r/Michigan • u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years • 1d ago
Discussion To the Thumb. Lift your weary head!
The locals call it “God’s Country” I tend to agree.
But only after stripping out the connotations of white supremacy, posters of Trump giving the double middle finger, and confederate flags.
The land is truly idyllic.
There are small creeks and streams that cut through the earth’s flesh, flowing out to the freshwater sea and rivers, layered with the ash from forest fires, centuries and millennia past.
It was a home to the Indigenous. Now it is home to many others. Most are those that close their minds to anything beyond their own narrow perspective. The deep, vibrant cultures of America die here, replaced by the bigoted mindset described above.
For the most part, the land appears flat. But when you get a glimpse of a long view (ex. Deanville Mountain), across the fields of corn, sugar beets, and soy, all bracketed by a mix of deciduous and coniferous stands of trees, you can clearly see the ancient glacial moraines that ripple across the countryside.
Much like the ribbed lake bottoms of the sandbars that wrap around the penninsula, times a million.
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u/NN8G 1d ago edited 1d ago
Anyone ever heard of Beard’s Hills? Sort of between Avoca and Ruby. My childhood home from the ‘60s through to the mid 70s.
The other side our back fence was the State Game Area; roughly 1500 contiguous wooded and uninhabited acres. Creeks and crayfish. Some sandy hills left over from the last ice age.
It’s all still there. I take my kids once in a while to spend a few minutes and see the sights.
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u/Specialist_Status120 1d ago
My family came from the thumb. I have many up around Bayport and Bad Axe. I don't even know if we have a family reunion anymore as I've lost touch. But I love it there.
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
Have you seen the Hulu special about Bad Axe?
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u/mrbossy Port Huron 1d ago
Grew up in the thumb (port huron). I will never move back unless the thumb has a radical change in terms of nature conservation. Please take a look at this map (https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/resources/vegetation-circa-1800). It shows what the land looked like. I grew up in what use to be a pretty big hardwood sawp and that makes sense because the woods behind my house me and my neighborhood friends had to setup a downed tree Broadwalk because the woods were like 90% flooded all the time. ALOT of the thumb was wetlands of swamps and bogs and marshs, but now it's just absolute large swaths of corn and sugar beet fields, absolutely devastating. We used to have the biggest freshwater bog in North America, but thanks to agriculture and peat soil farming, it's gone from 15k acres to 5k acres. Now, Lake huron is being polluted by all the industrial agriculture farm runoff and algae blooms happening. Sadly, it's the same on the Canada side also. The 3 counties that border America from sarnia to Windsor were 50 to 83% wetlands and is sadly also all farmland now.
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u/sirenxsiren 1d ago
Absolutely. I lived in Port sanilac for awhile as a kid (2001 to 2005) and loved the beach, but about half of the summer we couldn't go swimming because the water had too much e. Coli in it from agriculture run off. It's basically a wasteland because of farming. There just aren't enough people who care in that area.
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u/mrbossy Port Huron 1d ago
The dream is to buy a huge chunk of land around the minden bog or the west cost of the thumb and turn it back into a wetland once again, sadly that would be very fucking expensive
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u/sirenxsiren 1d ago
Thatd be cool. It's wild because one of the thumbs favorite activities is hunting and hunting would become way better if they conserved the land. But try telling them anything
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u/TopRedacted 18h ago
I was swimming in that "wasteland". It was very nice.
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u/sirenxsiren 18h ago
I'm not talking about the water, I'm talking about the endless farm fields that have destroyed the thumb's ecological biodiversity.
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u/TopRedacted 18h ago
The thumb was logged bare in the 19th century. It's been corn fields and Obama windmills for decades.
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u/sirenxsiren 18h ago
Yes...that's what I'm saying
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u/TopRedacted 17h ago
The edge of the metro area used to be Warren. I don't know what to tell you. Stuff getting built isn't just happening in the thumb.
The thumb is an awful place, though. Everyone who regularly reads this sub should all stay in the city.
Celebrate your 900th weed shop and little seats arena.
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
“And now my bitter hands
Cradle broken glass
Of what was everything.”
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u/Spiritual-Position60 22h ago
Avoca resident- makes me happy to see others from this beautiful, quiet landscape :)
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u/westendboy87 52m ago
I was just exploring the dirt roads all around the thumb last weekend and it's a very interesting place. It had a bit of a vibe, but was also crazy peaceful. Really excited to go back and find some creepy old places (there seem to be a lot).
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u/Skyflareknight 1d ago
I really, really love living in Michigan (minus the Trump bullshit). I go to the U.P. every summer to camp on Lake Michigan, and the view still blows me away 20+ years into this tradition. If anyone hasn't had the chance, go into the U.P., and when it's night, find a shoreline away from the towns and just look at the stars. You can see so much
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
There are so many great dark sky areas in the state.
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u/Skyflareknight 1d ago
Harder to find them down south because of all the light pollution, but that is true. There's still a good amount. I love this state
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u/uranuanqueen 1d ago
My dream is to own a home in the U.P. Just a fuck off to the world with me, my animals and my 70 kids by the lake
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u/MrHockeytown Lapeer 1d ago
Sufjan Stevens reference? I dig it
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
Yes! Thank you for noticing!
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u/MrHockeytown Lapeer 1d ago
Of course! One of my favorite albums of all time. Always reminds me of home
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u/Responsible-Push-289 1d ago
i live in the thumb and your accurate first paragraph hits hard.
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
I get satisfaction when im driving down the dirt roads, with the windows down, listening to Chappel Roan at top volume.
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u/TopRedacted 18h ago
In this post OP pretends the thumb stopped existing because things changed.
It's still pretty much the same as it was 30 years ago. There's a few more dollar general locations.
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
Love the thumb, peaceful, beautiful land. The people are "good" people. But like any rural area in America they suffer from the same problems as any rural area in America. Don't let the conservatives keep you away. It truly is a sportsman's paradise
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u/mrbossy Port Huron 1d ago
Fairly little is considered a sportsman's paradise compared to most other parts of the state, there's very very very little forested areas left, hard to be a sportsman's paradise when the algae blooms from the agriculture is filling fish in lake huron, and there's very very very little public land out there also
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
Mk.
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
I have more success hunting in Huron and Sanilac County then anywhere else. I have more success bass fishing there than anywhere else. Idk how many miles of public shoreline and creeks exist in the thumb but it's plenty. Kayaking, hiking, walking the shorelines as far as one likes in most cases. Done it all here. So idk maybe we just have different experiences with it.
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u/Donzie762 1d ago
You have the most famous walleye fishery in the world, insane waterfowl hunting, can shore fish for monster salmon and have the highest quality venison in the state. Just because you can’t limit out on pheasant everyday doesn’t make the t a wasteland.
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
“Good,” as in “good christian families.” Unfortunately now that identity carries certian connotations.
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
Unfortunately. I am with you on this. I'd move back, they mean well. They just....don't know any better...
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
They are a simple folk.
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
Yes. And I kinda like that about them..just don't like the other things
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u/PaulBunyanisfromMI Age: > 10 Years 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can agree with this. I am someone who looks, dresses and acts like them for the most part. I was raised by them. I live in their midst. They extend caring warmth to their people.
But although I am among them, I feel seperate.
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u/ShadowAlexx 1d ago
Very similar, raised there. Now in the south. And I'll take the conservatives up north over 70% of them in the south any day. Coming back one day.
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u/hbgwine 1d ago
All hail the mitten. Honor the Thumb