Hiawatha's Home

Today I visited Lake Michigan, which meant two border crossings via the Independence Bridge. This is undergoing dramatic maintenance on the Canadian side, which effectively means that one lane of the two lane bridge is closed. They were not the only roadworks, as parts of US highway 2 in Michigan were completely closed.

The area I visited included Hiawatha National Forest. Much was similar to the forests in Canada that I went through yesterday, but a lot was quite different where there wasn't a National Forest. There, the deciduous trees didn't exist, and conifers were the only trees, or there were what I think were cypresses as well. In places the conifers had very short branches, like the trees in Alaska, and in others the area had been cleared some time ago, and the trees were all small. However, the detour for the closed part of highway 2 was through very narrow roads, where the forest was close to the road on both sides, and the deciduous trees were back in all their glory.

The peninsula is known for its pasties, and they are very good - properly made with a lot of potato and other vegetables.

I visited the end of the Michigan peninsula where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet and a bridge crosses the lakes. You can see why the two lakes are sometimes called Lake Michigan-Huron. At the International Bridge Lake Superior starts to go into St. Mary's River that connects it to Georgian Bay in Lake Huron.