When Isolation Isn’t Isolated
The sound of patient bluegrass poured out from the speakers as the pale navy sky, streaked with soft gray stripes of cloud, slowly darkened, revealing a maze of bright, twinkling dots against a blackening backdrop. The forest thickened as the car rolled northward – maples, ash, and basswoods giving way to pines, birch, and aspens. The forest was calling.
I pulled up to the Shell station on the isthmus between Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell and was smacked in the nose by the scent of hundreds of campfires in the area immediately upon opening the door. A large smile spread across my face as I filled up my tank. With that smell, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be at that very moment.
It was the second Thursday of August, 2018. Still a novice, this was only my third trip into the great outdoors. I had previously spent the entire summer of 2016 hopping around state parks across western and central New York and followed up that trip with a failed excursion up to Voyageurs National Park later that same year, which, thanks to a ratchet strap snapping in half on the interstate right in front of my windshield, resulted in a two-night stay at Brunet Island State Park (an absolute gem of a park that I’ll revisit at a later date).
I’d rolled into the southern tip of Cadillac, Michigan around 9:00 pm, preparing for a relaxing, secluded trip with one of my best friends on the Manistee River in the Manistee National Forest. After fueling up, I continued west along highway 55 before arriving at our rendezvous point – Scully’s Manistee Outpost Motel. A 6-unit inn, Scully’s was exactly what the type of place one might imagine when dreaming of a forest motel. The room was small – not overly so – and featured a green rug, natural wood furniture, and plaid blankets that looked like they came straight from grandma’s linen closet. This was no Holiday Inn, and that’s how I wanted it.
The next morning, I awoke early to Kurth’s snoring, a droning reflective of his arrival in the wee hours of the morning. Still, the noise was unable to drown out my excitement for the trip. I hopped out of bed quietly and made my way to the lobby, grabbing myself a bagel before heading to the vehicle to make one last evaluation of our gear.
I inhaled deeply, opening the front passenger side door, when I heard a concerning thump!
I immediately looked at the roof of my car, scanning past the actual issue before I took a step back and noticed the crooked support bar laying on the roof. The Q tower adjacent to this door had somehow come loose and fallen over when the door was opened. Lacking a flathead screwdriver, my stomach dropped with one thought in my mind. How in the hell are we supposed to bring our canoe to the launch site if I can’t fix this?
It was still too early to pick up our canoe from the outfitter, so I took to making sure all the rest of my gear was squared away. After a thorough check through everything – twice, thanks to my newfound anxiety from the loose bar – I turned to see the door to our room opening. Kurth emerged, asking where the coffee was.
After downing his first cup and taking a quick visit with the throne, Kurth joined me to try and rig the tower back in place, using the side of a knife blade on his multitool to loosen and re-tighten the bolt. One more cup of coffee down, and we rolled out of the parking lot, uncertain, but determined to get to our desired camping spot.
We used both ratchet straps and rope to tie our rental canoe to the roof of my car, and still refused to pass the speed limit to ensure safe passage with the 12-foot watercraft overhead. Fortunately, we had Kurth follow me in his Jeep because these extra precautions still weren’t enough. About halfway to our launch point I received a call letting me know that the turbulence coming from the semi we had just passed caused the canoe to shake violently on the roof of my car. I exhaled a frustrated sigh and flipped on my hazards, slowing the car down to about 35 mph, the fastest we would move from there on out.
Beach landing on the north side of Government Island
Government Island sits a few hundred yards from the landing, holding two of many first-come-first-serve, primitive campsites along the Manistee River. The campsite sat at the peak of a steep, sandy hill on the northern tip of the island. The landing we pulled up to featured a small beach with some of the softest sand I’ve ever felt between my toes. The morning was incredibly calm and peaceful, a break in the light chaos that had started that morning and would continue throughout the day.
With new wind under our wings, we hopped back in the canoe to explore the river.
