Ernest Hemingway, who knew it well, wrote about the place in his short story, “Up in Michigan.”
“Hortons Bay, the town, was only five houses on the main road between Boyne City and Charlevoix. There was a general store and post office with a high false front and maybe a wagon hitched out in front . . .”
Mike Davis is manager and part-owner of the Horton Bay General Store. On this day, with a light snow falling, there was no wagon out in front, hitched or unhitched, and no one in the store but Mike Davis and assorted ghosts.
On a wall of the general store are pictures of the author that weren’t on the wall in 1921, when Hemingway married Hadley Richardson, a much older woman, in a church no longer standing beside the store.
“He was just one of those guys who used to drink and hang out here,” said Davis, much too young to have been in Horton Bay then. “He was no different from anyone else.
“He wasn’t ‘the’ Ernest Hemingway. He was just Ernest Hemingway, a ‘guy you don’t want your wife hanging around’ kind of guy.”
Is Davis a fan?
“I’m not obsessed with him.”
In Charlevoix, the sign for the Acorn Cafe adds: “Hemingway never ate here.”
At the Walloon Lake Inn’s very fine restaurant, a veteran waitress named Sabra, announcing desserts to a reluctant party of four, insisted this was a no-fat, no-calorie zone.
Snapped one cynical diner: “And Hemingway ate here, right?”
“Sat in that very chair,” countered the waitress, lying beautifully.
What’s true is that as a boy and a young man, Hemingway did spend summers on Walloon Lake not far from the inn, in a cottage (still in the family) on a point that made the Horton Bay General Store just a short paddle away . . . when the lake was liquid.
Which in a literary but nonetheless roundabout way brings us to this:
What you’re reading was supposed to be a story about Winter in Charlevoix County. And it will be.
But here’s what I’d hoped to find, for example, on Walloon Lake:
“We snowmobile on the ice out there,” said Al Reeves, for 30 years owner of the convivial Junction Inn, a neighborhood joint by the water.
“It’s a beautiful lake for snowmobiles. It gets frozen all across the lake.”
On this gray Michigan winter afternoon, the only quality ice in the area was surrounded by Reeves’ distilled beverages. The lake looked like, well, a lake.
As for snowmobiles: “It’s been [quite poor],” Reeves said. “We need some snow.”
Some needed it more than others.
“No snow is driving him nuts,” a bartenderess said to a regular in Whitney’s Oyster Bar in Charlevoix, “him” being her husband, “because he doesn’t have that release of the snowmobile.”
(For the record: Charlevoix, locally, is pronounced Shar-luh-voy. In France, it’s not.)
On the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix, at East Jordan, a lone ice fisherman had somehow managed to get a couple of hundred yards offshore and was having no apparent success with the resident seafood, unless you count “success” as not having fallen through the uncertain ice. Open water was on either side of his mini-floe.
Tim Geer, owner of DT’s Westbrook Motel, part of the local snowmobiler community and an occasional (“When there’s nothing else to do”) ice fisherman, watched the man with a mix of puzzlement and disgust.
“Some of them are a wacky breed,” Geer said. “It’s the one-tenth of 1 percent of the ice fishermen that are crazy who make people think ice-fishing’s just a nut sport.”
I’d wanted to finally try ice-fishing, but I had a wife and a cat and two mortgage-lenders counting on me to come home unglazed. I’d wanted to try sledding on a snowmobile–and Geer would have rented me the machine and clothing and added a lesson, all for $250–but days of rain, continuing warm temperatures and only spotty nighttime snowshowers had left the trails largely unusable.
Same with cross-country skiing. Hadn’t done that since 1988 and was willing to strap on the boards once again for the sake of participatory journalism–but no deal. Snowshoers could find patches, but mere patches have no magic to stir trompers’ blood, so that first-time experience was postponed indefinitely.
About the only truly active, truly winter activity operating in Charlevoix County on this visit was at Boyne Mountain’s ski resort.
There, despite the [quite poor] weather, an ample and amply groomed Boyne-made base–lightly dusted with maybe an inch of fresh, natural fluff–had lured happy clusters of well-dressed, healthy-looking people to tame the slopes.
There, it looked like January in Charlevoix County.
“They make snow all the time,” explained Jacquie Merta, president of the Charlevoix Area Chamber of Commerce. “They make snow when you don’t think they can make it.”
The last time I skied downhill, not long after I’d given up cross-country, I wiped out on a turn and hurt something. That was one disincentive. The other was a hint of drizzle in the air . . .
