My grand-daughter, Rachael, has participated in a music program at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp for the past three years. This summer she was selected to be part of the camp’s International Youth Symphony Orchestra, which recently returned from an exciting three-week tour of Luxembourg, Germany, and France, where they gave seven concerts.
The camp is located close to Lake Michigan, near the community of Whitehall. We drove there recently for the orchestra’s Farewell Concert, a very impressive performance. They played an all Rimsky-Korsakov program – “Procession of the Nobles”, “Capricio Espagnol”, and “Scheherezade” – beautifully.
The concert was performed in an open shell before a large (perhaps one thousand persons) audience, made up of camp students, families of the performers, and residents of nearby towns, and was broadcast live on public radio stations in Muskegon and Grand Rapids. It certainly was a rewarding experience for Rachael and her fellow musicians.
The enthusiastic audience coaxed three encores from the orchestra, followed by an a capella rendition of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”, a traditional closer for Blue Lake orchestras.
The concert alone would have been sufficient reason for making the long drive to western Michigan, but we also managed to include several other interesting visits. We stayed in a resort hotel on White Lake, which actually is the mouth of the White River. Located nearby, on the south side of the channel linking the lake to Lake Michigan, is the White River Lighthouse.
When the lighthouse was deactivated in 1960, it was acquired by Fruitland Township and converted into a museum. It currently is one of four lighthouses operated by the Sable Points Lighthouse Keepers Association and is a very worthwhile destination for anyone interested in Lake Michigan’s maritime history.
Lake Michigan is an impressive body of water. Currents in it divide it into a pair of circular basins separated by a massive east-west submerged sand bar between Muskegon, Michigan and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prevailing winds from the west have produced the world’s largest fresh water sand dunes on the lake’s east coast.
I was impressed with the uniqueness of White Lake, wondering why such a large lake should exist at the mouth of a river. Eventually I learned that this phenomenon is common on the Michigan shoreline. Apparently the retreat of the last glaciers left the shoreline several miles east of its present location; sand dunes moved in to submerge it and create lakes at the mouths of the rivers.
Twin cities of Whitehall and Montague grew up on both sides of the White River and prospered at the height of the logging industry in Michigan, shipping lumber on Lake Michigan. It is impressive today to realize how much commercial traffic there was on the lake in those days.
Another interesting museum we visited was the Veterans Museum in Muskegon, housed in LST 393. Long time readers of this column are aware of my fascination with LSTs, resulting from my awareness of the role of the Dravo Corporation’s Neville Island shipyard in their production and the fact that my cousin Harry served on LST 548 in World War II.
LST 393 was built at Newport News and earned battle stars for landings at Sicily, Salerno, and Normandy. After she was mustered out, in 1947, she found meaningful civilian employment as “Highway 16” transporting new cars across Lake Michigan from Muskegon to Milwaukee. The highway for which she was named runs from Detroit to Muskegon and then west from Milwaukee on the Wisconsin side of the lake.
In recent years LST 393 was refurbished and found a permanent home moored to a pier in Muskegon. It has become an impressive museum filled with meaningful artifacts from past wars, with special emphasis on World War II. The combination of these displays and the opportunity to climb through an LST added up to memorable afternoon for me.
The Veterans Museum is operated as a non-profit organization that depends upon volunteers to perform a variety of tasks, ranging from chipping paint to guiding tours. Visiting it has reminded me that I wish Pittsburgh had a maritime museum dedicated the inland waterways.
All combined, this was a very enjoyable summer road trip; I am grateful to Rachael and her mother for allowing me to share it.