We first paddled southward, following the snaking river down to Tippy Dam Pond. Instantly we were greeted by far more wildlife than I ever would have expected to see within just a few short hours of arriving at the river. Downed trees covered in dozens of sunning turtles, a swan family of five floating by, a fox and a couple of hawks dotting the shoreline, all of which we had seen before lunch even entered our minds. And we weren’t even “out there”, rather we were just paddling about the most popular portion of the river.
Our adventure that morning eventually took us back north, past Government Island and upstream to a few lily-covered alcoves, just out of view of our island home for the next two nights. We tossed our lines in at each of these alcoves, unsuccessfully seeking a good fight with a big bass and eating up the remaining morning sun until our stomachs informed us it was time to return to base and fuel up for the afternoon.
Fishing off the shore of Government Island
Have you ever returned home to find strangers at your door? How about returning to your campsite to see it being used as a playground?
As Kurth and I came around the last bend to see the island in the distance, we noticed a pontoon boat full of people hanging out at the beach landing at our campsite. Already on edge about the safety of our gear, we paddled up to more than a handful of uninviting stares behind sunglasses, cheap beer, and rosy red beer guts. Up on the sandy hill, a couple of children were running amok amongst our tents.
The conversation with the locals was short and unpleasant, to put it lightly. The existence of a campsite at the top of the hill meant nothing to them, as they asserted that we were not at a landing but a public beach. The fact that their young children were running around our tents with all of our gear inside was our problem, not theirs, and we needed to “get over it or go somewhere else.” Being outnumbered, we sternly told them that we expected to find none of our gear missing before giving up on the status of the beach and making our way up to camp to make lunch.
We fired up our stove and cooked up our first Mountain House meal of the weekend, chewing our chicken and mashed potatoes slowly as we sat like sentinels at the top of the hill, watching over our canoe and gear with hawkish eyes. Fortunately, the children respectfully returned to the beach when we asked them to stay away from our tents. I silently mused to myself in wonder whether rude adults start off as rude kids, or at what point their child-like kindness turns into an unnecessary callousness to their fellow man.
With our sought-out seclusion being trampled on, we turned to our tents for a quick nap once the revelers took off, hoping this would be our last brush with partiers.
Boy, were we wrong.
We awoke to two more pontoons anchored on either side of the beach, one with a three-generation family, the other with a bunch of college-aged partiers, complete with beer pong on floaties and screaming ‘woo-girls’. We immediately nixed our plans to hit the waters again and made our way down to the beach. The new family hanging out by us was incredibly friendly, offering us beverages and listening to us regale them with the story of our encounter earlier in the day. They apologized for what we had run into, and informed us that the beach landing to our campsite was used heavily by locals as a party spot in the summer time – something the ranger’s office failed to disclose when I reached out for more information while planning out the trip. We didn’t have long to get to know our new friends as they chose to take off as the reveling on the opposite side of the beach got too rowdy for their liking, their voices rising to obscenity-laden shouting matches that even my sailor’s tongue found excessive. We manned the beach for the remainder of the day, Kurth fishing from shore while I played around with my new camera, ensuring the beach would remain a secluded spot for the time being.
You might think the atmosphere would cool down around the mighty Manistee at night, as we did. You, like us, would be wrong.
We awoke to shouting and lights flashing into our campsite. I grabbed my phone, checking the time – 3 a.m. – before climbing out of my tent to figure out what the ruckus was. There on the water’s surface was another group of pontooners, drunkenly screaming about it being one of their birthdays, shining their flashlights into every campsite they navigated past, trying to wake someone up to let them crash their camp to party. After a good half hour of their voices bellowing through the dark, cool night, someone finally responded from a campsite on the east side of the river, giving the birthday boy a chance to shotgun a beer which thankfully seemed to be enough to halt the shouting for the rest of the night.
Sitting by the fire
Morale was low when we awoke late Saturday morning. With breakfast in our bellies, we launched ourselves upstream in the canoe again, camera and fishing poles in hand, steeled for the potential return to another series of disrespectful partiers.
