Pigeon River Country: A Michigan Forest

15. Camping along the Pigeon

15 Camping along the Pigeon One family that remembered the early days of recreation in the Pigeon River Country, the Motots from Fostoria, Ohio, began camping in the forest 15 years after Hemingway’s last visit. In August 1982, Jerry Myers interviewed Kathryn Motot, her daughter Doris, and their friend Florence Parkinson, who all had camped along the Pigeon with Kathryn’s late husband, Roy, years before. Kathryn Motot: We left our home in Fostoria, Ohio, in June of 1936 to take our vacation in northern Michigan. We come up ‹rst east of Grayling on the Au Sable and stayed two nights there. That’s where Orlo done his ‹rst ›y-‹shing. Then we come on up north. We cut in to Vanderbilt and cut out—we didn’t know where we was going, just nicely running around with our old Model A. Finally, Roy said, “There’s a row of pine trees down there. There’s got to be life because they’re too pretty to be just growing out in a ‹eld.” So he said, “Here’s a little cow path.” Q: You had a two-wheel trailer with a tent? A: Yeah. So we turned down that little road, and that’s where we come to the old bridge, big old planks with big cracks in them, and it teetered up and down, no side rails or nothing on them. We just fell in love with the place. I said, “Let’s stay here a few days.” We went to work clearing off a space big enough for the tent. The boys got out of the car and saw two big snakes on those logs under the bridge. Q: Water snakes, I assume? A: They were water snakes. We pitched our tent, no toilets, no tables. There was one old table the loggers had made out of great big round 183 logs, so I got the hammer out and the nails, hunted up some twigs, sticks, and whatever and nailed it together. It did wobble back and forth, but we used that to put the camp stove on. The boys wanted to go wade. I didn’t know anything about the river, so I even went out wading so the kids wouldn’t get out over their head. We stayed about 10 days. The next year Roy said, “We’re going back up on the Pigeon.” The kids could hardly wait. I think that was the year Joanna and Joe Coon come from Detroit. They were across on the other side where that spring crosses the river. He cleaned that spot up for his little tent. And that’s the way any of us met, and every year we’d make out our plans to be up here together. We set on the old bridge, hang our feet over. We’d watch the trail come down to the bank where there would be a great big long string of deer. They would all wade out there in the river and drink. We’d sit with all the kids and watch. Q: When you ‹rst came up here, the country was quite brushy and short shrubs and short trees . . . A: Yeah, it was brushy on the roads from Vanderbilt out. Nothing like it is now. Dusty and full of chuckholes, and you’d just about lose your car in one. Nancy was born in 1940, so we come up here when she was ten months old. We camped on the other side of the bridge, put our tent up. The [jack pine] limbs was clear down on the ground. She had learned to creep. She’d get out there and get her diaper hung up on the lower branches of pine trees and she’d just scream her head off. I’d go out and back her up and away she’d go. . . . Nan was two years old when [Kathryn’s son] John ‹xed up his ›y rod. He carried her on his hip and taught her to ›y-‹sh, and she was left handed. Q: Two when she was ‹rst ‹shing. That’s got to be a record. Now, didn’t Roy tie all his own ›ies? A: Tied all his own ›ies, made his own clothes. Q: And Joe Penxa, I believe—Joe had one of the biggest hands, at least double of mine, and of course he was a great big burly cop from Detroit, very interesting stories he used to tell. . . . And Anna, as...