Maqua After Camp

Camp Envy–The Next Generation

Published on by Kathy Baker

Spring has thawed the ice on the lake and our photographic friend, Carole Elizabeth Wilson, is famous for getting up early for her daily sunrise photo to share. She is the weather girl on the lake, letting us all know when the loons are out or nesting, what the temps. are and what incredible sunrises and sunsets we enjoy. I am in Florida awaiting the journey north to escape the Florida heat and humidity that is just around the corner.

This year our summer home is even more meaningful to us, after selling our home of 38 years with all its memories tucked in each corner. The house was built with love by an uncle of my husband, who is from Hale, and his brother, who was my husband’s father. Various family members helped to build this first home we ever owned, and a Hale stonemason created the Michigan fieldstone fireplace that held our many stockings at Christmas and even a few fires!

Our four children had mixed feelings about the sale of the home they grew up in but had one thing to say. “Do not ever sell the lodge!” For all the memories that were stored in their childhood home, none could compare to their relaxing and carefree summers on Loon Lake. It is where they learned to ski, build campfires, play in treehouses, hike trails, and enjoy the out of doors. Their happy times included making new summer friendships, driving the boat, fishing, catching fireflies and camping in the bunkhouse next to the lodge with their cousins. For all of you who camped and worked here, those were memories that are relatable.

This summer the entire family will gather in July and for the first time ever we hope to have every one of our children, spouses, and grandchildren all in one place. It will be a new experience for this growing family, who we manage to see on a regular basis, but not as a huge unit. With the new loft and extra space, we have room for everyone on the east side. The importance of the lodge as a gathering place will be cemented by the new memories made by the next generations.

With our life in transition and retirement just around the corner, the lodge gives us a sense of permanence and a place for future projects and reunions. It will always be our summer happy place. Our hearts remain in Florida where our children were born and raised, but our Michigan souls remain at Maqua. As the blogs come to an end in June, the transition of this website will turn to stories from the existing residents and perhaps a laugh or two. Thank you for all your special memories that have helped to keep the history of this magical place alive.

Sale Of Camp Maqua

Published on by Kathy Baker

Bob Sukenik saw an ad in the Detroit News advertising the lodge for sale in 1979 by the Bay City YWCA. He submitted a sealed bid, forgot about it and after a business trip, arrived home to a congratulatory message from the YWCA. The following weekend he and his family drove north to see what they had bought.

“What we got was an abandoned camp that had been closed for quite a few years.—maybe five. Everything was quite dilapidated and nothing worked”, said Bob. “The toilets were called “Biffys” and I think the only one that worked was the one adjacent to the lodge. You could not see the lake from the lodge because of the dense forest of trees 8”-12” in diameter. There was some rudimentary wiring on half fallen poles. The lodge itself was a huge open room filled with tables and benches. It had no bathroom, running water or heat.”

“It had not been vandalized, but small animals had chewed through the back screen doors. On that weekend, we were sitting inside and a chipmunk ran across the floor, stopped and looked at us with a face of no fear and proceeded to run into the kitchen, eat some of our dog food in the bowl on the floor, then scampered back out. Groundhogs were also a problem, eating all the tomatoes that had been planted by the west side outdoor wall.”

“Now that we had it, we had to figure out what to do with it. It was a gorgeous piece of property on a beautiful lake”, said Bob. “Our first thought was that we might be able to fix it up and lease it to someone who might want to operate it as a camp again. That didn’t work. We fixed it up so that it was relatively safe, but never even found the slightest bit of interest. We had an opening party for our friends that out to be a work weekend just to survive. It is a miracle they took to it so happily and that they remained friends.”

“Lacking any better ideas, we decided to convert the lodge into a duplex and subdivide the rest of the property for sale. This required surveying, making decisions on subdivision, writing restrictions and setting up the Maqua Association,” continued Bob.