The river narrowed significantly as we followed the twists and turns of the Manistee River north. What greeted us as we left the island behind us was the peace and serenity we had been after from the start of this trip. The water became a maze, weaving in and around large swaths of marshy land. Fish could be heard splashing as they hunted their insect prey on the water’s surface.
Not far from the aptly named Eagle’s Point did we see one of the best sights of our trip – a Bald Eagle in the trees, less than 200 yards from our canoe, watching us cast into the river over and over. I struggled to find him in my viewfinder when the massive bird swooped down towards us, causing Kurth to nearly jump out of his seat, and our canoe to nearly capsize. Somehow, I was able to catch the eagle in view of my camera among the chaos, and snapped a picture of that majestic bird in-air, one of my favorite shots from my first days in photography.
Bald Eagle in flight over the Manistee River
We breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief finding the beach landing empty when we returned from our paddle. Surprisingly, we had seen significantly lower motorboat traffic that day, a welcome respite from the previous day. As beautiful as the day was, our energy still wasn’t as high as we’d hoped, and after lunch I turned in for an extended nap as I had plans to try my hand at some astrophotography that evening, while Kurth returned to the shore to try his hand once more at reeling in a fish or two.
I descended the hill to the shore that evening shortly before midnight. Greeting me was one of the most amazing views I had seen to that point. The sky above was littered with more stars than I have ever seen, while massive orange glows dotted the landscape as we were encircled by campfires from the shore, covering over 180 degrees around us. While the pictures don’t quite do the night justice, all one needs is a solid imagination to understand the beauty of that cool night – a moment I won’t ever forget.
Night Sky over the Manistee River with Distant Campfires
When we awoke Sunday morning, there wasn’t much desire to hold on to our last moments in the Manistee National Forest. A thin, gentle fog sat on the waters’ surface and kissed our skin with a cool breath as we paddled back to our launch site. After returning our canoe, we set off on the final stage of our adventure – to find a diner for a big breakfast. I’m remiss to admit that I no longer recall the name of that restaurant, but what I can tell you is that that breakfast feast was so good that I have made it a tradition to finish every camping trip since with a big breakfast back in ‘civilization’ before hitting the road back home. And following the unexpected craziness of this trip, the comfort of that breakfast was exactly what we needed.
There was no music pouring out of my speakers on the drive home. The thoughts in my head were loud enough, but not so loud or clear that I could understand the emotions I was feeling. The highs of the great outdoors – the grandeur of untouched wilderness and wildlife – juxtaposed with the most unwelcoming interaction I’ve had in nature left me feeling like my tank had been filled, but that part of that fuel was just fumes. I was relaxed and energized from the opportunity to commune with nature, while the residual vulnerability hung over my calm like a predator lying in wait, ready to pounce when that serenity faded away.
Half a decade later I still only have partial clarity on those parting emotions – in some part due to time, in some part due to the whiplash of the good and bad we experienced during our time on the Manistee River. But the lasting mark of that trip sits with me to this day. That experience is what locked me into a life of adventure and exploration in nature. It confirmed to me the importance of communing with nature on a consistent basis. It set me on a path of exploring photography and capturing moments that grab me, from gorgeous landscapes that remind me of that moment’s atmosphere to seeing some of the smallest details that I would have previously looked past. It took the fire for the great outdoors in me that had started in 2016, and threw jet fuel on it.
I want to return to the Manistee River, within the Manistee national forest. I want to explore further up and downstream from Government Island. And I want to return to Government Island, to the spot where my adventures truly began to blossom. But when I return, it will be during the shoulder seasons – ideally among the gorgeous fall colors, when the forest comes to life in one last explosion before the cold dormancy of winter. What I won’t do is return to that island in the peak of summer. Nature has too much to offer to let the self-absorption of others interfere. I’ll return when my communion can be exclusively between Mother Earth and myself.
-Collin