Weird Wednesday: South Arm Nessie

Posted on by farlane

South Arm Nessie

South Arm Nessie, photo by Cvx_Wx

Absolute Michigan has been known to hold Weird Wednesdays on the last Wednesday of every month. Our Michigan Sea Monsters post featured two denizens of the deep courtesy Linda Godfrey’s Weird Michigan, the Sea Monster of the Straits and the Lake Leelanau Monster:

The story of an early 20th Century sea monster sighting was sent to The Shadowlands Web site by a reader whose great-grandfather was the witness. The boy was fishing for perch one day in 1910 in the shallows of Lake Leelanau in Leelanau County. The lake had been dammed in the late 1800’s to provide water power for the local mill and to enable logging. The dam also flooded much surrounding area, turning it into swamps and bogs punctuated by dead, standing trees.

On that particular day, the young great-grandfather, William Gauthier, rowed out to a new fishing spot near the town of Lake Leelanau. Looking for good perch habitat, he paddled up close to a tree that he estimated to stand about five feet tall above the water, with a six-inch trunk. He was in about seven feet of water, and after deciding this would be a good place to stop and cast a line, began tying the boat to the tree.

That’s when young William discovered the tree had eyes. They were staring him dead in the face at about four feet above water level. The boy and serpent exchanged a long gaze, then the creature went, “Bloop” into the water. Gauthier said later that the creature’s head passed one end of the boat while the tail was still at the other end, though it was undulating very quickly through the water. The writer noted that Gauthier always admitted to having been thoroughly frightened by his encounter, and that the event caused him to stay off that lake for many years.

The writer added that his great-grandfather came from a prominent area family and was very well-educated, and that he knew others who would admit privately but not publicly that they, too, had seen the creature. No sightings have been reported in recent times, but who knows how many people have believed they were passing by a rotting old cedar when in fact they had just grazed the Leelanau lake monster?

Could the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix hold similar creatures? Check this out big as a beastie and see more in Ed’s My Neighborhood slideshow.

More weird Michigan on Michigan in Pictures!

The Red Dwarf of Detroit and Other Ghostly Tales

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

2011 March Du Nain Rouge, Detroit, MI

2011 March Du Nain Rouge, Detroit, MI, photo by vanessamiller.

The last Wednesday of every month is a Weird Wednesday on Absolute Michigan, a time for stories of the spooky and strange. Definitely click that link to get your Halloween on, Michigan style, with stories from the Rowdy Ghosts of the Fenton Hotel to The Ghost of Minnie Quay.

Today’s tale is one of our favorites, the story of the Imp of Detroit, the Nain Rouge who some say has plagued the city since its founding over 300 years ago. It begins:

Among all the impish offspring of the Stone God, wizards and witches, that made Detroit feared by the early settlers, none were more dreaded than the Nain Rouge (Red Dwarf), or Demon of the Strait, for it appeared only when there was to be trouble. In that it delighted. It was a shambling, red-faced creature, with a cold, glittering eye and teeth protruding from a grinning mouth. Cadillac, founder of Detroit, having struck at it, presently lost his seigniory and his fortunes. It was seen scampering along the shore on the night before the attack on Bloody Run, when the brook that afterward bore this name turned red with the blood of soldiers. People saw it in the smoky streets when the city was burned in 1805, and on the morning of Hull’s surrender it was found grinning in the fog. It rubbed its bony knuckles expectantly when David Fisher paddled across the strait to see his love, Soulange Gaudet, in the only boat he could find, a wheel-barrow…

Read on for more, including more recent tales like the 1976 sighting by two employees of Detroit Edison of a small “child” climbing a utility pole on March 1st who then leaped from the top of the twenty-foot pole and scurried away. The next day Detroit was buried in one of the worst ice/snowstorms in its history.

Every March, the people of Detroit conduct the Marche Du Nain Rouge, a celebration to drive the Red Dwarf from the city. Vanessa got this shot there – see it bigger and in her 2011 March du nain rouge slideshow.

Seussian Scene, Yooper Style

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Untitled, photo by Blondieyooper.

The last Wednesday of every month is a Weird Wednesday on Absolute Michigan. In honor of that, here’s a funny little still life from the UP.

Check it out big as a blueberrishroom and in April’s Dr Seussish File slideshow!

The Ghost of Minnie Quay

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Sticks and Stones by Jeff Gaydash

Sticks and Stones, photo by Jeff Gaydash.

November is Shipwreck month on Absolute Michigan, and today we have one of the best Weird Michigan features ever, The Ghost of Minnie Quay, which tells a haunting tale of love and loss from Forester, Michigan.

The last Wednesday of every month is a “Weird Wednesday” on Absolute Michigan, when Linda Godfrey gives you a sample of what’s weird in the Wolverine State. You can listen to Linda’s latest podcasts and report your own strange encounters at weirdmichigan.com, follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/lindasgodfrey and also check out her books including Weird Michigan & Strange Michigan.