“We continued to work many a weekend doing one thing or another to upgrade the property. One spring weekend, with no heat and freezing temperatures at night, my son Jim and I plus a few of his friends, slept in front of a roaring fire on the west side in front of the fireplace. (This was where you broiled on one side while freezing on another!) The heat also woke up a few mosquitoes, so it was not too comfortable. The boys had built a huge fire. Suddenly, there was a roaring sound, and I discovered what it meant by a chimney fire. We went outside and watched flames shooting out of the chimney for about one minute.”

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Camp Envy—Fourth of July 2018

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Happy Fourth of July from the present day owners of the property, once home to Camp Maqua. I thought it would be nice to hear a little history on the current owners and find out how they came to find their little piece of heaven in Hale. The lodge and the story behind the William and Kathryn Baker and Aaron and Blanche Starks families purchase was featured on June 18, 2018, entitled “In The Right Place At The Right Time”. https://www.girlsofcampmaqua.com/in-the-right-pla…t-the-right-time/

We celebrated our Independence Day, as we usually do, with a boat parade and this year my youngest son and family were here to enjoy the decoration of our boat  with the theme “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic”. We were among about 18 boats who participated and won the coveted boat flag for 2018!

Charlie and Jane Johnson decided, they would like their three children to enjoy the same experiences they had as youngsters with cabins in the woods. “I searched the Free Press ads and found the ad for the Maqua land almost as soon as it started running in 1985, so we came up and selected our lot—Chapel Hill,” said Jane, who built their log cabin three years later.

“We had so much fun with the kids on the lake—tubing, waterskiing and just floating. When our kids were in cross country in high school, we had both the boys and girls teams up for 3-4 days of running camp. The boys slept in the loft and the girls in the basement with the coaches on the couches in between. They would run three times daily and play on the lake in between. Charlie was exhausted, because he ran with them and was also the boat driver, but it was a wonderful experience. Now as we are older, we don’t spend as much time up here, but I still love the peace and quiet and just the “aaahhh” moments when I sit on my deck.”

Neighbor Rick Baker, at the bottom of Chapel Hill, bought in the early eighties and his cedar home was built by his uncle (Al Baker) in the early nineties. His early years, as a single male, was spent camping on the property. After his first marriage to Aimee, he and wife and two children spent every summer weekend on the lake, next to his best friend from college, who built next door.

Kim and Laura Gorman’s cedar home, also built by Al Baker, utilized the senior brownie as their garage by turning the roof around and adding a home to the lakefront side of the building. Kim bought his property in 1984 and camped from one of the huts on the property until his home was built in 1994. Their only son grew up on the lake on the weekends and they now spend more time up here in their retirement.

The property with another lakeside hut belongs to Jim and Pat Fidler and (now deceased) brother John McConnell. While deer hunting in the area in 1987 or 1988, they spent many hours looking for a place to buy. Somewhere around 1989 they purchased their lot and built a log home in 2005, after camping many summers with their two daughters in the hut.

The farmhouse called Dutton was home to the Farmer family. The Dutton house became a haven for Carl, Marilyn and family, and their kids, grandkids and friends.“When we first became aware of the old YWCA camp in 1979, we were visiting friends on Loon Lake. While out for a boat ride, we spotted Dutton house, which was in pretty shabby condition, but we fell in love with it and the location was great! We checked with the realtors and found out the land was in the process of being divided, so we made a deposit on it and the rest is history.”

”It needed a lot of hard work. The upper porch was leaning out toward the lake, so it had to be pulled in and secured, painted. We added a new side porch, windows, doors, and a fireplace was added to keep us warm in the winter and a well was drilled by hand. Oh, if these walls could talk, what a story they would tell! Writings and signatures everywhere, cracks in the wood, so you could see outside, and the old metal bunks. And don’t forget all God’s little creatures! We had a lot of great times and memories in that place!”

“But, in 1993, with mixed emotions, we decided to build a new place. What a sad day when the old Dutton house had to come down, but now in its place stands a beautiful log home, where we still share and enjoy all the fun things. Swimming, fishing, tubing, boating, water play, waterskiing, and looking for mushrooms on rainy days, or board games, cards, arts and crafts or just enjoying the great outdoors or being lazy. These are memories we will cherish forever.”

