A Lake Named Douglas

Douglas Lake, in Cheboygan County of Northern Michigan, is a beloved spot for many, including the author and his family. That connection and the author’s passion for history led to this: a well-researched look at lake and region. The author completed this effort of many years near the end of his life, with editing help from his daughter. And there was still more he wished to learn about . A Lake Named Douglas Its history in brief By Gordon L. Dolton ©2014 A Lake Named Douglas By Gordon L. Dolton Edited by Gail Dolton Blaskowski Introduction Scan a map of Northern Michigan and it's easy to overlook the oddly shaped blue-filled outline in favor of its better-known watery siblings. Between the town of Pellston and Interstate 75 is where you’ll find Douglas Lake. Yes, that's Burt Lake just south and popular Mullett Lake close by. By the numbers, Douglas Lake is a substantial lake, but it is an obvious third in its neighborhood. It is a disconnected shirttail on the well-known inland waterway between Great Lakes Huron and Michigan. Still, Douglas has significance in the fabric of Northern Michigan as a gathering place, resource and playground. Generations of many -- Native Americans, farmers, entrepreneurs, resorters -- have ties to the lake. Important also is how Douglas Lake has figured prominently in research and education for scientists and students, who still work along its shores to explore and understand the natural world. One of the most powerful transformative natural forces in Earth’s history gave Douglas Lake its start. Chapter 1: Out of the deep-freeze Douglas Lake nestles in rolling hills above Burt and Mullett Lakes in westernmost Cheboygan County, which stretches east to Lake Huron and north to the Straits of Mackinac where Huron meets Michigan to cap the Lower Peninsula. Douglas Lake stands above the straits by 130 feet and is the headwater of the east branch of the Maple River of the Cheboygan River watershed. On a clear day, the tops of the two Mackinac Bridge towers are visible from Bonnett Road, which snakes north from Douglas Lake’s North Fishtail Bay. Those hills, the rocky remains of a huge glacier and the sands of a massive prehistoric body of water, are telling birthmarks. Douglas -- like Burt, Mullett and countless other Michigan inland lakes -- is a mere droplet of a long-gone vast freshwater body. Lake Algonquin emerged at the edge of a retreating continental ice sheet some 11,000 to 12,000 years ago during what is called the Valders Stage of the Pleistocene Era. The waters of Lake Algonquin ultimately withdrew to a low stand about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago (in the Lake Stanley-Lake Chippewa Phase) to create early versions of what would become the Great Lakes, and carving a gorge to connect Lakes Michigan and Huron beneath the present Straits of Mackinac. The high-water levels of the Nipissing Great Lakes Stage followed, barely 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, and the Great Lakes took on their modern shapes and levels. Former bluffs and beaches of ancient Lake Algonquin mark the larger landscape of Northern Michigan. Prehistoric wave-built terraces stand about 75 feet above modern Douglas Lake. Some of the area's hills – to the west at Riggsville and to the east by Pellston -- were once islands that rose out of that giant lake. Douglas Lake gradually separated as Lake Algonquin shrank, its edges changing over time. It survived as a "kettle lake," a pot that caught water melting from huge blocks of ice trapped in the debris left behind by the retreating glacier. There remains evidence of an early shoreline about 12 feet higher than current Douglas levels, and a prominent wave-built terrace can be detected about 4 to 9 feet above the present shoreline. Both are outlines of earlier versions of the lake. Still visible on the lake bottom are glacially deposited rocks, including a few propeller- eating boulders, looming large and strangely out of place. Chapter 2: Vital statistics The distinctive modern footprint of Douglas Lake has been much the same through recorded history. This wee remnant of Algonquin averages about 18 feet in depth, though the lake is pocked with a widely scattered handful of holes that exceed 60 feet; the deepest measures a noteworthy 89 feet. Hooks and spits and shocking spills from shallows to deep water mark the many spots where ancient waves cut or constructed underwater terraces and benches. The lake's outline is impressively irregular. With the exception of a couple of bays whose names descriptively include the word "fishtail," Douglas sports a figure that is tough to name. The lake is characterized by prominent wooded headlands separated by deep embayments. Notable land features are a single island, Pells, and East, Sedge, Bentley, Ingleside, Maple, Grapevine