Jeff took this shot of the remains of the Forester Pier last March in Lake Huron. Check it out bigger in his Great Lakes slideshow.

Safe travels and fair winds!

Michigan Snowhenge in Grand Rapids

Posted on by farlane

Michigan Snowhenge, photo by Michigan Druids

On February 13th, 2010 they were successful in completing a 1/3rd scale replica of Stonehenge at the MacKay Jaycees Family Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They write (in part):

The monument built out of Michigan’s most abundant natural raw material is appropriately named Snowhenge.

Standing 6.5 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter and consisting of nearly 1000 cubic feet of packed snow, Snowhenge’s 12 pillars and 12 lintels are perfectly aligned astronomical markers. Looking directly through the hole in the center of pillar 3 soon after sunset on Winter Solstice extraordinarily reveals an almost equilateral triangle formed by the visible planets Saturn (left), Mars (top), and Venus (right). A curious carving on pillar 4 shows four stars inside a trapezium which matches the Trapezium Star Cluster in the Orion Nebula. The imaginary end point of a line dissecting the trapezium matches the coordinates of the star Sirius, the brightest star in the Milky Way. An obelisk inside the snow circle marks the passage of the sun as its shadow moves in a figure eight on the ground below. Stone plaques strategically placed on the ground display the constellations of the zodiac. Outside the circle, three pairs of standing snowmen show where the sun rises and sets for each of the solstices and equinoxes.

Every key point also has a rock plaque denoting its seasonal significance engraved with a simple phrase like “Midsummer Solstice Sunrise”. Others describe local area seasonal events such as “Blandford Sugarbush”, “Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts”, “28th Street Metro Cruise” and “Celebration on the Grand”. The 12 lintels, supported by 144 rods of ice rebar, also contain markings that coincide with the orbital patterns of Earth and Venus which are designed to forecast solar eclipses, the appearance of comets, and the end of the world on December 23rd of 2012, exactly matching the Mayan calendar prediction. What’s most truly remarkable, pillar 1 is precisely parallel with 28th Street! Curiously, the phenomenon known as global warming which has created isolated heat zones around the globe inversely causes cold spots on the opposite side of the globe. Numerous consecutive years of record heat spikes in Perth, Australia are directly responsible for the extraordinary cold snaps at MacKay Jaycees Family Park which will amazingly keep Snowhenge frozen all year round.

Read more and see pictures at snowhenge.blogspot.com, and also check out this picture of Snowhenge at night.

Not enough Michigan weirdness for you? The last Wednesday of every month is a Weird Wednesday on Absolute Michigan!

Underwater images from a Lake Michigan Stonehenge

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

If you’ve ever wondered what the most popular post on Michigan in Pictures was, you’ve arrived. Over 100,000 people followed a Reddit post here to learn about an underwater discovery.

September 29, 2011 Welcome everyone from Reddit. We don’t have any update to this story right now but I’ve emailed Mark and will post anything I learn. You might enjoy some of our Weird Michigan features from Absolute Michigan too!

Lake Michigan Stones

Lake Michigan Stones, photo via bldgblog.

In Stonehenge Beneath the Waters of Lake Michigan, Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG writes:

In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan. If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest.

Regarding the slightly repurposed “sector scan sonar” device that Northwestern Michigan University College professor and underwater archaeologist Dr. Mark Holley & Brian Abbott were using to survey some old wrecks when they made their discovery, Geoff writes:

The circular images this thing produces are unreal; like some strange new art-historical branch of landscape representation, they form cryptic dioramas of long-lost wreckage on the lakebed. Shipwrecks (like the Tramp, which went down in 1974); a “junk pile” of old boats and cars; a Civil War-era pier; and even an old buggy are just some of the topographic features the divers discovered.

You’ll definitely want to click through to read the rest and see more pictures!

You can read a detailed feature about this in U.S. archeologists find possible mastodon carving on Lake Michigan rock at NowPublic and listen to some radio reports from the time of the discovery in August of 2007 that include an interview with Dr. Holley and another with Grand Traverse Bay Ottawa Indian tribal member and historian John Bailey in Mammoth discovery beneath Grand Traverse Bay? on Absolute Michigan.

A Haunting at Historic Fort Wayne

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

A Haunting at Historic Fort Wayne

A Haunting at Historic Fort Wayne, photo by milminedesign.

On the last Wednesday of every month, Absolute Michigan has a “Weird Wednesday” – a day dedicated to sharing creepy tales and strange photos from all across Michigan. Today is no exception and you can click over to read the legend of Dog Lady Island, a special excerpt from the great book Weird Michigan by Linda S. Godfrey.

