loose change

23 august 2025

drummond island! writing this piece from the picnic table at our campsite in township park. what a day today. this place is as vibrant as i remember it and more. i’ve got lots to report so i’ll begin with a disclaimer that this will be a verbose update because a) i’m not particularly in the mood for self-restraint and b) for posterity’s sake i hope to provide enough context to meet the magnitude of today. 

my day began again with my 7a alarm which i silenced immediately to let sam sleep a little more. we took full advantage of our two-queen-bed hotel room and slept in separate beds and somehow i could still feel him tossing and turning from a mile away. he’s rereading the book thief for the first time since childhood and as it happened to me a few weeks ago, it’s a book you just cannot put down even for the benefit of sleep. 

i peeked out the window to see clearing skies and wet pavement & headed down to the river for a quick 2.8 miles down and back on the canal. my turnaround point was the historic sault lock, the original boat passage constructed in 1895 to allow ships safe passage by the saint marys rapids. after a wall failure in 1987, the lock was reconstructed and the original canal pictured below remains a historic site. all of the buildings constructed–the powerhouse and blacksmithing shop, the superintendent’s residence, the administrative building–were built using red sandstone excavated during the construction of the canal. the boardwalk was beautifully maintained & i gained much more knowledge than i’d bargained for! 

we grabbed a quick coffee & bite at the starbucks in the hotel lobby (if there’s not a continental breakfast in the next hotel we stay in i’m gonna freak out) and began our journey to de tour village. here are the road (and water) stats: 

miles driven: 72

borders: 1

ferry crossings: 2

times ryder cried: 7+

miles paddled: 1.1

birds watched: upwards of 600

and the tunes: 

against the wind – bob seger 

the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald – gordon lightfoot 

michigan – leif vollebekk

the border bookends the sault sainte marie international bridge so in theory, we were stateside before we were cleared to be. we’d expected the crossing to be at least a 15 minute process and although we have nothing to declare, i am obviously very afraid before each crossing that i will be detained and not allowed passage! not one minute after arriving at the border were we handing our passports to the agent. the first thing out of her mouth: “well i… have the exact same canoe as you!” and then the formalities, how long were we in canada, where are we going, drummond island, have fun! thank you ma’am! the whole ordeal had us silenced by the  stupor of white privilege for a little while as we re-entered the country. 

sam got his first taste of real michigan, which in my mind is a red barn in a green field bordered by firs and ferns and queen anne’s lace. i cried for the first time at this backdrop. the drive to de tour was smooth & we were the fifth car in line for the ferry, at which point i cried for the second time. we’d made it in such good time that sam ran up to the market a half a mile away or so, thinking he’d have time to grab a few mainland beers and brats and save a dollar or two. the ferry was scheduled to leave at 1040 and i watched it cross the channel ahead of schedule, docking and offloading at maybe 1020. by 1025 serge and i had loaded the ferry and i’d asked the guy who parked me if he thought sam’d make it back in time. his words: “well when the captain decides he wants to go we’re goin! we’re runnin wild today, it won’t be long til he makes it over.” the phrase immediately transported me to childhood. the ferry’s running wild. i’m in the backseat of a rented car with my mom and we’re waiting outside the pub at the landing to go see granny and papa. 

by 1027 the engine rumbled and i watched the gate close as we pulled out of the dock. i called sam to let him know there was no need to run back to the landing and i got out of the car and took it allllllll in. it turned out to be quite special to be alone on the ferry ride over. 

the last time i set foot on drummond island was in 2014. it was the summer after my freshman year of high school, after my first year back east and after my parents’ divorce. it’s the last time i remember being with my papa. at that point, he was so lost within alzheimer’s that my mom and i spent much of our time finding small ways to bring him back to us. i was so unsettled by the divorce that most of my memories from those years are lost to the wind. i remember sitting on the deck with him quietly reading, unaware that those would be our final days at the cabin. i remember at one point noticing the spine of his book was upside down and he read on, intently focused on whatever upside-down language he could glean from the pages. i remember listening to the birds; he loved bird calls. we would hijack granny’s sirius radio and play the 50’s on 5 station. at one point i plugged my phone into the stereo and played the firehouse five, his favorite. he still knew every melody, every word. his face was often expressionless, as confused and muddled as his brain must have been at the time but when we put on the firehouse five plus two he would smile. within all of the lost memories there he was again, my papa who loved to laugh and loved to listen to music. the irony was not lost on me then, that this man who’d spent the larger part of his life studying the human brain was now stymied by his own. 

