the Vitamin D we can muster to survive the next winter, it is special to be able to hop back on our bikes and in five minutes be back home.
We’ll take a shower and then make our way to the back deck, crack open a beer, and observe the river and its wildlife. Perhaps we’ll see a kayaker enjoying the gentle flow of the river, or a flyover from a blue heron, or the quiet chatter of vacationers around a campfire. The sun will begin to get low and the sky will fragment with pink and purple hues as it magnifies the sky and reflects off the water. A sense of calm will come over us as the cicadas and crickets begin their nighttime symphony and the great horned owl that lives nearby begins its mellow hoot. Warm air stirs as a gentle breeze off the lake softly rustles the pines overhead.
The moon will then begin to rise over the tree line line to the east. A giant orb the size of a silver dollar grows smaller as it rises into the heavens above. The first stars become visible as pink and purple sky transition to indigo and then black as the nighttime canopy forms. And then, a million stars emerge from the blackness, a spectacle that makes me feel small inside as I ponder the infinite space right above my head.
Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is all real. Is it?
Summer in the UP holds a special type of magic. It’s like capturing lightning in a bottle, year after year.
There’s nothing else quite like it.
July 5th
July 6th
July 7th
July 26th
July 29th
August
August is similar to July but by now the mosquitos have mostly been replaced by a number of biting flies. There’s deer flies and horseflies to contend with, along with sandflies down by the beach, which are perhaps one of the most difficult flies to kill with your bare hands as they possess superb reflexes that only the most skillful in the biting-arts are able to overcome. If you want lessons some time let me know – I will teach you the appropriate technique.
Flies are annoying, but maybe more so if you are a runner. There’s nothing more aggravating than running while an angry herd of deer flies keep circling your head, landing on your neck and shoulders and trying to take a bite out of you. It is no surprise that my running times vastly improve during the month of August.
Open, sunny dirt roads are mostly avoided during August for this very reason. However, there are many other places to run where the flying insects are less annoying. Our favorite is the North Country Trail which passes across Au Train Forest Lake Road about four miles south from our house.
The NCT holds a special place in our hearts and I find it pretty neat that we live so close to a National Scenic Trail. We have the option to run or hike east or west, and both directions present a superb single track trail experience that meanders around beautiful hard and softwood forests through the Hiawatha National Forest.
Our local volunteer chapter of the NCT is called the Superior Shoreline Chapter. We have been volunteers with this group since the first summer we moved here and it has been a great experience being involved and giving back to the trail. We have adopted a five mile section of trail where we chainsaw trees that have fallen over it and clip back saplings that are beginning to encroach on the trail. This summer we were involved in a large reroute of the trail and spent many hours building new trail to get a portion of the NCT off the nearby road and into the forest. It’s a great group of folks and it feels good giving back to the community in a small way.
Besides the NCT there are so many other places to run nearby. A large connecting network of dirt roads and ATV/snowmobile trails crisscross the Hiawatha and you can run for miles and miles without seeing another soul. There is a ridge to the west of town where one of these trails traverses. From up top you are presented with gorgeous views of Au Train Bay below as cars travel along the M-28 corridor driving towards Munising or Marquette.
Other routes take us behind the Au Train River towards Joel Creek and some dirt roads beyond. There is an old, unmarked trail here that takes you deep into the woods and towards Joel Pond. This was an early discovery living in Au Train and you can follow this vague path for miles south, along the eastern edge of Au Train Lake. There’s other Forest Service Roads between the two bridges of the Au Train River that take you to its many sandy bends and banks. The Forest Service has been working for a few years building an all new parking area which will become new put-in and take-out spots for paddlers.
Right from our front door there are so many places to explore, either by hiking, running, bike riding or paddling. For someone who enjoys this type of activity, there is no better spot in the UP that I know of which offers such a variety of activities (of course, I’m being terribly biased here!).
The ability to access all this by just walking outside our front door is truly special.
August 1st
August 8th
August 11th
August 12th
August 31st
September
September is a special month for us as it’s home to Carolyn’s birthday and is also our wedding anniversary. We marked an important milestone this year as we celebrated 10 years of marriage. It’s interesting to think that for the majority of this time we have lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Au Train is the least likely of places either of us would have expected to end up. We both were city slickers growing up and met in Seattle at the University of Washington in 2009 where we were pursuing similar graduate degrees in Public Health. At the time, living in small, rural America was something that neither of us would have predicted in a million years.