The Farmers sold their log home to Steve and Julia Sigg, from Chicago, in 2017. Although not yet retired, they had purchased a small cottage on Long Lake in 2008, with no real intention of retiring there. They began looking for another place in the area, with the help of realtor Carole Wilson and began their search with a place near the Long Lake Bar, a second duplex near the same area and third choice on the Loon Lake property. A friend helped them with their “HGTV experience” by giving advice on their three choices and pushed for the log cabin in Maqua. With a grown son and retirement on the horizon, they hope to spend more time at their new home.

The property next to the campfire pit was bought by Bill and Sandy (now deceased) West. They bought their property in the early eighties with the intent of building a house in five years. They wandered down for a picnic with their two young children overlooking the lake. My husband and I happened to see them, (meeting them for the first time) and wondered who were these strangers who just showed up on Maqua property? We talked them into building right away, so our children could have playmates and within six weeks of starting construction, their beautiful log home was completed! (I might add that Bill West has a construction company and their crew, fed daily by wife Sandy, were up full time from suburban Detroit to complete the project.)

Thom and Lydia Engel own the property that housed the Infirmary and the nature hut. Purchased from someone they actually knew (the Haney family), they had no idea the Haneys owned the property! The Engels, along with their daughter, summered on Mullet Lake for three years, while looking for a cabin within a three hour radius of their home. A fellow employee suggested they try looking in the Tawas area, so they contacted realtor Carole Wilson in Hale and stayed in West Branch with plans to look in Cadillac the following day. They began their search on Long Lake, but Lydia had a vision of a summer home down a trail lined with tall trees and they found it in Maqua! Their search ended.

“I loved the lake access and it felt safe. When we walked to the beach, future neighbor Bill West was washing his windows on his new house and told us what a great community Maqua was and we had to buy here! We put in an offer that day,” said Lydia. “ The happy vibe of the place and the history just made it even more special!”

Year round residents Ric and Denise Braun bought their ten acres of Putnam roadside property in 1985 just as the Jim Sukenik family was dividing the Maqua property into ten parcels. They built their home in 1987 and raised two sons. “The reason I picked the road frontage and not lakeside was not only the price, but I knew I had lake access and I wouldn’t have to plow that long road in the winter,” laughed Ric.

The cabin that sat beside the fence along the Camp Maqua property belonged to the Williams family since 1957. They raised their two daughters summering on the lake, overlooking the activity of girl campers next to them. Their oldest daughter, Sharon Williams, was also a counselor in the sixties! The second daughter Denise, husband Joe and three daughters from Cincinatti, have summered here their whole lives, and purchased the Maqua property once owned by Dick and Judy Pfahl that bordered their cabin last year. The Clancy family recently remodeled the little cabin into a stunning lakeside home with two of the huts from camp being utilized for storage and for grandchildren’s campouts. They have come full circle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In The Right Place At The Right Time

Published on by Kathy Baker

It was a cold winter in 1987 and our four children, who were all born in Florida, had never seen snow. The girls were 12 and 10 and the boys were 8 and 6, and they were excited about spending their vacation on the hundred year old Emery Farm. We suited them up in borrowed snow jackets, pants, mittens, boots and hats and headed north to find a foot of snow had just fallen. What could be better than a frozen pond on the property, with snowmobiles in the garage, a hill for tobogganing and friends we had met during the three summers of owning Wicker Hills Golf Course? Even our fabulous babysitter, Cathy Clark of Clark’s Berry Farm, took the kids ice-skating with skates found in local resale shops.

