There are places all around us that look like our boring every day scene, but many hold a special moment of significance in some point of history before we came along. Some are unmarked and unassuming while others are marked well to remind us of their significance in history. Take for instance a battlefield like the Little Big Horn. The combatants have long returned to the dust and all traces of battle faded, but a person can feel it standing there looking over the field. You’re on sacred ground. 

 There is a sense of the spirits of those before, an energy that doesn’t fade with time.  Some of these sections of sacred ground are large, others are small but all are equivalent in energy to the significance of the events and people involved on that location.

 Most anyone today can relate to this idea when you mention ground zero. Millions have been drawn to that ground since that fateful day of 9/11. Many people who never knew a single individual in the twin towers or any one involved that day, will still stand and openly weep. The events of that day were so powerful and traumatic, that just being there will create strong emotion. There is an energy and power there. It is sacred ground.   

  I was first made aware of sacred ground far from most modern civilization and on a much smaller scale. It was shown to me when I was young by my father who was shown it him by his.

  It is unmarked except for its name on the map. This area lies along a desolate section of Lake Superior shoreline in Michigan’s upper peninsula. The land is in the Hiawatha National Forest and only accessible by four-wheel drive or by foot.

  A person can immediately feel the change once you make the north turn off the asphalt of state highway 121 on the narrow two track road. The almost solid canopy of deciduous trees begins to shadow the land. This stunts the undergrowth by starving it of sunlight, which in turn thins out the forest. This gives a dark umbrella like effect to a lush forest floor of ferns yet devoid of brush that would otherwise obstruct your view. About a mile in, the road diminishes in quality at an abrupt corner and it is obvious that most will park and walk from this point.

  It is at this time when your engine is switched off and you step from your vehicle that you feel the transition beginning, an energy building. There is an immediate sense of something serious close by. Something sacred.

  There is no panicle, no central spot of intensity. There is no golden alter or cave with ancient pictographs, however there are spots where there is powerful energy that causes each participant to be drawn to quiet reflection.

  As a person sets out on foot from this spot, a prominent ridge begins to make itself more noticeable. Its steep climb runs in sharp contrast to the elevation of the two-track you walk but constantly parallels your left. 

  It’s not at all uncommon to see a variety of wildlife along your walk. However it has always been my experience when visiting, that the woods in this area is exceptionally quiet and its wildlife cautious. I find my own steps taken with extra care. I want only to be a silent visitor and not an intruder. I have recalled a number of visits where during a portion of this hike I found myself almost holding my breath and walking swiftly, feeling as if something were watching my trek. You might visualize Ichabod Crane on his way home through that section of dark woods in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

  I vividly recall one trip through these woods with normal trepidation of the journey, when a low flying raven winged in overhead, unbeknown to me, and cried out his carrion call. Saying I was startled, is an understatement.  I smile to myself now and think that nature must surely have a sense of humor.

  It is approximately halfway from the parked vehicle and the shoreline of Lake Superior where your journey takes an abrupt deviation. The occasional and rare hiker who might traverse this road and knows nothing of the areas history or how to find this spot, will continue on down the trail and pass right by.

  It takes a bit of scouting every time, even if you know what you’re looking for. First, is a ditch with water and mud that must be crossed, and then you are trying to pick up a faint trail heading west and toward the obscure ridge. This takes a bit of casting around as small game trails spider web the woods. The trail you seek, is now used by more wildlife than any humans these days. If you hit it right, you will be aware you are on a path, and not a game trail any longer. Here the path is wider and deep cut as you begin to side hill up the grade of the ridge. It was at this point that suddenly I experienced the connection of energy on my first visit. My feet, treading where so many other moccasin covered feet had in ancient days. There is a very old Maple tree nearby growing with a huge crook in its trunk. This, was explained to me later by an uncle who was a bit of an armchair historian, to be the way the Native Americans of the area marked trails. The path grows steeper as you climb, drawing your strength. The woods here are dark except for the smooth trunks of the occasional Beach tree. The smell of the forest is a dank but fresh draw to the lungs, as you climb.  

  Cresting the top, sunlight filters through the green over story, revealing a thinning of the trees ahead. The path completes this short distance and spills out and into an opening no bigger than two or three acres. A soft wind stirs the waist high grass and whispers among treetops. This is sacred ground.

  Chippewa Indians camped here for centuries. I still have an old family photograph showing a 1967 archeological dig by the University of Michigan of this site. This dig found artifacts dating back to the time of Christ and evidence that camps of people had been coming to this spot as far back as 5,000 BC.

  My fathers parents spent a large portion of their youth growing up at nearby Sault Point, so much more about this dig and the area has become part of our families history. A few of us know where unmarked graves are. 