when papa died in 2015, the women that survived him–my granny, my aunts liz and leslie, and my mom–recognized the impracticality of keeping the cabin and his jeep in the family. with three of them back east and my mom out west, drummond was too remote a place to justify the costs of travel and maintenance in the years ahead. the cabin was sold, as was his old red jeep. there was no formal farewell, no last looks. in my heart i’d hoped to return, maybe one day i’d be able to afford a trip to the topmost part of the mitten, but it was never quite sensible. the questions of where i’d stay, how i’d get to the island, what i’d realistically do when i was there, the logistics all outweighed the reality of returning. 

as we began planning this trip west, the prospect of a canadian route brought my dream of returning into reality. i was reticent to believe it would happen but as sam started mapping our trip it all fell together: we’d dip down from canada, rent a campsite on drummond, and be back on our merry way the next day. for weeks i’ve been in a state of disbelief, even up to this very moment it is unreal to me that we are here! so naturally, for the third time today, i cried on the ferry across lake huron. 

from the ferry, while waiting for sam to cross over, i drove to sune’s grocery to grab ice for the cooler just in case sam’s ice melted during the brief layover. i passed strickland point road and cried again, for the fourth time–the tears are by no means sad, more so they’re the result of this feeling like i’m patching a hole in my childhood self, or i’m saying one final farewell to papa, or maybe it is as simple as the emotion of revisiting a place so sacred to my being. as i was checking out, i asked the cashier about this deli we’d always go to. papa had friends all over the island and two of the best were mike and melody who owned the gourmet galley, the deli we’d jaunt over to in the evenings for a scoop of ice cream. my love of moose tracks was founded here, surely as a child ordering in papa’s footsteps. the woman in the store informed me that mike had passed away but that she thought his wife may still be open on the weekends. i thanked her and took my ice and made it back to the ferry just in time to see sam on his way in. 

when we reunited and stocked the cooler, sammy caught me up on his ferry ride. the man he’d spoken to in the store had told him ah they leave every hour on :40, you’ll make the next one no problem! unless they’re running wild, in which case.. who knows. praise be they were runnin’ wild! as he was about to board he asked the ferryman, hey, to walk on– and was interrupted with an affirmative response: WALK ON! no payment ensued, and thus we found ourselves island underfoot! i probably cried again. 

from that point on i got to play passenger and island guide. we stopped back in sune’s grocery for water and more beers (it never hurts to have extra) and made a quick trip into the sune’s hardware, where i confirmed that the gourmet galley was *maybe* open and no less than a half mile down the road. with the expectation that it may not be open and that i may not recognize anybody there, sam gallantly chauffeured me to our old haunt. on the way there i’d felt pretty confident that my tears for the day had come to pass. but as we pulled up to an open sign & i stood behind the counter ordering a scoop (maybe two scoops) of moose tracks my eyes started to well up again. as we were waiting to pay i caught a glimpse of melody behind the deli counter. i went over to her and choked out that bill and katie stebbins are my grandparents and immediately she said of course i remember you, come here. i don’t remember the last time somebody hugged me for that long. i loved your grandfather so much, she said. have you been by the house yet? we caught up a bit, i introduced her to sam, and we let her know the cabin was our next stop. our reunion of sorts had me quite emotional and i thought for a while about how the people we impact in our lives are all that’s left of us after we’re gone.

sitting outside the galley, sam said he’d not been sure if my comments about crying leading up to this day had been hyperbolic or not. as we sat there laughing about all my tears and my melting ice cream, we realized we’d both underestimated the emotional gravity this place holds. 

at the end of the dirt road just before granny and papa’s cabin, there now hangs a plaque for Northern Properties Vacation Rentals. there was a white truck in the driveway with an atv on the back, blocking the garden in front of the house. granny’s garden was always littered with puddingstone and cosmos and black eyed susans, always abound with color. this garden felt plain and generic. they’d clear cut the trees to the left of the cabin, creating extra space for parking. i stood in the driveway for a minute or two before running back to sam. 

it’s a strange feeling to see this space that was once so hallowed now so commodified. there’s a part of me that is selfishly glad that the cabin is a transactional place now, that nobody can lay claim to it. i spent a little bit thinking about all of this, concluding that i could never lay claim to the land either, it was stolen to begin with. we’ve penciled in a segment of our drive tomorrow to research the indigenous history of drummond island.