We moved around a lot during the first years of our relationship. Work brought Carolyn back to her home state of Michigan after graduate school, and I soon followed, getting my first professional job in Midland, Michigan. I got a better job later that year that brought me to Houston, Texas, and then decided to return to Michigan a year later after we got engaged. We lived in Gibraltar, Michigan for a short while before moving to Toledo, Ohio. After Toledo, we quit our jobs and traveled the world. It was one of the best times of our lives as we hiked across the United States on the Pacific Crest Trail, rode our bikes across South Korea and Japan, and explored the Camino in Spain. After this two-year departure from normal life, we set out to find work, and that’s what brought us to the UP after I received a job offer from the paper mill in Munising.
The rest, as they say, is history.
I like to think that all decisions in life bring us down a path that we otherwise were supposed to find. I’m not sure if I believe in fate or destiny, but the longer I’m alive, the more I think there may be something to it. I do believe that the choices we make in life happen at a few key inflection points. Choose one path and you arrive someplace. Choose another path and you arrive somewhere completely different. I think of all the small decisions that we had to make over the course of our adult lives to bring us here to this specific moment.
As September rolls around each year it is the one month I look forward to the most out of any other. Not only is it a month of milestones, but it is the best month to be in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, period. The weather is often perfect. Most of the tourists have gone home after Labor Day. Nights start to become cooler. And the bugs have all disappeared. It’s the very best time to be in the woods and we tend to do most of our backpacking trips during this month, the one activity that we both enjoy perhaps more than any other.
Over the years we’ve explored a lot of what there is to do in terms of backpacking in the area. Pictured Rocks is only 30 minutes away, where we’ve traversed the 47 miles of picturesque coastline almost too many times to count. There’s also Isle Royale which is a 3.5 hours drive west and north (and 3 hour boat ride), and perhaps is one of our most favorite National Parks we’ve ever been to. There is also the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park which is home to stunning rolling hills and the iconic Lake of the Clouds. And then there is the North Country Trail, which seemingly ties all of this together in a package of over 500 miles of trail across the entire UP.
We’ve spent many extended trips traversing different areas of the NCT, exploring the Trap Hills in the western UP, the McCormick Wilderness and Craig Lake State Parks in the central portion, along with trips near the Two Hearted River in the east. As far as backpacking destinations go, the UP is a special place that too many people overlook.
During the summer of 2020 when Covid was running rampant, we had planned to hike the Wonderland trail in Washington State. We were at the airport ready to depart when the airline unexpectedly cancelled the flight. We would not be able to leave until the following day which would cause us to miss out on our camping permit dates. We had to make the difficult decision to cancel the trip.
On our ride home from the airport we decided that we would hike the NCT as an alternative. We had all our food prepared and everything else was all packed. Since the NCT was only four miles from our house, we made the decision to drive west, park the car somewhere, and then “walk home”. We started at Craig Lake State Park and hiked east, spending over a week on the trail as we traversed beautiful remote wilderness areas, stunning inland lakes and rivers, and spectacular Lake Superior vistas.
Six and a half days and 120 miles later, we arrived stinky and tired back on our front doorstep. It was one of the best weeks in the woods of my entire life.
That trek was the beginning of a deeper connection to the area that I would end up developing over the next few years, and one that continues to develop the more time I live here. The ability to have adventures, both small and large, right outside my front door, is something that brings me great joy, appreciation, and meaning.
September 1st
September 16th
September 28th
October
The leaves begin their magnificent transition in late September with peak foliage occurring typically by the first or second week in October. Sometimes it comes earlier and sometimes later, all depending on temperature and moisture. There have been some truly magnificent autumns that lasted for weeks, whereas some years the colors have been more muted and the season shorter. Whichever the case, however, autumn in the UP is something that is truly special to experience.
For this reason, October is my second favorite month of the year. I enjoy the complete lack of bugs and colder days. You can smell the crisp in the air as the environment slowly turns from green to gold. Ferns tend to turn a muted brown first and then you start to notice the color changing in the trees. Birch trees seem to shed their green leaves for a blonde shade at the beginning of the transition, followed by maples and beech that range from deep reds, scorched oranges and bright lemon-yellows at their peak. Out along the lakeshore noticeable change occurs in the form of dune grass putting on its own display, where long strands of 3 foot high grass slowly turn from emerald green to a heavenly golden-brown.
Something that not many people realize is that the pine needles also turn and shed. They transition to a red-brown and fall off before the hardwoods begin to turn and fall. Because we have so many white and jack pine on our property, we often joke that this transition leads to something called “pine tree haven”, where our front and backyard become inundated with thousands of pine needles.
While the beauty is unmatched, the yard work is strenuous. It takes at least two full passes to clear everything away. Luckily, the pine needles all fall off before the hardwood leaves do. It takes maybe 3 or 4 hours of raking to get rid of the needles for this first phase. The second phase is when the hardwood leaves all fall off, usually by the third week of October. This phase also captures the remaining pine needles that we weren’t able to snag during the first pass-through. It’s a lot of hard work, but there is often a degree of great satisfaction when we can see our lawn again, at least for the next few weeks until the snow returns. All this hard work makes spring clean-up much easier the following year.