Linda doesn’t have a corner on the unexplained though – here’s a photo from the Absolute Michigan pool by Karen who writes:

I took this photo on a sunny spring day in early April. Late afternoon at Historic Fort Wayne in Detroit. No one was in front of me when the photo was taken, nor did I see this apparition until reviewing my photos. I am an investigator with Metro Paranormal Investigations here in Michigan and we were preparing for an investigation. Notice that the figure does not have a head. Pictures taken immediately before and after this one show normal lighting and look nothing like this one. This photo has been analyzed many times by several individuals and the current conclusion is that it is unexplained.

At the Metro Paranormal Investigations you can check out paranormal reports and more photos in their gallery.

The Wikipedia entry for Fort Wayne in Detroit doesn’t mention any hauntings, but you should probably go there to check! One thing I do know about Fort Wayne is that the whole facility is in peril due to a lack of funding for historic preservation. You can learn more about that from the Historic Fort Wayne Coalition and at Save Fort Wayne.

Michigan Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents & Serendipity

Posted on by farlane

at Mackinac

at Mackinac :: a composite from -3 and -43 by Emery Co Photo

Last night I was looking for Creative Commons photos* with the appropriate license of the Mackinac Bridge so I could photoshop up a little something for Weird Wednesday: Michigan Sea Monsters (be sure to go back and read this!). I love it when the last Wednesday of the month rolls around as I get a chance to indulge my love of fooling with Photoshop. I was especially fired up as this month’s feature from Weird Michigan by Linda S. Godfrey because it was the feature that I had hoped to run last year as the debut of Weird Wednesdays on Absolute Michigan.

In my search, I saw this photo of the Bridge and thought “Now that looks cool & misty.” Then I came upon this photo of a rock and said “Sea serpent ahoy!” The coolest part was that both photos were taken by Emery Co Photo (emerycophoto.com). I contacted her and she graciously allowed me to use them.

Hope you all get some time on the water this weekend and that everyone remembers that on the list of things we should be worrying about, sea serpents in Michigan come in somewhere around #23,432,555. ;)

*That would be the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. There are also a number of people in the Absolute Michigan pool who have told me that they are OK with me manipulating their photos for features on Absolute Michigan.

Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

marvelous-marvins-museum

Ask “The Brain ” – Marvin’s Mechanical Museum, photo by DetroitDerek.

Derek writes:

“The Brain” is one of the animated mechanical fortune tellers at Marvin’s Mechanical Museum. Marvin has been collecting video games, games of skill, and items such as these ( some date back to 1900, and others were custom built specifically for Marvin) since 1960. Marvin’s opened in 1990, and is listed as one of the 100 most unique museums in the world. Admission is free.

Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum is located in Farmington Hills and it operated by Marvin Yagoda. It’s designed to be fun for the entire family and the web site is a treat!

Speaking of the weird and wacky, when we don’t forget, the last Wednesday of every month is a “Weird Wednesday” on Absolute Michigan with help from Weird Michigan. We didn’t forget today, and there’s some great stuff on Michigan UFO Sightings today!

Another (Michigan) Roadside Attraction

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Paul Bunyan

Paul Bunyan, photo by I am Jacques Strappe.

The Michigan Historical Museum is planning an exhibit called Michigan’s Roadside Attractions, set to run from January to June of 2009. They are looking for stories, pictures and artifacts of the unique places – open or long shuttered – that folks visit on the way from someplace to someplace else. Michigan Historical Museum System Director Phillip C. Kwiatkowski says:

We want to hear what made you stop at these roadside attractions – places like the Mystery Spot in St. Ignace, Deer Forest in Coloma, Windmill Island in Holland and the multiple locations where Paul Bunyan has been spotted – and to see the photos you took and the souvenirs that you kept. Our biggest need is your treasured mementoes, from miniature Paul Bunyan statues and plastic purses to dinosaurs, seashells and even ceramic doll dish sets.

If you can help, please contact Eve Weipert, curator of collections, at (517) 373-1509 or weiperte@michigan.gov. Most artifacts used in the exhibit will be considered on loan and will be returned after the exhibit ends. The museum has an established review process that is utilized prior to acceptance of loans or permanent donations. Artifacts are needed by April 1, 2008 to allow time to complete the exhibit storyline around the available artifacts.

This photo by Marjorie is part of her Roadside Curiosities set (slideshow) and it’s available “Bunyan-sized” for your desktop wallpaper.

If you’re interested in Michigan’s roadside attractions, here’s some “roadside” photos from the Absolute Michigan pool, Michigan Tourist Traps from WaterWinterWonderland.com, the “roadside” tag on Michigan in Pictures, this Absolute Michigan “Weird Wednesday” featuring Domke’s Dinosaur Gardens and of course, Michigan’s legendary Big Boy Graveyard.

If you have links or memories to share, post them in the comments!