Voyageur

This is another in the “Sunday Story” Series. There’s nothing “political” here – no great moral outcome or outrage. Just a story of watching the Nightly News and vacation memories.

Fran

I watched the Nightly News this week.  There were lots of stories:  ice storms in Texas, snowstorms in Washington State, COVID numbers, and the Biden plan.  And, like most evening newscasts, NBC’s Lester Holt tried to end on a “high note”.  His story was of the snowstorm in Seattle, and the ninety-year-old woman who refused to miss her COVID vaccination appointment.  

We were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing the news as it came across.  So it was only with “half an ear” that I heard the beginnings of the story:  all transportation was down, the ninety-year-old couldn’t find a ride to the vaccination site – so she bundled up and walked, six miles (uphill, both ways) to get her COVID shot.

Then they put her picture on the screen.  I turned to Jenn (my wife) and said – “I know her!!!”  It’s Fran Goldman, a face from my distant youth.  Seeing her led my down all sorts of “rabbit holes” of memories.  So join me – down this “rabbit hole” of family vacations.

Oh Canada!

There is an island on the Canadian side of the US border called St. Joseph’s Island.  It’s just above the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the island farthest east in the St. Mary’s Channel that goes from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, right across from Drummond Island in the United States.

Somehow in the 1920’s, that Island became popular among the Cincinnati Jewish set for  summer vacation homes.  One of the original owners were the Fries (pronounced Freeze) who owned Fries and Fries Fragrances and Flavors company in Cincinnati.  If you lived or travelled in Cincinnati in the 1960’s and 70’s you might remember their plant, on I-75 Southbound just as you passed the Paddock Road exit and the Jim Beam Distillery.  Your car would fill with exotic smells of vanilla or other pleasant odors.  That was Fries and Fries.

Hilton Beach

Another was the Ransohoff family, who built a vacation cabin farther down the shore.  And in between was the Steiner cabin, owned by the founders of the Kenner Toy Company.  At the time, there was a train that went from Cincinnati to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, where they could take a ferry across the channel over to Sault Ste Marie, Canada (better known as “The Soo”).  Another train took them to the small community of Bruce Mines, where they could catch a ferry across to the island, and finally to the town of Hilton Beach, just down the road from their vacation homes.

Other cabins grew along the shoreline, until by the 1950’s there was a whole little community.  From east to west – Fries, Feder, Steiner, Edelestein, Goldman, Ransohoff.  Their families spent most of the summer up there, with the husbands coming up on vacation for a few days at the beginning, and a few weeks at the end.

My father, Don Dahlman, grew up in the apartment below the Ransohoff clan.  By the 1950’s the “Ransohoff Compound” included several cabins built around the original, with each of the three sons, Dad’s contemporaries, building their own. So the Dahlman’s visited  Hilton Beach throughout the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s , and though we never had our own place there, we spent a couple of weeks each summer renting one of the cabins on the beach from before I was born until I was in my twenties.  For my entire first two decades of life – going on vacation was going to Hilton.

Growing Up On the Lake

It was a boy’s paradise.  There was the “lake,” (not the “big lake”, Huron, around the bend at Big Point, but a wide gap in the St. Mary’s River) where we boated, skied, and picnicked on various small rock islands.  Those islands had mysterious names like Whiskey Rock and Blueberry Island, and the one with the “slippery sluice”, a moss-covered crevice in the rocks we could slide all the way to the lake.  There were lots of woods to explore between the cabins, with the creeks running down to the lake all smelling of mint.  

And there were all the people you grew up with, two weeks a year, year after year after year.  Some you were even related to in a distant, third or fifth cousin kind of way. 

Morning Bath

My father’s ritual was that we would all get up in the morning, and “bathe” in the lake.  It wasn’t too early – 9 am or so – but this was water fresh from Lake Superior.  We never saw ice on it, but it sure felt that way in those mornings when we huddled on the beach, and had “the great debate”.  Mom would “wash herself in”, using the Ivory Soap that wouldn’t sink to the bottom.  It was a slow painstaking (and painful) process, and only when she was fully lathered and had no other choice would she take the breathtaking dip all the way in.  

Dad, on the other hand, was a “now or never” kind of bather.  He would immediately take “the plunge”, come back up with “seal” whoops then call for someone to toss him the soap.  We kids (my two sisters and I, and whatever friends we might have brought with us) would have to decide.  I was like Dad, dive in and get it over with.  If you’ve ever participated in the “ice bucket challenge” you’ve got the idea.  We wore swim suits, though there were others on their isolated beaches who didn’t bother.

So every morning the “Dahlman clan” would head down to the beach, and add a little Ivory Soap (a Cincinnati product made just down the road from the Fries and Fries Plant) to the Great Lakes.  Some mornings it would take just a few minutes (too cold) and some days we might stay a bit longer.  But afterwards it was always get dressed and head for the “cabin”.  

Almost England

Blue jeans and sweat shirts or Canadian flannels were always the morning dress code.  And Canadian bacon, eggs, toast, pancakes, and seemingly everything else was always on the menu.  Mom was British, and Canada seemed a lot closer to “Mother England” than the United States in those days.  She could always find her English marmalade, and special salad creams.  And of course for us kids, there were the “exotic” English candies and cookies.  My teeth were toughened by the strongest of caramels, Mackintosh’s toffee bars, where the first bite found any weakness in enamel. 

