A Stop at Trout Lake

This is a piece I wrote in 2013. I focus on a stop during an eight hour drive. I drove up the length of Michigan, then halfway across the Upper Peninsula. It also appeared in a post in “The Trackside Photographer” in 2018.

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Crossing the Big Mac into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I pay the four dollar toll at St. Ignace for the privilege.   But I don’t follow US 2 which runs along Lake Michigan shoreline nor I-75 which rushes to Sault St. Marie. Instead, I opt for Michigan 123 which runs into the heart of the UP.  The road follows the former roadbed of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad. Ernest Hemingway rode this line a few years after the Great War. He and some friends traveled to a fish camp along the East Branch of the Fox River outside of Seney, Michigan. That adventure provided the fodder for his classic short story, “The Big Two Hearted River.”  In those days, one crossed the Straits of Mackinac by ferry. In 1957 the bridge opened, spanning the straits.

It’s getting late in the afternoon when I stop at Trout Lake.  There is a small IGA here with wonderful sandwiches, piled high with sliced meats.  As I plan to have dinner with friends once I arrive in Marquette, I choose instead a cone of hand-dipped black cherry ice cream.  Waiting for the clerk, I look around the store for a minute.  In addition to groceries and a deli, they have fishing and camping gear and some hardware. The store seems to be a place from the past, which is why I like stopping here.

Stepping outside, the bells of the railroad crossing clang. I walk around the building to watch a CN engine pulling a mixed assortment of log and tank cars in from the Sault. The engineer stops at the “Y”, just shy of the road crossing. The brakeman steps off, unlocks and then turns the switch. The train proceeds. Its diesels rumble and cars sway, as it makes its way through the junction. After crossing the highway, the train takes the tracks which runs toward Seney. Eventually, I assume, it’s destination is the paper mill at Munising.  I watch it rumble down the tracks for a few minutes, then get back in my truck and continue driving.

I’ve stopped at Trout Lake many times, but have never lingered more than a few minutes.  But I like the area and the IGA with its wonderful ice cream and homemade sandwiches.  There’s a nice lake here, a few hundred years south, as I can see through the pines. Today, this area seems so isolated, mainly a place for fishermen on the lake to replace tackle or buy beer and for snowmobilers to fill up in winter as they race through on their cross-country runs across the UP.  It’s not always been this laid back.  

A 100 years ago, Trout Lake was a small but bustling community at  the crossroads of the Eastern UP.  The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad which ran across the South Shore of Lake Superior crossed the Soo Tracks here as it headed toward St. Ignace.  The Soo ran from Ontario, through Sault Ste. Marie and past Trout Lake to Naubinway and along the North Shore of Lake Michigan through Manistique, Gladstone, into Wisconsin and eventually to Minneapolis. 

Today, the old Duluth line only runs from this point to Munising, mainly servicing a paper mill and a lumber yard. The old Soo line is still intact, but the track gauge is light as is the amount of freight rumbling along the line. Over the years these railroads have gone by a number of names and an equal number of owners. Today, they’re operated by the Wisconsin Central (it’s an old name but a new corporation which handles a collection of lines own by the Canadian National). Sadly, the Duluth and Boston Express and other passenger trains along this line stopped running long before my birth.

I drive west, crossing the lines of the old Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic several times as I head across the UP on Michigan 28, passing through the quiet towns of McMillan, Seney, Shingleton and Chatham.