Apr 29 2008
Canoeist Nears Completion of Lake Erie to Lake Michigan Paddle
John Schneider, a columnist for the Lansing State Journal, has an interesting piece about one man’s adventure across southern Michigan via canoe. Charlie Parmelee, a man from Leslie, is following the route made by Hugh Heward in 1790. Parmelee started on the Huron River near Flat Rock, then took Portage Creek to Hell. A major portage took him to the Portage River and then the Grand River. Sometime this week, he will reach Lake Michigan at Grand Haven. That is very cool. Excerpts and link:
Woodruff, 86, lives on the Grand River in Delta Township. He’s a retired engineer who describes his hobby as “canoe- related Michigan history.”
He once read about a British trader named Hugh Heward who traveled by canoe from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan across Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. That was on April 24, 1790.
Woodruff began wondering if such a trip was still feasible. He spent years researching the question - in the library and out in the field. He put hundreds of miles on his car checking out the route, and concluded the journey might be possible.
On March 28 in the snow, Parmelee put his canoe into the Huron River near Flat Rock and began paddling up stream. He passed through Belleville, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Dexter. He then continued up Portage Creek, a Huron tributary, all the way to Hell.
Southeast of Stockbridge, Parmelee crossed the divide between the Lake Erie and Lake Michigan watersheds. Following a major portage, which included dragging his canoe on training wheels two miles down a highway, he put in at the headwaters of the Portage River, a tributary of the Grand.
On Saturday, other canoeists and kayakers will join Parme-lee for the annual 50-mile river dash to Portland known as the “Hugh Heward Challenge.”
Parmelee is expected to arrive in Grand Haven in the middle of next week.
The point of Parmelee’s monthlong odyssey?
“To reenact history,” Woodruff said. “And to prove that a guy like Charlie can still do it.”
Read this blog for HIGHLY RECOMMENDED updates about Charlie’s journey with historic context: