Collecting Data

So, I'm on a research trip to the upper peninsula, Michigan, and then to Canada, to do research on how my family got to the U.S. from Canada, where they lived, what the French-Canadian migration was all about, etc. etc.

The first night, last night, I stayed in Mackinaw City, right before the Mackinaw bridge, which connects the lower peninsula to the UP. The town was pretty gross - middle america touristy, loads of families with loads of kids, white-trash touristy attractions, etc. I was miserable. My room, in some commercial strip, was quiet, though, and I managed to write and read. My suggestion: never stay in that city. Stop to get an ice cream or chocolate, but don't stay. De-press-ing.

The Mackinaw bridge is AMAZING. Gorgeous. Was built in 1957, which then made getting to the UP possible by means other than ferry.



Some thoughts so far on my family: as I was driving on roads in the UP - which were gorgeous: great lakes, woods, odd little trading posts selling furs the owners had hunted (gross, intriguing) - I noticed the train track to my left. I imagined myself driving alongside the commuter train that had carried my great-grandparents from St. Norbert Quebec, to here. It really moved me, imagining my pregnant great-grandmother on the train, feet from where I was driving, about to give birth in Marquette. This was 1902, and again in 1903. Amazing. I wondered if what I was seeing resembled what they saw. Likely in part, it did - there are still tons of woods, and the lakes, of course. This was touching, imagining these people, the parents of my grandmother, and imagining what it would be like to meet them now, and tell them that I travelled the same path they did when they were first coming to the U.S. I imagined how they'd treat me - would they think it was cool that I'd done this, or would it seem like an over-glorification of their struggle, some annoying celebration of hardship?

I can't wait to see the city where they first came to in the U.S. - Marquette - and to see if I can figure out anything about why the French-Canadians came here in particular.

More later-

jem