Crossing Paths with Hemingway
A factoid buried deep in the crevices of my mind, probably gleaned from a previous adventure in Key West, Fla., is that Ernest Hemingway spent the summer and fall of 1919 in the northern wilds of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (LP) recovering from grievous First World War wounds sustained on the Italian front. I decided on a detour from my Northern Ontario ride on my Suzuki 650 V-Strom to see for myself what “Papa” Hemingway found so wonderful in northern Michigan.
I crossed the narrows of Lake Huron from Tobermory, Ont., to Manitoulin Island on the ferry. After touring the world’s largest freshwater island I headed west on the Trans-Canada Highway 17 from Espanola before dropping south from Sault Ste. Marie into the U.S. I was not exactly planning to follow Hemingway’s 100-year-old footsteps, but I wound up crossing his path in northern Michigan many times. While he was there to heal his mental and physical wounds, I was riding in Michigan to escape the stresses and anxieties of modern life and to