getting to see melody again meant the world to me. after our trip to the gourmet galley, i’d seen all i needed to see to feel like i still have a place on the island. we headed back to our campsite in township park and decided to take our gal donna jean out to a nearby island for her maiden voyage! sam pulled up a map. he knew which island he wanted to paddle to but wanted to find a name. picnic island, he said, it’s about .6 miles out. at the same time, i recognized the causeway off of strickland point rd and just a ways down the shoreline, granny and papa’s dock. papa used to swim to picnic island all the time. i could see the dock and a corner of the cabin from our campsite! the pieces all fell together. i cannot overstate how magical this realization felt. if papa went anywhere in the world after he died, it’d be right here in sturgeon bay. 

a little trepidatiously, we set donna jean on the seas for the first time and paddled out. the cobble beaches on drummond are covered with limestone bedrock, flat and slick and bleached white by the sun. once you’re in the water, every stone is covered with a thick layer of algae, making it extremely difficult to keep balanced. with headwind steady at ten to twelve miles an hour and a couple of twenty mph gusts, we bounced and bobbed our way to picnic island in about 25 minutes time. she sails! donna proved herself to be a hearty vessel capable of weathering the blustery conditions. just as we were passing young island, a bald eagle swooped out from the canopy and flew low on the water, disappearing in a sea of hundreds of birds out to the right of us. we ignored the no trespassing signs on picnic island and parked ourselves on the leftmost shore. the sun was weaving in and out of clouds, the water changing color with the light. an excerpt from sam’s journal: enraptured by the amount of islands this lake possesses, and the myriad of blues it provides. we had a beer on the shore and i revisited a childhood pastime of flipping over rocks to find peek at the creatures underneath. after the first two rocks yielded two leeches of impressive stature, sam respectfully asked that i find a new shoreline hobby. as we were clambering back into the canoe, i slipped on a rock and nearly sank our ship! a swift resurfacing left me soaking wet and ready to put on my coziest clothes back ashore. it must have looked quite funny. i’m not sure that i was embarrassed afterwards, but i was certainly silent for most of the canoe ride back.

upon returning to our campsite, not one but two of our sweet neighbors stopped by to tell us how brave we were for embarking in such gale. brave of you to take her out today! and we were a little worried about you guys. very impressive that you paddled out today. yesterday a guy got stuck halfway to de tour and had to have the coast guard haul him back in! our neighbors were a big highlight, so friendly and all michiganders.

and this brings me to the present moment! i’m about to pack it up and spend some qual time with sammy. as i’ve been writing he’s journaled, set up his hammock and read a bit, and is now refurbishing the fire pit at our camp site which was in dire need of help. as i watched him begin to gather flat stones on the beach i had this image of granny doing the same thing, hunched over on the shore in search of the biggest, flattest, steadiest rocks for her path out to the dock. she’d come down to improve the path while papa and i floated on our backs and i dove for clay. sam has done a phenomenal job on the pit as you can see below! 

i’m sure i’ll be frothing to write tomorrow morning and document the rest of our time here but campfire hours are imminent! bye xo

24 august 2025

gm! writing now from sault ste marie international bridge as we make our way back over the border. i couldn’t be happier in this moment. a quick pause to gab ski areas with our border agent–exchanging best mountain intel in us and ca–and we are back on the trans-canada highway! the numbers as they stand this morning: 

miles: 71 down, 313 to go

miles run: 2.2

deer spotted on run: 3

ferry crossings: 1 (at no cost!)

alaskan license plates spotted: 2

iced mochas consumed: 2

black bear sighting: 1!!!!!!!!!! off hwy 17

and the soundtrack:

light upon the lake – whitney

ram – paul & linda mccartney

live from the fox, oakland – tedeschi trucks band

highway prayers – billy strings

last night was out of a dream. sam cooked dinner in the back of serge (new name made official!) using the tactical side hinged door to block wind from the stove. we had rice pilaf & chani masala and then started a fire up as the sun started to go down. we passed a list of 365 table topics back and forth and swapped questions like what would your “priceless”Mastercard-style commercial look like? and what would you regret not doing, being, or having in life? we brought the guitar out and sang a few duets. the setlist: 

paradise – john prine

acadian driftwood – the band

ripple – the grateful dead

amie – pure prairie league

the first star we saw was at 910. the horizon stayed light until 930ish, we hadn’t put on headlamps until about 830p. by 945 we were prettyyyy sleepy and excited to be out of the wind, which stayed at a consistent 8-10mph until long after we went to bed. which was largely a blessing: at one point i stepped away from our shoreside campsite to hear a group a few sites away from us blasting don’t stop believing by journey, and my drenched sweatshirt from my spill off of picnic island was completely dry by morning. the wind provided incredible dampening in our little site, and created the perfect sleeping temperature, maybe 58º or so. the tent was so cozy that we couldn’t even bring ourselves to open our books.

