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Maritime Traditions
Maritime heritage often brings to mind historical events and sites like shipwrecks and lighthouses. But maritime heritage is more than just the past. Part of that heritage is the maritime traditional skills and ways of life we continue today. Occupational Traditions Tent: Observe boat builders at work, sailmakers making sails, splicers making wire cable and knot tyers tying nautical knots and splices. Watch commercial fishers show their fishing techniques and net making skills, and hear their experiences about fishing the Great Lakes. The Maritime Traditions of the Great Lakes program is presented in part with support from Michigan Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Gil and Brenda Archambo
Lake sturgeon, the Great Lake's oldest and largest fish species, can live over 100 years, weigh more than 200 pounds and grow to eight feet in length. Sturgeon were once plentiful, but over-fishing, water pollution, and habitat destruction have limited populations, and their survival is now threatened by poaching during spawning season. In 1999, Gil and Brenda Archambo founded the grass roots, non-profit corporation Sturgeon for Tomorrow to assist in the rehabilitation and recovery of lake sturgeon. Brenda's dedication to the sturgeon fishery has prompted her friends to call her the "Sturgeon General." To the Archambos, promoting and conserving the sturgeon is "a way of life." They have been honored with several conservation and volunteer awards from the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the American Red Cross, and with the Michigan governor's "innovative spirit" award. The Archambo's volunteer efforts stem from both families' traditions of ice fishing on Black Lake. Gil and Brenda have been ice fishing together since 1987. "To us, it's normal, it's in our grain," says Brenda. They each have their own shanty; Brenda's is "the condo," named for its size and comfortable features, including cedar shake siding, carpet, radio, TV and a cook stove. Far from being a solo pursuit, Brenda sees ice fishing on Black Lake as a culture that is shared. For many years, Gil built and rented out fish shanties, and local residents hold community dinners called "hoedowns" on the ice. They pull their shanties together in a circle and, while ice fishing, everyone cooks and shares meals of fish, fried potatoes, coffee, chili, and other foods. The Archambos take great pride in their ice fishing heritage and the Black Lake community's dedication to the sturgeon fishery. - LuAnne Kozma, fieldworker
Jerome "Brooks" Big John
Jerome "Brooks" Big John is a Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe who grew up on his tribe's reservation, a 12 square mile area in northern Wisconsin that has 126 lakes and where fishing year-round is an integral component of Ojibwe culture. Now an experienced fishing guide, Brooks was taught by his father how to fish, including spear fishing in winter. He learned to select a good fishing spot and cut a hole in the ice. After surrounding the hole with pine boughs, he builds the teepee out of a sapling framework and covers it with blankets. Within the darkened teepee, it is then possible to see into the water through the hole in the ice. At this point, fishing begins. He ties a rope to one end of a three-pronged spear and secures it to the teepee. Then he lies on the pine boughs and, with one hand lowers a fish decoy, tied to a jigging stick, into the water. Like other experienced fisherman, he jigs a fish decoy so it appears to move realistically through the water. With his other hand, Big John holds the spear ready to strike the fish attracted to the decoy. Big John uses wood to carve fish decoys in the shape of perch, suckers, crappies, and even frogs to attract muskies, walleye, and northern pike. He weights the decoys with lead, paints them realistically with acrylic paint, and carefully shapes and attaches fins constructed out of sheet metal. He often carves fish with a curved tail, so that when the decoy is attached to the jigging stick with a cord and lowered into the water, the curved shape is caught by the water current and the decoy appears to swim in a circle.
Mike Holmes
Spearing fish through a hole cut in the ice on a lake is a popular winter tradition among Native Americans and non-natives in the Great Lakes region. Legal in seven states today, fish spearing is restricted to just a few winter months and some bodies of water. The fish caught are typically northern pike, perch, whitefish, and walleye and there are many ways the catch is prepared and eaten. An ice fisher uses either a hand or power tool to cut the hole then lowers a handmade or store-bought fishing lure through the hole into the water. The lure attracts fish which are then speared using either a hand or machine-made metal spear. While some fishers work out in the open, most use some type of shanty or covered structure set over the hole. Generally the structure has no windows, which makes it easier for the fisher to see into the water. The structures are called fish houses, ice shanties, shelters, coops, or dark houses and the fishers sometimes referred to as "darkhouse anglers."
