By God
We found this line in Gothic script written in marker on the wood of the overlook platform at the rest stop above Epoufette Bay. You can see it for yourself, but it reads "By God We'll Have Our Home Again." Which makes me curious about some things, doubly so when I consider my own personal history with Epoufette.
This was an Ojibwe village for a long time, until wandering French Canadians began stopping here and hanging out in semi-permanent camps in the late 17th century. In the 1860s or so, my great-great-great-grandfather Amable Goudreau started using this as a second base for the fishing empire he had going back in St. Ignace, and the community became a little town for a while. But then the fishing dried up, and people started wandering away, and this became a very poor place full of folks just trying to hang on. My people moved on toward St. Ignace or Sault Ste. Marie. My grandparents divorced, and my mother grew up in an orphanage, then wound up wandering through the Lower Peninsula and California and Kentucky before landing in a cemetery about 400 feet behind me in 2005.
I think Epoufette has a lot of stories like that. I'm betting whoever held this marker has that kind of story. I'll bet the place just keeps drawing them back. It's that kind of place.
By God
We found this line in Gothic script written in marker on the wood of the overlook platform at the rest stop above Epoufette Bay. You can see it for yourself, but it reads "By God We'll Have Our Home Again." Which makes me curious about some things, doubly so when I consider my own personal history with Epoufette.
This was an Ojibwe village for a long time, until wandering French Canadians began stopping here and hanging out in semi-permanent camps in the late 17th century. In the 1860s or so, my great-great-great-grandfather Amable Goudreau started using this as a second base for the fishing empire he had going back in St. Ignace, and the community became a little town for a while. But then the fishing dried up, and people started wandering away, and this became a very poor place full of folks just trying to hang on. My people moved on toward St. Ignace or Sault Ste. Marie. My grandparents divorced, and my mother grew up in an orphanage, then wound up wandering through the Lower Peninsula and California and Kentucky before landing in a cemetery about 400 feet behind me in 2005.
I think Epoufette has a lot of stories like that. I'm betting whoever held this marker has that kind of story. I'll bet the place just keeps drawing them back. It's that kind of place.