i woke up today at about 615 & listened to the waves and the wind for a little while before getting up to see the sunrise. it was a real drawn out dawn, with the first light on the lake not until 7ish. i stayed on the beach skipping rocks for little while, possibly breaking my own pr with a five-skip! sam got up around 710 and we got ready to go for a quick run before packing up camp. the energy was soooo fun and sleepy and silly! i hit a little pre run dance and then we jogged to the end of the road and then went up the heritage trail for a half a mile or so before heading back and dunking in lake huron one last time. imagine a movie montage of two people running to the lake but when they reach the waterline the music cuts off and they very unsteadily and very slowly wobble out into the little waves, arms extended precariously for each misstep. and it felt incredible! 

one of our neighbors came by and chatted with sam while he was packing the tent, the typical campground formalities of where’d ya come from and where’re ya headed? ten or so minutes later, he came back and said you know, there’s a place called rainbow falls at the top of lake superior. it’s right on the way to thunder bay, and it’s pretty neat if you get a chance to stop over. after he left, i plugged it into the map. it really was a few minutes off the highway to thunder bay, where we’d been planning to show up and get a first come, first serve site after a six hour trip across ontario. instead, sam reserved a site at rainbow falls. we pray the road provides!

we loaded the canoe and put away the tent and sam cooked a sausage while we waited in line for the ferry. the ferryman let us over for free! we were packed in tight & my door was blocked by a wall so i crawled out of sam’s door to get my last looks at drummond island. just 24 hours there was enough to bridge the gap of the past ten years, enough to resurrect so many emotions and memories, enough to tide me over for a good long while. as i sit here in reflection, i’m filled with so much gratitude for the place and for sam for coming with me. it was not the drummond island experience i cherish from childhood; it was almost more special to create these new memories with sam, to create our own corner of the island at campsite #16 in township park. i had no tears left to cry on the ferry back to the mainland. 

next stop rainbow falls! time will tell when i’ll write again maybe it’s tonight but until then thank you for reading! this one meant a lot to me thank god for documentation and emotional expression and the privilege to drive a couple thousand miles. we’re driving along the north shore of lake superior right now and it sure looks like a fuckin ocean to me! every hill we crest provides a new vantage of the water. think we’ll stop here in a little bit to toss the ole baseball around love you guys xoxoxoxoxo ttyl

24 august 2025, 8p @ rainbow falls

checking in from rainbow falls! funny place so far. we hope the morning trail run redeems us! couple of stats to update before we explain:

total miles: 404

tanks of gas: 2

black bear sighting(s): 2

moose spotted: 3 (mom + babies <3)

lakes passed: one trillion

pb & js consumed: 2

in bed by: 719p

and a music update:

sABLE, fABLE – bon iver

bon iver – bon iver

blood on the tracks* – bob dylan

*the selection of this album was very intentional as i know i can only play it once on the road trip because it sends me into a very particular humor and today’s rainy conditions proved most suitable

i spent the afternoon in the driver’s seat while sam patiently listened to my bob dylan impression for a third of the drive. earlier in the day we did in fact pull off and indulged in america’s pastime! [that would be baseball for the fans who aren’t ~in the know~] lake superior continues to stun us with her magnitude and gradients of blue.

it’s probably fifty five degrees right now and blustery and misty so we’re huddled in the tent early. as bizarre as it feels to be on a computer in a tent, i feel this is a crucial opportunity for documentation!

we arrived to rainbow falls at six or so and as we were waiting to check in to our campsite, the couple ahead of us had an almost comedic interaction with the cashier who was struggling to give them a refund and pressing one million buttons on a keyboard. they were showing her a video of their most recent black bear encounter–from last night–and chuckling away. i raised an eyebrow at sam. i just think i’ll sleep better at home, she said. we’ll take two of the i saw a bear in rainbow falls provincial falls, please! we’re all waiting for their refund to process and the guy walked over to the bulletin board and points to a MISSING flyer and says: huh, this is the girl you just said went missing, huh? i raised Two Eyebrows at sam.

our waterfront campsite turned out to be accessible via a ~50% slope angled path and yielded 3 sq. feet of waterfront access. pictured below:

just as we settled into the tent, we heard a woman yelling a few campsites over. yelling BEAR, BEAR! obviously. it’s a bear!!!! i whispered. she started honking her horn a bunch. sam got out of the tent and offered our bear spray. he said the bear was not the least bit bothered by all the noise! camping is really all about getting out into the heart of nature. THANKFULLY sam is so brave and i am not worrying about a hungry black bear.

here’s hoping our gorgeous little tent keeps us dry and bearless this evening! updates to follow in a little while we’re bound for the back country via canoe bye for now y’all