Edward Kuznia
Edward Kuznia, born in 1938, spent his career as an art teacher, coach, and school principal in the communities along Lake St. Clair. Soon after retirement, he began making 1/8th inch scale models of Great Lakes vessels-freighters, tugs, and others. He has made several versions of some, including the AMERICAN MARINER and the WYANDOTTE. For each boat, he begins by researching its history, obtaining its plans, and taking close-up photographs of the actual boats in operation. One of his favorite places to watch freighters is along the St. Clair River near his home in Richmond, and an especially favorite spot is underneath the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron. He even travels to other port cities to observe freighters in action. Using both power and hand tools, Kuznia constructs the hulls first out of layers of solid pine. As he has learned the art of modeling, he knows the value of being precise and attuned to authenticity in details. Once he used an actual paint chip off a vessel to match exactly the color on the model. His models have already caught the attention of the Port Huron Museum of Art and History, which displays some of his work. He also shows his miniature vessels at maritime art shows, and he sells his work to other maritime enthusiasts. Recalling when he was a kid and young people made models "like crazy," Kuznia thinks kids today need to get back to making things with their hands and to use different creative thinking skills than those used with computers.-- LuAnne Kozma, fieldworker
Dave Pawlak
Since he was 4 or 5 years old, Dave Pawlak (born in 1958) has ice fished with line and spears for pike and perch on Lake St. Clair, the only place on the Great Lakes where one can spear perch. Growing up in Algonac, Dave ice fished with his father in rented canvas and wood shanties far out on Anchor Bay. About 15 years ago, he decided to make his own ice spears and liked it so much, he's been making spears ever since. Dave's spears are collector's items and used by spear fishers throughout the Great Lakes. He customizes his spears for different kinds of ice fishing around the Lakes, making larger and heavier spears for sturgeon fishing, and longer handles for his Upper Peninsula customers who prefer that feature. His style of flat, barbed tines made in a set of 4 nested "U" shapes is a trademark. He also stylizes and customizes spears with decorative heads (the weighted part above the tines) and handles. A small, slender perch spear has separate, removable, lightweight tines without barbs. He takes pains to make a truly local spear that is customized for Lake St. Clair, using only local woods, and stamping each spear with his name and Lake St. Clair, Michigan. Dave has his own tool and die business where he also creates his spears. His skills in using metal machine tools are applied to designing and cutting the spear parts. Other steps in the process are done by hand. Dave is known for the quality, artistry, and precision detailing of his metalwork. Sometimes he collaborates with other artists to provide a finished spear with several decorative components, such as painted or wood burned handles, or decoratively painting the entire spear. One spear he made is painted like a muskie, another with a Lake St. Clair theme. Most of his work, however, is working spears, both time-consuming, better quality spears, and simpler production spears to meet varying needs. In addition to making spears, Dave has made some metal fish decoys and ice shanties. His office is a veritable ice fishing and spearing museum, with a collection of old, local spears, ice fishing decoys, mounted trophies from past fishing trips, and a few examples of his own spears surrounding the walls. Dave is a member of the Michigan Darkhouse Angling Association, a group dedicated to the promotion of darkhouse ice fishing. Today Dave takes his own children out fishing, passing on his passion for the tradition of ice fishing to another generation of Lake St. Clair ice fishers.-LuAnne Kozma, fieldworker
Robert Potrykus
Bob Potrykus was born and raised in West Allis, Wisconsin. In 1944, at age 15, Bob went to work on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska. This experience planted the seed for a life-long love of boats. After serving in the Korean War, he drove truck 31 years for Interstate Systems and in 1991 he settled in Two Rivers. Potrykus is completely self-taught in model building. His first vessel was intended to be a full-scale craft, but as he studied the line drawings, he decided to build a model first, applying the same techniques used in building a full-scale boat. The result was so successful and enjoyable, he has been building models ever since. He uses plank on frame construction. His boats are operational, radio controlled, and include a steam launch with engines that runs on steam. He prefers to build commercial fishing boat and workboat models, from 28' to 