Tawas Point State Park, Michigan
Michigan is surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes, all about the same surface elevation. These are Lake Erie, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Lake Ontario is about 300 feet lower in elevation due to the Niagara escarpment.
We take a drive and find the Au Sable River in the middle of a large National Forest. An old fisherman talks to us for nearly an hour. He is extremely knowledgeable about invasive species like the Zebra Mussel, Asia Carp, Sea Lamprey and Alewife, a small fish that once made up an estimated 90% of the biomass of Lake Michigan. He tells us of picking up buckets of these rotting fish from his shoreline every morning.
We ask him about perflourinated chemicals and he tells us that there is a bloom in the local aquifer caused by a Strategic Air Command base a few miles from the river. He also has stories about the pollution caused by industry and untreated sewage.
It's a pretty river despite all the concerns of the old fisherman. The Great Lakes contain 84% of the fresh water in North America. The surface area of the lakes is equivalent to the area of the United Kingdom.
We run into a farmer's market on Wednesday and buy corn, broccoli and blueberry jam.
The park has an interesting two mile trail out to a point of land. We walk it and flush a white tail deer. I go to the dumpster in the morning and find a fat raccoon staring up at me to see what I have to offer.
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