I love seeing the change from summer to fall to winter, even though it is a bit sad to leave the warmer days of summer behind. It is a reminder that all life moves on and nothing remains the same for long. Geese and mallard and wood ducks that during the summer may have migrated further north return for one last hurrah before migrating even further south. Spiders and any remaining insects die off and the patio garden that once bore basil and kale has produced its last bounty and also dies. It is a reminder that death must occur for new beginnings to take place later on.
Autumn is a lesson in circularity. It is not the longest season by a long shot, but it makes its mark and allows the right amount of space for reflecting on the summer that was and all the adventures and good times that were had. It is the simple quiet before the cold returns and ushers in a new season of beauty and discovery.
October 6th
October 8th
October
October 10th
October 11th
October 19th
October 20th
October 21st
November
Early November mornings are punctuated by the resounding pop of shotguns echoing along the river. Just as the sun begins to rise over the tree line and the smallest sliver of light emerges from the dark, hunters wait in quiet readiness to fire their first shot. When we first moved here it was a little jarring hearing gunfire for the first time. But now, as we’ve grown accustomed, it is just another sound in the library of noises in our up-north surroundings.
Hunting is rooted in steep tradition in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When rifle season for deer arrives in mid November it seems like all you see on the roads are pick-up trucks with people inside wearing orange. Passing by the Au Train Grocery you’ll also see stacks of apples and carrots which people buy to bait deer, along with a Bush Light banner welcoming hunters to town. The Hiawatha National Forest is a popular public hunting ground and people from all over come to try their luck to find and shoot that magnificent 10 pointer trophy buck.
Hunting is something that I never grew up doing, so this is an activity I hear about through stories from friends and neighbors. I would like to try one day, just so I can say that I tried, but to be honest, the prospect of sitting in a tree stand on a freezing late November morning doesn’t sound like too much fun to me. I think that hunters often get a bad rap, but I don’t understand that sentiment at all. All the hunters I know are very respectful and appreciate the outdoors just as much as anyone else, maybe even more so. Hunting is also necessary to manage the population of wildlife, especially deer, which has grown rampant in Michigan over the last decade.
Even though we do not hunt, we still wear our orange attire when we venture out into the woods. Many of the trails we run on including the North Country Trail are adjacent to areas where people may be hunting, so it is important to identify ourselves and be safe.
November brings much colder weather back to the UP. Frosts are common most mornings and the scent of smoke from wood stoves is a routine smell. The days begin to get very short with late sunrises and early sunsets. One benefit of being on the very western edge of the Eastern Time Zone is that sunset normally doesn’t happen until close to 5:30. This allows an hour or two after work to get outside and go for a walk or a run before it gets too dark.
Carolyn and I will play a game in late October to take our bets on when we think the first snowfall will come. To quantify this we rule that it has to be measurable snowfall – at least an inch or two. Some years the first snow comes early, while in other years it may take a little more time. From my limited experience (and without looking at any real data), the first snowfall typically arrives within the first or second week of November. It may not stay around for too long after that, but this is the first time of the season that everything will be blanketed in white.
This past fall was unusually warm and we did not get our first measurable snow until November 25th. I think Carolyn and I forgot to place our bets because I don’t remember who won. Regardless, the first snow is usually an exciting time and one that I look forward to each year.
In early November I’ll get the snow blower ready. I change the oil, replace the spark plug, and lube up the gears. I’ve done this for the past five seasons and each year my Ariens fires up on the first pull. I’m not the most mechanically inclined person but it gives me a bit of satisfaction after working on it, knowing that I’ll be in good hands for when the snow really starts to fly.
November in the UP is also famously known for its strong wind storms. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald? The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a massive 729 foot American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a powerful storm on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, resulting in the loss of all 29 crew members. The storm unleashed its fury with near-hurricane force winds that gusted up to 86 miles per hour, and monstrous waves reaching heights of 35 feet. These towering waves relentlessly pounded the Fitzgerald, battering the ship and gradually weakening its structure. The wreckage, discovered later, revealed that the ship had broken into two massive pieces, a grim testament to the immense power of the storm and an important reminder of the incredible danger of the Great Lakes.
Wind storms in Upper Michigan primarily occur due to the interaction between Lake Superior and weather systems moving across the region. This can create strong pressure gradients that generate powerful winds, especially in colder months when the lake is relatively warm when compared to the surrounding air.
