• Sunday-What'sUP September 21 - 05:21 pm

When Bishop Baraga came ashore at Keweenaw Bay in 1831, his first mission was at a fur trading outpost near present day L'Anse known as Zeba. Not long afterwards, Native American Methodist preacher Peter Marksman also settled in the area. The influence of their Gospel message can be seen in the first photo above from the 1870's. The Indian tradition of Spirit Houses took on a new icon: that of the Cross. It marked the resting places of those whose hope was in the Son of the Creator, who Himself had risen from the dead.

It's funny how the period from Christmas to Easter seems to be the hardest, living here in the U.P. Sometimes it feels like Winter will never end. Then one day you're walking down the road and realize the chin-high snowbanks are gone, and you look out into the Lake to see your first ship of the season, like Edie and I did yesterday here in Eagle River. Birds are singing, sap is running, and the deer are retreating back into the woods. Maybe not warm enough yet to hunt Easter eggs in these parts, but Spring has definitely arrived.

Have a good week :o)

A blessed Easter to everyone! And how fitting that Jesus came back to life in the season when our own world rises from its long winter death! I recall words of Robert Frost:

I know that winter-death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak.

Happy Easter, everybody. Thank you 4 sharing that poem, Therese. And since it's Easter, here's a website that gives the dates Easter will occur on from 1583 through 9999. Enjoy:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/easter.php

Happy Easter to all!

Easter Day Blessings! He Has Risen!

Amen and Alleluia to that, Janie T.

He has risen! He has risen indeed!

A Easter blessing to all, Remember that he suffered and died for all of us. Rejoice that he has Risen!!!!!!

Have a wonderful Easter everyone. Weather is going to be beautiful here in the western end of the U.P.
Beautiful poem by Robert Frost. Thank you Therese.

That area sure looks different now compared to way back then.
Easter blessings to all on this fins Spring day!

Happy Easter Everyone! He Has Risen!
He Has Risen Indeed! Enjoy time with family and friends today.

Happy Easter to all

The frogs are singing up a storm here in NE Wisconsin. Happy Easter to all.

I remember taking a trip to the Soo with my grandpa and seeing some of those Spirit Houses. It was incredible.

I remember going to that cemetery many times with my father, and
later taking my own children there. It is a very moving place to
visit. The tributes left near the spirit houses remind me of the
Vietnam Memorial--another place where history speaks very
poignantly.

What a wonderful Pasty Cameo today! Of course it made me
homesick, and this despite the fact that we only returned from the
UP a couple of hours ago.

A Blessed Easter to all.

This cemetery is a lovely place to visit in the fall. I took many pictures there last fall as I inspected the remaining headstones, trying to figure out which ones were from the time of my favorite book, Lady Unafraid. I'm not sure if the pics are in my gallery, and it's too late now for me to check it out! Back to work tomorrow after spring break!

A Happy Easter to all! Praise HIM for that empty grave. Amen!

Out of ALLLL the trips we ever took to Lake Linden, we went through the Soo one time. I forgot about the spirit houses to go back and see them again or if they are even still there. Might take a trip to Mackinaw City and go there.

I remember going here when I was a kid. In 2004 I took my wife & daughter to the Keweenaw and made it a point to stop here (my wife likes visint cemetaries). She had never seen anything like it and was completely blown away.

Marsha, Lady Unafraid is my favorite book also. I recommend that book to anybody who wants to read about the L'Anse area and Keweenaw Bay Indians. The author of the book wrote about his mother who came to teach the Ojibway-Chippewa Indians in the year 1862.

One of my most vivid childhood memories involves a side trip my dad took my mom and me on to visit this Indian cemetery back in the mid-1960s. If memory serves me, there was one family buried there that had tombstones rather than the spirit houses and the inscriptions indicated that they all died near the same time, probably from a contagious disease. I can also recall seeing scraps of food and other offerings near the holes of the spirit houses. I must have been around ten years old. It was rare for my dad to make a detour on his trip home from Detroit to Hubbell, so any unscheduled stop anywhere along the way was surprising and that my dad even knew about this remote place impressed me at the time and still does.

John---I know what you mean about not taking any detours on the
way home. My dad had a one track mind every summer as we
headed to the UP. Not once did we stop at Sea Shell City, the
Mystery Stop or the beaches near Au Train. Come to think of it, I
don't stop in the LP either on my way home either...though my kids
did manage to persuade me to stop at the beaches near Au Train
to swim in the big lake. Are you a relative of Mike Du Long?

Mike is my brother. And for years my dad would make just one stop for gas midway to Hubbell from Detroit. I had the best trained bladder of any kid I knew! When I was in my early teens he did start stopping at Au Train so I could take a quick swim. And once, he stopped at Mackinaw City and I got 20 minutes to tour Fort Michilimackinac! It was magic for me to see the fort up close after viewing it from the bridge for decades. But those were the only exceptions. It was Hubbell or bust most years!

John--Thanks for the response.