and East Points, with intervening bays of North Fishtail, Nutting, Marl, Maple and South Fishtail. A flying crow would mark the lake at nearly 4 miles at its longest and 2 miles across, comprising about 3,700 acres. Its jagged shape accounts for an exceptionally long shoreline, more than 15 miles including Pells Island. Douglas is fed by lake-bottom springs, groundwater percolation, flows from Bessey and Beavertail (also called Trout) creeks, and occasional runoff from surrounding marshland. Altogether, the lake's watershed extends about 26 square miles. Multiple ways let water in, but there are few exits. The lake’s only surface discharge is through the east branch of the Maple River into Burt Lake. Below ground, however, lake water drains from South Fishtail Bay into the "High Springs" of Little Carp Creek that flows into Burt Lake. In large measure, Douglas Lake's disconnectedness from an overland water route accounts for its relatively unspoiled nature, or at least for its lesser development than Burt or Mullett. At various points in the lake’s history, this isolation brought environmental blessing or economic bust. Chapter 3: Ancient lake, ancient peoples Just as Douglas Lake traces its origins to an ancient lake, the first people to fish its waters, take shelter on its shores and hunt in its woods were prehistoric. More than 100 feet under water in the straits area of Lake Huron, archaeologists have found evidence of what they believe are caribou-hunting structures and camps used by native peoples some 9,000 years ago. A land bridge joined the upper and lower peninsulas back then, in a time of extremely low water during the Lake Stanley-Chippewa Phase of the Great Lakes. At Douglas Lake, archaeological evidence indicates a later prehistoric Archaic and Woodland Indian occupation at South Fishtail Bay in the vicinity of the University of Michigan Biological Station, where a copper spear point about 3,500 years old and a 2,800-year-old limestone adz have been found. In recent years, UMBS staff and students have been mapping and excavating ancient storage pits – caches -- that dot mostly the south side of Douglas Lake, concentrated on Grapevine Point. A handful of likely caches also are believed to be along North Fishtail Bay. Undoubtedly, the lake was the site of Indian hunting and fishing parties and camps for thousands of years before white settlers arrived. The lake remained a common resort for Native Americans into early homesteading. An Indian fishing camp at the site of present Ingleside was known to early settlers; native peoples collected sweetgrass from around the lake, and took beaver and otter along its shores. Chapter 4: Change in the air In broad perspective, Douglas Lake sits on the fringes of Michigan history. The region’s power plays, potent politics and protracted conflicts were centered first at the Straits, and later at the hubs for Northern Michigan’s lumber industry. The French traversed the area during explorations of the vast western interior of New France and during the expansion of the fur trade. Their maps indicate a working knowledge of the upper Great Lakes, and several maps depict the Cheboygan River, though unnamed. During the 17th and early 18th centuries, the French pushed into Michigan’s undeveloped interior, building forts at key locations including Fort De Buade on the Straits at St. Ignace, and its successor, Fort Michilimackinac, on the southern shore in what is now Mackinaw City. In the process, the French pursued a thriving fur trade with surrounding tribes and encouraged Jesuit missions at larger Indian towns, including St. Ignace, Gros Cap and Sault Ste. Marie. During this period, Douglas Lake and surrounding lands were under dominion of the Odawa (Ottawa) native peoples. The Odawa made their principal village at L'Arbor Croche on the Lake Michigan shore after repeated incursions by the hostile Iroquois drove them from the eastern lakes and much of Huron. The western shore of Lake Huron into the Straits of Mackinac and Lake Superior was occupied principally by the Chippewa, allies of the Odawa. The northern Lower Peninsula was effectively divided between the Odawa to the west and the Chippewa to the east, the separation being slightly east of Douglas Lake. The Chippewa had a town at the mouth of the Cheboygan River, as well as settlements upriver and at Sault Ste. Marie, and together with the Hurons and Odawa, established separate villages at St. Ignace. While a few Indian trails crossed the area, Douglas Lake remained a remote and heavily forested backwater within the expanse of forest and swamp that covered Northern Michigan. Quite possibly, temporary hunting and fishing camps at the lake supplied a nearby village of the Cheboygan band of Odawa on the west side of Burt Lake.

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