Drummond in the Spring

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.

The following poem was written by my granddaughter, Madison Rain Baker, in response to an English class assignment this spring. My heart sang when I read it for the first time. Who knew our family traditions - centered around time spent on Drummond - would have such an impact? Strong enough that a young, gregarious teenager would feel compelled to capture those feelings in prose? 


Drummond in Spring

Drummond Island is a friendly place.

Filled with different people

and different race.

Trees line the road like a trophy case.

Every day you meet a new face.

  
Surrounded by a big blue lake,

Sometimes I sit on the shore when there's too much to take.

We pull into the cabin and see the familiar image of the tan cabin with a green door.

Last time I left here I didn't want to go and I wanted more.

 
 
After we unpack we head down to the boat,

The red chipped paint sets a float.

We all sit down prepared for the cold sting

As our ears begin to ring. 

                        

This is Drummond Island in the spring

When the birds come out ready to sing.

by Madison Rain Baker

Biking the Gem . . .

Bicycle Drummond

Ride around the Gem

Go easy, look hard.

- bicycle haiku by Candis Collick

The Island is a special place, you needn't go more than a couple of miles in any direction to be "in the bush" on one of it's many terrific mountain biking trails. It is ideal for people who like to explore interesting habitats and are game for a bit of adventure. But the island isn't all neatly signed and interpreted. When getting out and exploring the wild areas, it is very easy to end up taking an interior road that turns into a two track, that then all but disappears. So before you head out-and-about, be sure to stop by the DITA office located at the Four Corners and pick up a copy of the new Island maps. 

Drummond Island Tourist Association
P.O.Box 200 Drummond Island, MI 49726

906-493-5245 or 800-737-8666

Email: drummondislandtourism@alphacomm.net

Ode' to Island Life . . .

If once you have slept on an island

you'll never be quite the same

you may look as you looked the day before

and go by the same old name . . .

You my bustle about in the street & shop.

You may sit at home and sew,

but you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls

wherever your feet may go.

you may chat with the neighbors

of this and that

and close to the fireside keep,

but you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell

and waves beat through your sleep:

and you won't know why and you can't say how

such change upon you came -

but once you have slept on an island

you'll never be quite be the same . . .

-by Rachal Field

Revised: March 27, 2010 3:445pm: 

Thanks to a *Fan* of the Drummond Island Facebook page I can now add an author to today's Blog (my copy simply states "annonymous")

Rachel Field, born in New York City and educated at Radcliffe, was a well-known author of popular children's and adult books in the 1930s.  Among others, she wrote God's Pocket, in which Captain Samuel Hadlock, Jr., of Great Cranberry Island, plays a leading role.

Field summered on Sutton Island in the 1920s and 1930s, first in her mother's cottage, "Bunchberry Bungalow", and later in her own house.

She wrote the poems Cranberry Road and If Once You Have Slept on an Island about her enjoyable stays in the Cranberry Isles.

Exactly which island the poems refer to, however, is open to some controversy.  Long-time Islesford residents seem to think If Once You Have Slept on an Island was written about their island.  On the other hand, some Great Cranberry islanders claim that Rachel was staying in the Charles Spurling house there when it was written.  And, of course, Sutton Island, where she eventually owned her own home, could be the island intended.