Wandering on French Immigrant Land

 

Buttercups: genus Ranunculus

I was up and out on the strawberry hunt too early. Bardenhagens have a self-serve farmstand I often visit, but strawberry season is their big summer harvest, and for that they have live people working a larger, temporary stand, it turns out (I've always gotten their strawberries at the farmers market or at NJ's before), as cars line up on the side of the road and people form a long queue, buying by the $55 flat. --But not at 7 a.m. The strawberry stand opens at 9 a.m. 

So there I was with two hours of unexpected leisure. Driving to Suttons Bay, I picked up a coffee and a couple of donuts at Chimoski's and took myself and my dog down to the bay, where a boat was launching into the fog.

Setting out for dreamland....

Then, back west on 204, south on French Road, and east on Lavasser Road, an old favorite haunt the Artist and I visited often. Lavasser is probably (at least this is my best guess) a corruption of the French family name Levasseur, which comes from medieval times. Olivier Levasseur was a 17th-century pirate, born in Calais, who died on Reunion Island, but many with the same name emigrated from France to Canada and the U.S. The little unincorporated village of Lake Leelanau (Provement in earlier times) was predominantly French, and Dick's Pour House is still in the Plamondon family.

Used primarily by farmers in the immediate area, Lavasser Road in Leelanau County is an unpaved byway that extends through swampland, woodland, and past the occasional open field. Primitive plant life such as horsetail is more easily spotted than the road's human history.

Equisetum - horsetail - the bane of northern gardeners

Wetland stretching back from the road

Here an open field

There, behind those old cedars....

I've written about this road before and even about the site in the image just above. Maybe one or two of you remember that former post. If so, you may recall my telling you that an old log cabin used to stand just behind those cedars, which were probably planted on either side of the cabin's door by the old French settlers or a succeeding generation. The late Fred Petroskey, foremost portrait painter of Leelanau County, traced his ancestry on his mother's side back to France, and Fred's grandmother was born in the log cabin on Lavasser Road, the old pioneer dwelling now gone and rotted back into the earth. But I remember when the cedars were younger and enough of the cabin remained that it was possible to imagine a family living there. Living poor, I'm sure, just steps from the swamp, but I wish I knew some of the details of that long-ago life.

There are also some grand old trees here and there along the road.  

Surprisingly, a monumental black cherry.

Not as surprising is this old black willow.

Wetlands with trees are swamps.

Here, a sweeping long view --

From woods to fields again --

Can you see all the subtle colors here?

The old road has dug itself deep in places.

And again, back into the open....

"Thank a farmer" seems appropriate to my morning errand:

Back on Horn Road, I accomplish the morning mission,

along with many other eager customers.