A Fisherman's Light

I spent a morning at Crystal Cove on Amygdaloid Island on the north shore of Isle Royale late in the summer. The water was still quite low (it has since risen a great deal with all the rain that has fallen this autumn), so I took the opportunity to walk all the way around the cove. On the way, I went into one of the old storage sheds that were built by the Johnsons about a hundred years ago or so at Crystal Cove. Some of them are rotting away. Inside one, which has no roof any longer, I found this rusted lantern from days of yore. Of course, all such items are historical parts of the national park and as such owned by the people of the United States corporately and should not be removed, which would be in effect stealing. But discovering the lantern brought about some moments of reflection on the lives led by fishermen and their families decades ago on this wild, remote island. That way of life has all passed away. Crystal Cove is such a distant place, so far out in the wilds of Lake Superior, that it is bewildering to think that lives were once lived there and families prospered for a time in the northern wilderness.