Thus changed the thrust of the Winter in Charlevoix County story. Now it was: Winter in Charlevoix County When There Isn’t Enough Snow Except at Boyne Mountain and the Ice Is Thin or Non-Existent Except in a Glass.
First, you exhaust the Hem-ingway angle.
“In the old days,” Papa wrote, “Hortons Bay was a lumbering town. . . . Then one year, there were no more logs to make lumber.”
That’s from another Hemingway short story, this one called “The End of Something,” and that’s the end of this story’s Hemingway references, except for mentioning that the state’s Horton Bay historical marker proudly mentions Hemingway but doesn’t explain why Hem-ingway, who had an editor, added the s to Horton.
Charlevoix County, to orient the disoriented, is in northwestern Lower Michigan between Traverse City to the south and the Petoskey-Harbor Springs area to the north.
The city of Charlevoix is wedged between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix. Key towns inland include East Jordan, Boyne City and Boyne Falls, none of them big, and even less-big Walloon Lake Village and Horton Bay, which are about the way they were when you-know-who was still indiscriminately using commas and adjectives.
In summer, this has long been a favorite vacation destination. There are beaches on big and less-big lakes, trout streams, hiking trails, bike trails. Hills and valleys. Ice cream and fudge.
Yacht harbors are loaded with the toys of the loaded. Shopping is interesting, art galleries fascinating. Exceptional golf. Lots of festivals. Lots of lodgings of all kinds, including cottages that have been in families for generations.
Within easy range of Charlevoix County, especially just across the border in Emmet County (Petoskey, etc.), are more beaches and restaurants and a casino and other things, but we’ll save that for another time.
Here, there are fireflies and s’mores, and freshly caught whitefish prepared a dozen different ways, and there are sweet-smelling pines and explorable back roads, and there are memories.
That’s in summer.
In winter?
“Peace and quiet.”
The speaker (who, by the way, sells speakers) is Steve Lenhart, owner of the Charlevoix Radio Shack.
“It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous.”
“Actually,” says Pam Chipman, associate director of the Boyne Area Chamber, “this is the perfect time of the year to come visit us.
“You still have the backdrop of the hills and the pines, and with the white–it doesn’t get any better than this.”
When there is white. Which there was, some, especially in the mornings before the snow changed to other, nastier stuff.
As in northern Wisconsin and in most of small-town Minnesota, winter is a time for the townspeople to retake their towns from the summer hordes. Operators of summer businesses rediscover their neighbors and their neighbors’ restaurants; the big event changes from the festival of the weekend to the next Charlevoix High School Rayders volleyball game.
For visitors, then, these places of non-stop T-shirt shops and baby strollers revert to something very nice: friendly small towns. To which the off-season trickle of tourists is welcome, because, for one thing, they help keep the restaurants open.
“A reason to come here,” says Charlevoix’s Merta, “is to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, to experience a different community.”
And winter is when these towns are communities again, some even more than others.
“We’re not a Charlevoix,” Geer says of East Jordan, pop. 2,500 (vs. Charlevoix’s teeming 3,000). “We are easily 50 years behind everybody else–and that’s the reason we love it here. It’s not a snobby community. It’s a taste of what `up north’ used to be.”
The galleries, most of them, stay open, because the artists stay here. Ray and Tami Bier opened Bier Art Gallery and Pottery Studio 25 years ago in what was a little red schoolhouse south of Charlevoix, built in 1878. He’s the potter; she does stoneware; both do wonderful work. Dozens of other local artists show their skills here.
“There are a lot of artists in the area,” says Ray Bier. “I think it’s because of the lakes and the streams, and the open areas. It’s an inspiring place to work.”
The lakes, the streams and open areas, they’re here in winter too. So are the Biers. The scene is at its best, of course, when there’s . . .
“You can snowshoe,” says Ray. “You can walk through the woods when the snow is piled two feet high on the stumps–it’s just so magical. This is a very magical place.”
And if there’s no snow?
“It’s a nice time to sit by the fireplace and look out the window. You don’t have to think a lot–just relax.”
Then there’s Walloon Lake.
“A lot of `rich’ live on this lake,” says Reeves, “attorneys and doctors that can all afford it.” Lakefront lots can go for $1 million, house not included. “And nobody can afford it but the Big Boys. They all go to Florida in the winter, is what they do.”