We’ve witnessed several really bad wind storms since we’ve lived here. The storms were not nearly as bad as the fateful day when the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, but they have produced gusts in excess of 50 mph with sustaining winds in the 30-40 mph range. It’s fun to brave the elements and walk down to the beach to see the waves. The largest we’ve personally seen are around 20 feet, maybe slightly larger. It’s an incredible sight to behold and not something you would expect a lake to be able to produce. The Great Lakes, in all their glory and mystery, are not really lakes at all, but inland seas. If you were to sail in a straight line north from Au Train to the nearest land in Canada, it would take you close to 160 miles to get there.
The power and spectacle of Lake Superior is truly magnificent and something that I have thought about a lot since I’ve lived here.
November 1st
November 4th
November 8th
November 10th
November 11th
November 14th
November 18th
November 25th
December
We’ve arrived in December, the last month of the year and the last entry in this photo-essay. It’s hard to believe that just a year ago this project was only a thought. Since then, I’ve spent hundreds of hours walking around town and to the beach, taking photographs, categorizing and editing those photographs, and writing this blog post. This has simply been the largest creative project I’ve ever completed, and as it winds down, I am happy with what I was able to produce but also a bit sad that it is coming to an end.
The weather outside is cold and wet, with an unexpected warm up bringing in rain and fog as our large, early season snowpack melts. It’s a fitting scene as I spend the next hour finalizing my thoughts on the year that was, and what living in the UP has meant for me over the past seven years.
The Upper Peninsula, even in all its beauty, is a really daunting place. It is cold and dark and unforgiving most days. It’s windy and snowy, rarely warm, and really, truly, is not a place to live if you don’t like being uncomfortable, outside or alone. Winter is the dominant season and summer, while amazing, does not last nearly as long as you wish it would. But these are perhaps all the things I appreciate most about living here. It’s a challenging place to exist, juxtaposed against a beauty that is, in my opinion, unmatched.
At the center of this existence is the nature that surrounds us. It’s the white and jack pine, the maple and beech, the wood duck and the bald eagle, the salmon and brook trout, the Au Train River and Lady Superior, and everything else. Like characters in a book, these all have personalities and stories and play a larger part in my life the more time I spend living here. I’ve become increasingly connected to all these things in a way that has certainly surprised me.
The heartbeat of all this is the simple and quiet that resonates here. There is no rush. The only sounds most days are the wind whistling in the trees and the waves crashing nearby along the lake. Night is dark and quiet, like a void in space, almost as if you can hear the stars shimmering. The community that surrounds us is kind, caring, and holds the same appreciation of the area as we do.
Au Train is a place that feels as if it’s lost in time, and one that simply cannot exist anywhere else. Each season and month is different and the changes that occur throughout this cycle are predictable and comforting. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Again and again through time as the trees grow and the river and dunes shift, the birds and fish migrate, and the weather patterns repeat over and over again.
A moment in time repeating itself for however long it needs to.
A place, at its heart, that knows what it is and what it wants to be.
As I close out the year, I’m filled with hope of what is next. Life is a long journey and where you spend that time should be somewhere that you enjoy and that brings you meaning.
I consider myself lucky to have found it.
A true sense of place.
December 4th
December 11th
December 12th
December 17th
Conclusion
If you’ve read this far, thank you for taking the time. It means a lot to me. I hope this was enjoyable to read and look through. I certainly had fun making it (well, perhaps not getting blasted in the face with wind, rain and snow on some of those walks!).
In total I produced 148 images throughout all four seasons. With the exception of a few photographs in October, they were all taken within a 2-mile radius from my house. My only real rule of thumb was that my destination needed to be within walking distance. At times, it was challenging to create new and different images, but it forced me to be more observant, explore new viewpoints and angles, and become more thoughtful about my surroundings. I certainly saw things I didn’t know were possible, like the mystical ice spheres I spotted in January, and the strange sand circles from the wind blowing around the dune grass in October. I also got to experience a wedding along the dunes in June, who would have thought? One thing that really amazed me was just how different the area looks throughout all the individual seasons and seeing all the subtle differences, like the dune grass starting to grow in the spring, and then seeing it almost three feet high a few months later. Small changes like that were interesting to see unfold.
I think this project exists as a good record of what Au Train looked like in the year of 2024. My only regret was that it was a far below normal snow year. It would have been nice to get some better images of the lake ice – some years it is truly wild. Regardless, it will be interesting to look back on these images later in life to see what has changed, or what still is the same.
I’ve created a calendar of the best images of Au Train Beach. If you are interested in purchasing one, please email me at zanaridg@gmail.com for ordering information.
As we turn to the new year, may you find peace, hope and happiness.
All the best on the journey ahead,
Domonick Zanarini
December 27th, 2024
I truly loved reading this. Thank you for the images and writing. And, I could not agree more with everything you’ve said here!
Barb