Our previous summer homes had consisted of a rental cabin in 1984 on Sage Lake, which was more rustic than rustic, but fun for the kids for fishing and swimming. The following summer we hauled up a 34 ft. brand new travel trailer and parked it behind the pro shop at the golf course, beside the practice green. The proximity was perfect for cherry and apple tree climbing and picking, earthworm hunting, golfing, and eating our meals at the course. The kids built a tree house and the size of our trailer was perfect for sleeping, so we had all that we needed. Until—our eldest and first born daughter grew to her full height at 5 ft. 10′ and could no longer fit on the fold out beds. Two sisters in one bed and two brothers in the other was no longer an ideal sleeping arrangement.

My husband wandered into the Schofield Real Estate office to say hello to some friends and exited with the plan to go see the lodge that Darlene and Frank Leiva insisted was a gem of a deal. So, after seeing this historical camp, he retrieved me and the kids for a peek and the rest is history. We had three days to get the money to the owners, who now lived in Georgia, and we had no money. We knew a banker in town who wanted the private waterfront parcel, so we sold it to him as the down payment and never worried about the missing piece, as we had lakefront rights through the association on the common area where the boathouse, craft hut and fire pit remained.

The lodge had already been remodeled into a dwelling with two separate living quarters under one roof. The west side had a loft, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen and two porches. It also had the big fireplace and the camp map. The east side had a loft, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a smaller kitchen and two porches. I was attracted to the camp library, filled with old books and the bathrooms with huge windows.

Our partners in the golf course in Hale happened to be my husband’s aunt and uncle from Texas. Aunt Blanche had summered on Sage Lake growing up and when she married Aaron, they would bring their three kids up to enjoy my husband’s family with eight kids on Sage Lake at the family compound of cabins owned by Blanche’s parents and my husband’s parents. What better way to enjoy what they had as children growing up than to recreate that family compound at Maqua?

The Starks family reside on the west side and the Baker family reside on the east side, but we own the entire building on fourteen acres together, which includes the camp-craft hut on the front lawn, and hut one adjacent to the west side where the entrance used to be. We have a door that goes between the two sides and all overflowing relatives can be housed in beds on either side when needed during big family gatherings. The floors still shake when the ping-pong games start up on either side!

The tennis court still exists, but needs repair and is unused. We still hike the horse trails on our communal 64 acres enjoyed by the ten association members. (The subdivision was parceled by Bob and Luanne Sukenik when they bought the camp in 1979. More to come about his story later.) The campfire pit still gets used all summer long, as do the six or seven remaining huts, used for adventurous guests. The camp craft hut is used as a shed for the lodge. The infirmary has been remodeled into a guest house by the owners, who built a new house on the other side of the path. The old house, Dutton, (once used for counselors, sick bay and nature hut), was taken down due to age and decay and replaced by a new log home. The boat house has been renovated and there are photos under “Camp Envy”, as well as the craft hut, which also is used by adventurous guests for camping. Chapel Hill still has a view, but a log cabin sits on that site. The two camp brownies are still in use—one has been converted into a garage for another log home and the one by the lake is in working order with one shower and two separate toilet facilities.

The summers with our families at Maqua have included the births of babies, five weddings, and even memorials for our lost loved ones. We have celebrated holidays with fanfare, potlucks with traditions, unending sunset boat cruises, loon and eagle sightings galore and memories that carry on the traditions that campers enjoyed. (Songs at campfires, marshmallow roasts, Fourth of July boat parades, kayaking, sailing, swimming and more.) I feel envy at never having camped here, but the stories from the staff and campers have made me feel like a part of their history and I am so delighted that my husband was the one who walked into that real estate office one winter day. It was meant to be. And thanks to all of you, your stories have helped me keep it alive!

Camp Envy–Making New Memories

Published on by Kathy Baker

I have had a great deal of family join me at the lake this summer. It is not easy to get kids together with their families for vacation time with work and play schedules, especially with four kids and six grandchildren. My hubby is spending the second summer doing the opposite schedule of his normal summer routine, so we have made the best of it by flying back and forth between Florida and Michigan. Social media has been our link, with photos and posts and regular phone calls, but I know he cannot wait to be back to summering here full time.

