Why Presque Isle?

During the summer of 1980, while I was editor of The Record, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, I discovered Camp Chickagami.  The Camp had been a diocesan institution since 1929 when the Fletcher family donated property at the north end of Lake Esau as a permanent home for a boys' program formerly sited at Black Lake.  For half a century Camp Chick had served thousands of young men as it worked to raise up future leaders for the Church.  By 1980, however, the program was out of gas.  In the summer camping industry single-sex church camps were out, while co-ed, special-interest, and adventure programs were in.  Camp Chick's lackluster recreation, offered with only a veneer of religion, could not compete.  Moreover, a group of diocesan Movers and Shakers wanted to declare Camp Chick "surplus" property, sell it, and use the proceeds to build a flashy new conference center in the southern part of the Diocese.

In June I put my dogs in the back of the pickup and drove north to see what was up.  Presque Isle was not easy to find.  It was, and remains, one of those "you can't get there from here" places.  Nonetheless, an hour after I arrived, on a gloriously sunny day, I was sitting in Lake Esau with my dogs playing in the water — and I was in love!  It's hard to explain that falling-in-love reaction.  After all, what's so special about an obscure 275 acre lake in a state with so many inland lakes and over 3,000 miles of Great Lakes shoreline?  But I have known many over the years who experienced the same thing.

To make a long story less so, I went home to write an editorial for the diocesan newspaper declaring Camp Chick a treasure which ought to be preserved and rehabilitated, not tossed overboard.  The Movers and Shakers were not pleased.  I persisted, as did others.  At Annual Convention two years later, by a margin of just ten votes, our group of Camp Chick "fanatics" defeated an effort to sell the property for $85,000 — or $680/acre, for a parcel which includes a half-mile of Huron shoreline!  Camp Chick soon became the site for a successful family camping program.  In 1995, when the Diocese of Michigan was divided in two and the new Diocese of Eastern Michigan took over the ministry, I had worked with and for Camp Chickagami for 14 years.  I was also a Lake Esau property owner.

Having spent so much time in major urban areas — Lansing, New York City, Detroit — I find this area's lack of development and population especially attractive.  While quite a few homes have been built on Lake Esau over the past 30 years, and more year-round residents have moved to the area, Presque Isle remains a quiet outpost in a crowded, noisy world.

For more on Presque Isle, click here