Reflections of a Loon on Haunted Island

You know, for such a small bird I deliver a whopping impact whenever those kids from various boys club visit Haunted Island. All I have to do is open my beak a couple of times at midnight and those boys set new Olympic rowing records getting back to their beach.

I like it best when they first come on the island at Midnight. The Hoffman Estates Boys Club kids stayed so close to their leader he could scarcely breathe. I just let out one of my looney sounds and they hit the dirt faster than lightning. It was a hoot and I’m not even an owl!

When they get near the haunted house I like to be on that second floor and make a few sounds and they get nearly hysterical. A kid by the name of Tim nearly wet his pants. To think that such a little bird can get an impact like that is something else. If you ask me, there were more than a few looney birds on that island that night besides me.

I mean, only a birdbrain could get scared out on that haunted island at midnight! What’s that? Do I ever go out there alone at midnight? Do you think I’m crazy? They may call me a loon but I’m not looney!

CMJ Fitting Room

One of the rooms in the Martin Johnson Heritage Museum in Irons, Michigan, is devoted to some of the wearing material that both campers and staff wore such as sweatshirts and jackets that bore the camp’s name. I would suppose that some of these articles of clothing are from various decades of camp?

Perhaps some silk screening could be added to the museum so that sweatshirts and jackets could bear the museum’s name as another source of revenue for the museum.  It would also keep the camp and museum’s name alive as a great source of advertising. 

I know that when I marketed my Joplin Boys Club in this manner my staff and kids became walking billboards in the community and the same could be accomplished at the museum to keep its name alive in the area and perhaps increase tourism there.  On our Museum Page I suggested a chili contest held annually on the grounds of the museum as another revenue generator. 

Perhaps our readers have other ways and means of keeping the camp and museum name alive.  Leave us a comment in that regard.

The Towering Inferno by Nick

I know now why Mike Reynolds and Dave Norris love the Manistee National Forest so much. Dave told me that the word Manistee means “Spirit of the Woods” so I hope that this Montana / Michigan connection never occurs in the Manistee National Forest.

That is why it is IMPERATIVE that you observe all safety rules when building a fire within that forest or any forest for that matter. Smokey the Bear is right. “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” The picture above is downright scary especially so for those helpless animals that seem destined to die in that fire.

Keep this image in mind as you prepare for the coming summer camping season.

The Manistee National Forest touches Lake Michigan

when I worked for the National Forest Service, this was a place for me to be. The wind off the lake was refreshing and I love hearing the sound of the surf. Now that I live in Arizona I miss this greatly. There is nothing like the sound of surf crashing against the shore. Or going down to the lake on Windy days and watching the huge waves come to land. This area has unsupervised swimming and plenty of sand dunes to hike around. There is a campground for lunch and dinner not to mention breakfast. This area is called the Lake Michigan recreational area. I would recommend it to anyone.

The Little Manistee River

The Little Manistee River is about as cold as Lake Michigan with a very quick current. Once one of the kids on a trip I was on in that area caught a large turtle that swam right between the boys legs. He kept it on a makeshift lease and we brought it back to Big Bass Lake where he kept it in the lake yet still on the leash.

He took that turtle back home with him to Marion, Indiana, and I will never forget his mother’s reaction when he told her about the turtle he had caught. I’m sure she expected a small turtle that would fit in a goldfish bowl. “Get that monster out of here!” Fortunately for the turtle he was donated to the Marion Park Zoo that day and they were more than glad to take it in.

You just never know what you might find in the Little Manistee River. Next time we go there a story about freshly caught fish on the bank.

Free Soil’s Orchard Market

Not all that far out of Scottville, Michigan, is the Orchard Market. Actually its almost halfway between Scottville and Manistee on US 31. Located just off the Free Soil Road it houses a restaurant and bake shop plus a generous market. Behind it are orchards of fruit trees and for a fee you can help yourself. I often go for the sweet cherries when in season.

They are finger licking good literally as the term sticky fingers really applies here. Just make sure that you can enough for your loved one to bake you a pie with your hard days work.

The Orchard Market is a must for those visiting in this area. Pay particular attention to the honey they sell there as you can actually buy a jar with the honeycomb locked inside. Great stuff! The veggies you can buy here are great too. As for the restaurant that is basically standard fare and the bakery gets no rave notice either. Still its more than worth your time to visit here.

The Legend of the Michigan Dogman

The Michigan Dogman first appeared in 1887 and is said to roam northwest Michigan. Two lumberjacks initially supposedly saw him and described him as a creature with a man’s body and a dogs head. There is no mention on how much ale they might have consumed that night at their local tavern.

The Dogman could well be Michigan’s answer to the Bigfoot legend as stories abound on this creature as living in the Manistee National Forest. He even has a song named after him called, The Legend.

In 2007 a digital film of an encounter with the Dogman was made. The entire film is 3.5 minutes long, and appears to have been shot in the mid to late 1970s. Early scenes are typical home movie fare: children riding snowmobiles, a German shepherd, a person chopping wood, etc. Toward the end of the film, the photographer is shooting from inside a moving vehicle traveling along a dirt road, when he spots what appears to be a gorilla-like animal moving in a field on the passenger side of the vehicle. The photographer exits the vehicle and seems to pursue the creature for several seconds. Then it appears again, facing the photographer from a ridge about 150 feet away. After a few seconds the creature charges. Rapid movement of the camera suggests the photographer is fleeing the attack. In the last five seconds of the film, there is a flash of teeth and muzzle, and the camera drops to the ground, laying on its left side.

After years of analysis and debate, the film was finally revealed as a hoax in the finale episode of Monster Quest on March 24, 2010. The Gable Film had been shot using vintage cameras, film, and period props by Mike Agrusa, a fan of “The Legend,” song. Monster Quest claimed their investigative team uncovered irregularities in the film, and then forced the hoaxers to confess to werewolf expert Linda Godfrey. However the Hoaxers say that they told “Monster Quest” from the beginning that the film was a fake and they fabricated the “investigation” to make a more interesting episode.

Still, the Michigan Dogman does make for good ghost stories around the campfire and who really knows what’s lurking in the forests of Northwest Michigan these days? Did I just hear a howl? Hmmm?

Sunken Island

Does Big Bass Lake indeed have a sixth island? This satellite phtograph shows another form of an island that I believe is Sunken Island and I have encircled it in orange. Can anyone that currently lives on Big Bass Lake confirm this? And how close is this position to that of the channel between Big and Little Bass Lake?

To the Sunken Island’s west are both Turtle and Four Winds Island, which are also clearly shown here. Does anyone remember a time when Sunken Island was above water? Leave us a comment if you know more about Sunken Island. I understand now that it is a very popular swimming area on Big Bass Lake.

How shallow is the water there? Let us know.