  History aside, when I was first brought here at a young age by my father, I felt the power of the place. It was this same drawing energy that brought me back alone as young adult in search of the hidden path and ancient campsite.

  Each visit, I found it a location of quiet reflection. Not a place to poke around and explore. It is a solitary place, rich in nature’s quietness and harmony. It is a place I give much respect. A place to tip your head back and feel the grass tickle your open palms while drawing in with your lungs and your spirit. A place to close your eyes and envision the rolling back of the centuries and how things might have been then.

  I never stay long. For all its drawing power, I prefer to pause for a moment and move on like the White Tail deer watching from across the clearing. I always offer a small prayer before I start back down the trail, ever aware something is watching.

  Back on the main two-track road, your traverse twists through an ever-increasing stand of dark and towering Pine. There are old remnants of a logging camp, their rusting components adding to the lonely of the place. The forest floor here is pliable and covered with bright green lichen and moss. Somehow this area also holds its own strange energy and feeling, like passing through a ghost town.

  Once past this eerie and brooding section, the Paper Bark Birch trees start to lighten the forest mood and a breeze from off the lake can be felt as you hurry forward.

The journey you’ve walked suddenly ends directly on a sun filled beach in some of the purest, fresh, water and white sand found east of the Mississippi River. This vast and empty beach lapped by majestic waters is called Naomikong Point.  I have camped here a number of times. There are several bays from this point east, remote and desolate. Another human footprint in these bays is very rare. In late August, there is a trance like effect to the warm waters ebb and flow.

  There are enchanted days when warm winds blow and as the serf pounds the sand, you would swear you were in the tropics.  Equally spellbinding, evenings can turn the water calm and mirror like. As you become transfixed on the sinking sun, you hear the haunting call of loons echo across the distance.

  Henry Longfellow set the stage here when he wrote The Song of Hiawatha. You clearly sense and feel it in part three of the poem as he describes where Hiawatha was born.

            By the shores of Gitche Gumee

            By the shining Big-Sea-Water

            Stood the wigwam of Nokomis

            Daughter of the moon, Nokomis

            Dark behind it rose the forest

            Rose the black and gloomy pine trees

            Rose the firs with cones upon them

            Bright before it beat the water

            Beat the clear and sunny water

            Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water

The point in its isolation is a place you can leave the current world and its acceptable rules of behavior, far behind. Clothing is optional. Keeping track of time unnecessary. It’s a place where the eternal child inside can be unleashed. There huge smooth rocks to swim out to. A small Island to explore and sandbars that extend hundreds of yard from shore to walk. There is a wide variety of flora and fauna to view as well as every variation of driftwood imaginable. Some are smooth and straight, others twisted and water carved to fuel the artistic imagination.

  Although romantic in late summer, these waters have their own energy and power that you can feel even when standing safely on shore. Waters that have claimed many lives as history has recorded.

  Not more than thirty miles up the beach is Whitefish Point. It was here where a large freighter carrying a load of 26,000 tons of iron ore when down. Gordon Lightfoot put this tragedy to haunting song when he wrote The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The first and last repeating verses say it best.

            The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

            Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

            The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

            When the skies of November turn gloomy

  As the daylight wanes in the western sky and you feel the bodies need for nourishment and warmth, you may feel drawn back up under the shorelines twisted pines for an evening fire and protection. There is a soft carpet of needles on sand to pitch a tent and plenty of fire-ready wood at hand. As you pull back for an hour or so for your meal, the days hush and lull of constant waves on sand will be distant. Now you will hear the snap of the fire and the brushing sound of the wind through pine bows overhead.

  Later when you return to the water to wash your utensils, a completely new world has formed. Gone are the days crying gulls. Everywhere is now filled with starlight unpolluted and reflected by the waters expanse. The sand is still warm and you find yourself staying awhile to absorb the mysteries of space and your significance in it all. As you sit with your knees drawn up in ponder, and you reflect the days travel and events, you recognize one concrete truth. You are on sacred ground.

  In the end, whether you stayed the night or this was simply a day trip, the starting of your vehicle to leave, begins the ending of the spell. You can’t take the energy or power with you. Perhaps it was the sound of the radio that came on with the vehicle engine or the moment the tires found asphalt. Maybe it didn’t happen until you passed the first on coming car since leaving, but the reality of reality will hit you. The land with its power and energy will begin to fade. Not from memory but in the form of lost sensations, you never knew you had.  A small flame will always flicker inside your soul however, and hopefully draw you back to connect with the power of sacred ground.

  My visits to this place of solitude have been rare in the past fifteen years as I moved almost two thousand miles away. I have however, returned recently, and found it still untouched to my delight. I only had a brief portion of time to spend but it was enough time to connect and cherish.

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BTW, this is the ballad of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot that SJB was talking about in the story.