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Ideal Stillness on South Sugar
This week’s Siseebakwet Story comes in the form of this calming, reflective photograph shared with us by Paige Jechort.
This picture is truly worth a thousand words (or more!)
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This is a true story that shows the amazement of saving a precious wild animal and the people of Siseebakwat / Sugar Lake working together to make this such an amazingly beautiful place to live. You just never know what experience is right around the corner….. or in your driveway.
This was the Summer of 2016 when this happened and when I wrote this.
Susie Mogan, Johnathan Mogan, and I were outside in the yard. It was a beautiful day, so I walked to my car to grab a lawn chair that I had just bought. Sitting in the driveway, right next to my car, was what looked like a grey furry stuffed animal. I got close and bent down and thought that it was the cutest, softest dog toy…….. until it turned its head. What?!?!
Seriously the cutest fuzziest thing I have ever seen!! Well, after Susie and I got close and checked it out, Susie said “This is a baby Loon”. Knowing that Loons are unable to walk – we had no idea how it got into the driveway. It didn’t make any sense how it ended up there. I picked it up slowly and checked it over to make sure it wasn’t injured. Amazingly, it didn’t have a scratch on it, so I snuggled it up to my chest and carried it to the lake.
I slowly set the baby in the water and it instantly started swimming. My 8-year-old son (Johnathan) could do an amazing Loon call, so we had him do his call a few times. Right away we heard a Loon call back that was pretty far out in the water. Thankfully, that baby must have known momma’s voice because she started diving and swimming in her direction. The baby Loon started making the cutest sweet baby call & Momma Loon started calling and swimming toward the baby too. It took a few minutes, but before we knew it, they were reunited!! We watched with the binoculars for a bit just to make sure it would be okay and they seemed to be doing great. Yay!!! Not only did we have this amazing experience to save the baby Loon, but we were actually able to reunite it with momma Loon!! How amazing and such a beautiful moment to be a part of!! (No, unfortunately, we didn’t get one picture – it happened so fast)
Susie Mogan (my mother-in-law) sent me this text not long afterward.
“Kathy! Someone saw an eagle pick up a loon baby yesterday and fly off with it. I bet that was the one in the driveway. Probably dropped it. You'd think it would have died when it hit the ground, though. Anyway, the person said the loon had two babies. If it was the same parents, maybe when our loon swam back, the other parent had the second baby. The person took pictures of the loons and babies……looks just like ours.”
Hopefully, this is one of the Loons that comes back here every year and we hear their beautiful calls of Happiness!!! And who knows, it may have had babies, grandbabies, and even great grand babies since then…...
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed our little (true) story.
Kathy Mogan
This photo was taken by the one and only Karen Lucachick
Tyttö, aka TOOT, aka FIRST MATE
Two (luca) Chicks
Todd and I bought our first pontoon this last spring and Tyttö aka “Toot” became the First Mate! She loves going for what we refer to as “PonTooty” rides! What surprised me was every time we went for a “PonTooty” ride, Toot would bark and the loons would swim right up to our pontoon, maybe out of curiosity or just being accustomed to the recreational activity on Siseebakwet. One loon swam underneath our pontoon! Great photo opportunities!
I titled the one photo, “Two Chicks”, because even though one chick is clearly visible in front of the two adult loons and, if you look closely, you can see a second chick behind the adult loon on the left.
One early morning, I dozed off watching TV on the couch and when I woke up, I could sense something was watching me. I looked to my left and this eagle was perched in a tree approximately 30 feet from my deck. Another great photo opportunity!
Probably not Toot’s Best Friend
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The cabin my sister and I own on the north shore of Sugar Lake was bought by our grandparents before I was born. Growing up in Grand Rapids one of my sisters and my best thrills was visiting Grandma and Grandpa on Sugar Lake!
My grandparents were part of a mostly retired group of couples who owned cabins near the boat landing. Past owners (from the late 50s and early 60s) included Mrs. Bell, the Doelles, the Reynolds, Doc Parker, the Gefford's, the Bruneaus and the Albrights. My grandparents knew all of the cabin owners and when I stayed with them, they would take my sister and me to visit some of the other couples. I remember many of them having fancy dessert dishes and amazing summer treats when we would visit.
There was a trail between the homes that fascinated me as a kid. I could go from Mrs. Bells into the Doelle woods, where Dr. Doelle made a series of winding trails in the woods on his property, and then all the way over to the creek bordering the Albrights and the Hoene property. One summer my sister and I joined the Doelle kids to build a bridge over a dry creek on the east side of the Doelle property.
I thought the trails were made for me! However, decades later, this thought was shattered when I met a frequent guest of Mrs. Bell. She told me how the trails were used by neighbors to gather for cocktail parties, especially at Doc Parkers cabin. (This did not happen when my sister and I would visit our grandparents.)
When the lodge was sold to the ski area, they put games and candy machines in the basement for winter guests. The lure of ping pong and candy led to a new discovery, a trail up from the shoreline from the Hoene's property and over to the lodge.
This was a well-used trail, a trail my imagination assumed was a trail used before European settlers found Sugar Lake! To add to the intrigue, the trail had two abandoned cottages with old metal bedframes and Life Magazines from the 40s! The trail had high spots with beautiful overlooks at Sugar Lake and then it went across the Norton property to the shoreside cabins and then the lodge.
I remember how the basement of the lodge had a bar that was never in use except during the ski season and then the ping pong table and pinball machines. Our time there was brief because we needed to be home before dark.
As years passed, the retired owners sold to families with kids close to my age who joined in the adventure of taking the trail to the lodge. On one occasion, on our way back from the lodge I needed to go to the bathroom and used an outhouse on the trail and, well, I encountered a bunch of bees. We ran back to our cabins in a gale of laughter!
Use of the trail ended as we got older and our focus shifted to other things. Yet I will always remember the trail, the fun, and the adventure of so long ago.
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