michigan travel | Off The Beaten Page Travel

It’s not as exotic as Ernest Hemingway’s other famous haunts — Paris, Cuba or Africa, for example. But travel to Walloon Lake in Michigan, and you’ll experience the outdoors and love of nature that set Hemingway on his path to a Nobel Prize in literature.

Ernest Hemingway spent his summers fishing and hunting near Walloon Lake Michigan — As a youth, Ernest Hemingway spent summers at his family’s cottage on Walloon Lake in Michigan where he learned to revere the outdoor life. A gun, a knife, a fishing pole and some fish. What more could a man want? (photo: Michigan Hemingway Society)

It’s not easy being an Ernest Hemingway fan these days. The Ken Burns/ Lynn Novick documentary “Hemingway,” on PBS has once again whacked the #metoo hornet’s nest that surrounds Hemingway, one of America’s most famous writers. Hemingway was a hyper-macho fellow (a trait much admired in his day), a philandering “man’s man” who reported on wars around the world, admired bullfighting and drank like fish, much to the detriment of his personal relationships.

Yet, the Nobel Prize winner changed American literature the way jazz changed American music. One of my favorite writers, Edna O’Brien, said in the Paris Review that the first time she heard a lecturer read aloud the first paragraph of A Farewell to Arms, “I couldn’t believe it—this totally uncluttered, precise, true prose, which was also very moving and lyrical.”

So, let’s pause our #metoo judgement for a moment. Instead, read Hemingway’s books and essays about the places in Michigan where he got his start as a writer and outdoorsman long before he was famous.

A Boy at Walloon Lake, Michigan

Ernest Hemingway learned his love of the outdoor life as a child in Michigan which influenced his writing — Ernest Hemingway learned his love of the outdoor life as a child in Michigan. (photo: Michigan Hemingway Society)

I’ve written about Hemingway-inspired travel on this blog before. For example, a visit to his childhood home and gorgeous neighborhood in Oak Park, Illinois, near Chicago; Hemingway hang-outs near Petoskey, Michigan; and a Hemingway tour of Paris. But be sure to add Walloon Lake, Michigan, to your itinerary.

Ernest Hemingway was just three months old when his family took him to Walloon Lake’s north shore for the first time. In those days, the trip from Chicago required a combination of trains, boats, and buggies. He spent time there at the family’s cottage, Windemere, every summer until he was about twenty. The woods and waters of the area shaped Hemingway’s life and outlook in fundamental ways. That environment inspired his love of nature and the “strenuous life,” as his hero Teddy Roosevelt called it, of hunting, fishing and physical risk seen in all his writing. And, at Walloon Lake, Hemingway married his first wife, Hadley, who became known as “The Paris Wife.”

Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife tells a fictionalized story of Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, who he married at Walloon Lake. (photo courtesy of the Michigan Hemingway Society)

Nick Adams Country

I grew up in Michigan and spent time each summer at a cottage (that’s what Michiganders call them no matter how big the structure) in the same area, mainly on Mullett Lake, near Cheboygan, at the tip of the Michigan mitten. I can attest to the area’s power to inspire the love of the outdoors, though I didn’t experience as many bootleggers and tramps as Hemingway. Plenty of boaters, water-skiers and fishermen, though. And it wasn’t always a “strenuous” existence. Hemingway said, “It’s a great place to laze around and swim and fish when you want to. And the best place in the world to do nothing. It is beautiful country … And nobody knows about it but us.”

Today’s visitors enjoy modern amenities at the Hotel Walloon, which reflects the classic architectural style of many resort hotels in the era when Ernest Hemingway spent summers on the lake. (Photo courtesy of Promote Michigan.)

Yet, now, the village of Walloon Lake wants to be sure everyone knows about it. This year they’re celebrating Hemingway with a series of events, including The Hemingway Birthday Celebration which takes place July 21. Labor Day weekend, September 3-6, brings the Hemingway Homecoming featuring the unveiling of historical installations downtown focused on Hemingway as well as other aspects of the village’s development such as early rail travel, hotels and resorts, boating and more.

They’ve also been reading The Nick Adams Stories, a collection of short stories that Hemingway wrote about his boyhood in northern Michigan. The stories cover hunting, fishing, life, death–all the most important things– with descriptions that make you feel you’re there with him. In “Big Two-Hearted River,” for example, he describes, “holding the rod far out toward the uprooted tree and sloshing backward in the current Nick worked the trout, plunging, the rod bending alive, out of the danger of the weeds into the open river.”

So, don’t #cancelpapa or dismiss Hemingway without first reading his work. He makes an excellent tour guide for adventure, the love of nature and an understanding of the human condition.

Ernest Hemingway in Michigan

Detroit has long suffered from urban blight and a gained a reputation as a mecca for “ruin porn.” But the city is making an impressive comeback and has enough new construction projects, new residents and new sports facilities in the works to make most cities envious.

The city still has a long way to go. There are vast swaths of vacant buildings and open land where structures have been torn down. But, talk about making lemonade when life gives you lemons….The city’s many vacant buildings and storefronts have made Detroit a massive canvas for world-renowned street artists, attracting tourists who love street art and graffiti from around the world.

One of the most famous street art locations in Detroit is the once-thriving two-block area of the city’s east side known as the Heidelberg Project constructed by artist Tyree Guyton. It’s an outdoor art experience you wouldn’t believe–funny, sad and haunting. His goal, to make people pay attention to the blight rather than avoiding it. You can read about it and Detroit’s other street art and graffiti projects in the terrific book Canvas Detroit that I picked up on my recent visit there. In that book Guyton says, “My experiences have granted me knowledge of how to create art and how to see beauty in everything that exists.” Take a look: