Presque Isle winter.

Abstract

My yearly trips to Presque Isle have been a significant contribution to my love of the natural world that I’ve had most of my life. My house is in a southern Michigan suburb where most trees are in backyards and the most exciting animal I can readily see is a squirrel. Such surroundings are hardly ideal for developing an interest in nature. When I started visiting Presque Isle, however, I found a landscape that was much wilder than I was used to. Often in the evening during those early visits my grandparents would get my family and me into their van, and we’d drive aimlessly around Presque Isle looking for deer, turkeys, porcupines, and whatever else would cross our path. They’d take us hiking on the trails that they’d made in the woods, which seemed to extend forever through open clearings and thick forest. It was a side of Michigan I didn’t see back home, and I quickly came to prefer a forested landscape to a developed suburb.