Not a day goes by without a reminder of what a grand piece of property this lodge inhabits. The rustling of the pine, birch, poplar and oak outside my bedroom windows; the eerie loon calls echoing off the lake; the abundance of wildflowers on the trails I walk; the musty smell of old wood inside the building; the sound the waves make as they lap the shore; the scraping sound the benches make when I pull up to meals at the old linoleum covered tables and the sand I sweep up from the old wood floors on a daily basis all remind me that this building and property hold a lot of stories and memories.

This week my granddaughter Kate is visiting from San Francisco. She just graduated from high school there but lived near me in Florida most of her life. In-between jobs and her first semester of college, she gave herself a Camp Maqua week. It is the first time she has stayed here without her family but spent a great deal of time with her cousin Livvie, who is a junior in college. I could not look at them giggling and sunning themselves without thinking of all the happy girls who spent many summers here in the same spot.

The girls built campfires each night under the same stars, with the boathouse and craft hut perched behind them, roasting marshmallows to squish between their graham crackers with gooey chocolate dripping through their fingers. Stories were shared with laughter as they sat mesmerized by the fire long after their regular bedtimes and they climbed the hill to the lodge on the same trail many girls hiked over the years to their cabins.

We were on the boat every day that it did not rain, hugging the shore slowly as we motored past the many homes that line the four hundred acre lake. Families were enjoying their beaches, picnics by the lake and water toys. It is a clean quiet lake. The old Camp Mahn-go-tah-see inhabits a great deal of the shoreline, so the population is lower than most of the busy lakes that surround us. (Sixty lakes within sixty miles.)

We tried not to miss any sunsets and would park the pontoon boat, affectionately named Pont-A-Loon-A, in the cove near Recreation Hill in front of the old cabin that once belonged to the author of my favorite childhood book–“Girl of the Limberlost” by Gene Stratton Porter. The sunsets never disappoint and as the sun dipped down, we snapped as many photos as we could, trying to capture the perfect one.

Over the week, we spotted a huge deer by the shore, turtles, and even an eagle over by the boys camp. But, we are always excited when we see the majestic loons. They appear magically, after their dives, and come so close to the boat! (We were sad that no baby loon was born this year, or maybe it had been eaten by a pike or eagle.)

Saturday, after watching the weather app on our cellphones like meteorologists for a week, Livvie, her Mom, my granddaughter and I took the Long Lake Road to Glennie and rented a four person raft from Alcona Canoe. We loaded up our cooler with water and healthy snacks and climbed into the rickety old school bus that drove us the twenty minutes upriver to the spot where we embarked on our three-hour adventure.

It was overcast but fairly warm, and we were prepared for whatever the weather decided to do that day. Sun hats, water shoes, sunscreen, and bathing attire prepared us for a sunny or cloudy day and we prayed there would be no rain. The current was fast, as there has been an abundance of rain this summer, but the cool, clear water was not deep and we could see the round rocks and seaweed that trailed like mermaid hair under the water.

We wanted our experience to be a quiet one as if no other people were on the river, so we paddled quickly ahead of three kayaks and left behind a raucous family of ten tubes all hooked together and found our solitude under the same trees many of you paddled past over the years. Birds chirped, slim black dragonflies flitted around our raft, and the current gurgled over the rocks, as we meandered down the AuSable. We took turns paddling and managed to reach the old bridge where we exited, shivering as the temperatures had dropped and the rains began.

The trips into Hale for ice cream, the walks along the trails that led us around the lake, the hot nights of summer with the windows open, the days we read books on the porch when it rained, and the hobo dinners we ate were all reminiscent of the stories shared by campers and staff of their own days at camp.

I know Kate is going to board the plane in a few days with great memories and a sadness that she has to return to reality. I know that feeling, as I experience such sadness when I have to pack up and leave in the fall. So, I try to drink in as much of my surroundings and I am thankful for the stories shared that bolster the magic of a place that many called home for the summer. As one camper said, it is reverse homesickness. We cry because we are leaving to go home, not because we missed home.