Boyne City, at 3,500 still the county’s metropolis, was a bustling–well, bustling for this part of the world–lumber town, with tanneries as a byproduct of the lumber industry. Change, gradual for decades, has quickened as harborfront condos and retirement communities have sped the onset of what some would consider civilization.
“A lot of people think, `50 years ago–things were really good in Boyne City then,'” says Kelly Larson, program manager for Boyne City Main Street, a public-private partnership adding life and refreshing facades in the modest downtown. “The thing you hear about are the bar fights.”
Winter’s economic tourist elephant remains Boyne USA, with its lodges and slopes drawing thousands (as many as 6,500 on a prime weekend), some of whom overflow into Charlevoix’s condo-hotels and little Boyne Falls’ mom-and-pop motels and other places in the other towns.
These days, even if a downpour turns the mountain literally into Boyne Falls, there’s still something: a new spa for the grownups, and for the kids who behave (and grownups who dare)–Avalanche Bay, an indoor water park so good it may be too good for kids.
“It’s doing very well,” says Boyne’s Jodi Willison. “What we’re finding is a lot of guests are skiing during the day and coming here in the evening to play in the water park.”
So even if there’s no snow and the lakes are unfrozen and the snowmobile trails are mostly mud, there’s still plenty of reason to come up here.
And something else you can do, snow or not: Drive across the river–any river in Charlevoix County–and into the trees.
Then imagine how terrific the place looks in fall.
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asolomon@tribune.com
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Charlevoix, main town for tourism in Michigan’s Charlevoix County, is about 390 miles by car from Chicago. Figure 7 1/2 to 8 hours, depending on weather conditions.
Most scenic route: Michigan Highway 37 out of Grand Rapids to Traverse City, then U.S. Highway 31 into Charlevoix; much of the drive is through Manistee National Forest. Alternatively, pick up U.S. 31 outside Holland and take it into Charlevoix; it’s a little slower but provides quick access to some attractive stops along the way (including Grand Haven, the beaches of Ludington State Park and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore). Best plan: Ride up one way and down the other.
United and American offer non-stop, hour-long flights from O’Hare into the Traverse City airport, 45 miles south of Charlevoix. Fares are seasonal and unpredictable: a $173 January fare on American soared, for no apparent reason (there were lots of seats open), to more than $400 a week later. Flexibility might pay off.
STAYING THERE
Charlevoix offers the county’s best variety of lodgings, a collection that ranges from bed-and-breakfasts to standard motels to condo-hotels featuring waterfront suites loaded with extras (fireplaces, kitchens, DVD players, etc.). Winter rates are generally lower than summer, midweek lower than weekend, and all vary according to demand (and sometimes can be negotiated).
Boyne Mountain, the big ski resort, has the usual big ski-resort lodges, plus easy access to the slopes, spa, waterpark and other attractions. Boyne City (linked now to the resort by hourly trolley), Boyne Falls, Walloon Lake Village and East Jordan all have places to stay; it’s possible to stay in any of them and have easy access to all.
DINING THERE
An eclectic mix, ranging from fine dining for the sailing crowd to pubs for the apres-ski bunch to “up north” supper clubs. The common regional thread: Lake Michigan whitefish, in all versions, including sandwiches; and, when available, Lake Michigan perch. Favorites among the places sampled on this trip: Red Mesa Grill, a pan-Latino (though heavily Mexican) treat in Boyne City; Robert’s Restaurant, a classic small-town breakfast place (complete with big table) in Boyne City; Walloon Lake Inn, casually elegant, a tad high and worth it, on the lake; Stafford’s Weathervane, essentially an upscale supper club (catch Marty Ward’s sax) overlooking the Pine River channel in Charlevoix; and also in Charlevoix, Whitney’s Oyster Bar, lots of seafood, raw and not.
A sampling recommended by people I trust: Terry’s Place, an ambitious fine-dining spot in Charlevoix not far from the Acorn Cafe and its signature omelets; Smitty’s Steakhouse, a little bit out in the country near Boyne City; Horton Bay General Store, breakfast and lunch and creative but limited dinners, Horton Bay; and Garrett’s on Water Street, a little steep but on the water in Boyne City.
INFORMATION
Charlevoix Area Chamber of Commerce, 800-951-2101, www.charlevoix.org; Boyne Area Chamber of Commerce, 231-582-6222, www.boynechamber.com; East Jordan Chamber of Commerce, 231-536-7351, www.ejchamber.org; and for Boyne Mountain, 800-GO BOYNE, www.boynemountain.com.
— Alan Solomon