But the family tradition was to find Peek Frean’s Bourbon Biscuits.  You couldn’t get them in the States (and you can’t get them anywhere now – I’ve tried). But they were a double chocolate cookie, two chocolate wafers with a chocolate filling.  And they tasted even better because you could only find them in Canada, and for us, at the Hilton Beach General Store.

There were a couple of other “delectables” only available in Canada.  When I was young, it was crinkle French fries at “Lornie’s Restaurant” – the only thing I would put vinegar on.  And the only thing to wash those fries down was Grape Crush, a drink that hadn’t made its way across the border back then.  Today, if I can find just the right fries – and cook them to just the right consistency (crisp and crunch) and sip a Grape Crush, I can travel back fifty-five years in a flash.

Preservers and Beer

Dad would rent a boat for the weeks we were there, and as a young child, I remember bedding down underneath the bow, snuggled into the slightly moldy life preservers.  I can still go to sleep to that memory:  the burr of the motor, the bump of the waves, the smell of the preservers and gasoline and maybe a Canadian beer that Dad was sipping along the way.  

Speaking of beer, when I got older that became part of our routine.  By then were driving to Canada from Cincinnati, crossing the pine forests of Michigan as we felt the air change from Detroit industrial to the cool dryness of the Great Lakes.  We crossed the Mackinac Bridge. That was one of my first driving experiences.  Dad had acrophobia, fear of heights, that really kicked in on the seven mile stretch high over the water.  Mom didn’t drive, and when we were kids Dad would stop at the bridge entrance and get a “driver” to take us across.  But when I hit fifteen, I’m not sure I even had a license yet, I could drive a straight line from the Lower to the Upper Peninsula.  I got to drive the international bridge into Canada as well.

And as soon as we cleared customs, our next stop was the beer store.  We usually bought Doran’s, but there were the more traditional Canadian beers, Molson’s and LaBatt’s as well, and of course Canadian Whiskey.  At the time, the drinking age in Canada was eighteen, so when I was of age, we got several cases of beer to get us through two weeks. It wasn’t just for us, but for all the guests that would wander in from the path between the cabins, especially to sit by the fireplace in the evenings.

Rainy Day

And what to do on a rainy day on vacation?  It was time to “explore” the island (even though we had explored it plenty of times before).  The first stop was to go to Richard’s Landing, the other “major town” (population – 400).  There you would find the tourist shop called “Courtney’s”.  Harry Courtney was the owner, an American ex-pat, with all sorts of lurid rumors as to why he was in Canada.  At Courtney’s you could buy First American products, moccasins and clothes, as well as “famous” Hudson Bay Company blankets, and Viyella shirts. Those special-blend cotton-wool shirts came in varying Scottish plaids.

Mom, of course, knew the Scottish Clan history of each plaid, from Stewart to Black Watch.  But the plaids were adopted by families on the beach, so that the Black Watch plaid was always “Ransohoff” plaid in my mind.  And Viyella shirts always have a special place in my heart – I’m wearing my Stewart plaid (can’t remember which beach family adopted that) as I write today.  They’re good for Canadian summers, and twenty-degree winters here in Ohio as well.  But Mom went to Courtney’s for another reason.  Mrs. Courtney was British, and the two would always go down their shared memory lane of London and the English countryside.

Around the Island

Harry was one of Dad’s boat rental sources, so some years we had to pick up a boat and take if back half-way ‘round the island to Hilton Beach.  But Harry’s boats were notorious for breaking down, and when I was older, I found myself alone in the middle of the channel adrift, hoping I could catch a tow somewhere.  This was all an age well before cell phones, in fact, they didn’t have phones in the cabins either.  If you needed to make a call, there was a payphone outside the General Store.  Eventually a fellow boater towed me to the dock at Hilton Beach – and I walked back to our rented cabin.

After the journey to Richard’s Landing, there were two more destinations on the Island.  The first was to visit another Cincinnati family, the Pritz’s over on Mosquito Bay.  They were friends from Cincinnati too, but had a more “rustic” place away from everyone else.  And after seeing them, it was off to the end of the island, and a visit to old Fort St. Joseph.

There you found the artifacts left over from the battle for the Great Lakes during the War of 1812, and learned the history of the Voyageurs, the traders who took great canoes throughout the Canadian wilderness.  They had blankets and metal goods – pots and pans and axes – and I’m sure whiskey as well to trade with the First Americans.  And in return, they got beaver pelts, to satisfy Europe’s massive need for fashionable beaver hats.  We watched the same movie every year – about their trials and their songs, and their recipe to deter the attacking mosquitos – skunk oil and bear grease.  After our visit, we drove home lustily singing “the Voyageur Song” – in French. Who knows what we were really saying.   (What you could only see at old Ft. St Joe then is now on YouTube – The Voyageurs – warning – the song will get stuck in your head!!).

Fran 

The Goldman’s’ lived in the middle – alongside the softball field, across from first base.  They were friends of Mom and Dad in Cincinnati as well, and I’m told distant cousins.

So no wonder she wasn’t concerned with the cold and snow in Seattle. She swam in the cold, cold Huron waters for all of her life.  And I’m sure as she marched to her vaccination date, trudging through the snow and ice, she was humming a song, of skunk oil and bear grease, whiskey and whitewater.  She saw the movie even more than we did – there were always a few rainy days, and she was there for most of the summer.  

She was a Hilton Beach Voyageur!!