60' long on a 1" to 1'-0" scale. He begins by making lines and construction drawings, lofting (laying out the drawings), making frames, attaching frames to a work board, laying the keel and then planking the boat. The exterior of the hull is completely finished before he removes it from the board. He then cuts down the extruding frames to the shear line and begins on the interior, the operational parts positioning and the cabin. Potrykus makes CAD drawings from images of anchors, winches, horns, and other parts he finds on the Internet and converts them to the scale of his boat and makes the parts. He uses a test tank to float his models and adjust the ballast before launching them in the river behind his home. Potrykus enjoys showing his models in model boat contests and shows and has won several awards. -- Holly Smith, fieldworker
Bob Summers
Bob Summers constructed his first fly-fishing rod at the age of 16. He has since perfected the craft and become known throughout Michigan and other parts of the country as one of the foremost makers of Tonkin cane (bamboo) fly-fishing rods. Summers believes fly fishing "puts you in a state of mind." He began fishing when he was seven years old and owned his first fly rod at the age of 10. Later, he worked at the Paul Young Company in Detroit, a business known for its tackle and rods, and it was there he learned to make bamboo fly-fishing rods. In 1956, Summers moved to Traverse City and began his own rod-making business. A characteristic that makes Summers' rods unique is virtually every component, including the case, is made from scratch. His materials include cork, metals, and Tonkin cane, and he has assembled a variety of metalpresses and other mechanical tools to assist him in his creations. His fly rods are in demand all over the world and are considered collectors' items as well as cherished equipment. In 1998 Summers received the Michigan Heritage Award for maintaining this tradition and his rods were featured in the 1997 exhibit "Caught on the Fly: Fly Fishing Traditions in Michigan" at the Michigan State University Museum.
Click on the links below or scroll down to learn more about these presenters and their traditional occupations.
Eileen Behrend
Eileen Kleinke Behrend has lived her entire life a quarter mile from Lake Michigan, on the western shore of Green Bay, north of Menominee, Michigan. She is Cape Cod Yankee and German on her father's side, Swedish and Norwegian on her mother's. Her father fished for a living and she helped him with his work whenever she got the chance. After she married fisher logger David Behrend in the 1950s, she continued to work part-time with her husband, fetching parts and supplies and going out in the fishing boats when she got the chance. From her mother, she learned many ways to cook and preserve fish. Through her involvement in commercial fishing, she learned to handle and dress fish and to tell when it is fresh. After she married, she cooked more varieties of fish, more often, since her husband enjoyed eating fish more frequently than her family did. Behrend is now active in developing the West Shore Fishing Museum on M-35 north of Menominee, an organization dedicated to keeping Great Lakes commercial fishing history alive. - Janet Gilmore, Ph.D., fieldworker
Joe and Mary Duffy
Joe Duffy was born in 1929 in Red Cliff to a white fisherman and an Ojibwe mother. Joe started fishing when he was about 13 years old and by the 1960s worked other maritime-related jobs, including at the local cannery and aboard iron ore boats. Ever since acquiring his own equipment in 1975, Joe has fished Lake Superior especially throughout the Apostle Islands, where all the commercial fishers have their favorite spots season to season. Joe's favorite spot is around Madeleine Island. When Joe was a child, there were 30 to 40 commercial fishing boats in Bayfield, but now there are about five, including his boat, the Wolverine, a diesel-powered, 40' steel fishing boat that can carry 15 to 18 tons of fish. When Joe first started commercial fishing, it was primarily for lake trout, whitefish and herring. Today, Joe prefers to take whitefish, because they don't tear up his fishing nets like the larger trout do. According to Joe, the average whitefish they take is two pounds, the average trout is three and half to four pounds. During the October and November whitefish spawning season, he goes after chubs and siskowets in deep water starting at about 300 feet. Joe used linen and cotton gill nets with wooden floats and lead weights until the early 1960s when nylon nets became popular. Now thinner monofilament nets are used. Although more expensive, the new nets are invisible to the fish and consequently catch more fish. The nets of monofilament, however, rip more easily, so Joe has to spend quite a bit of time "slugging" or repairing nets. His wife Mary, who in earlier years went out on the boats with him, now joins him in slugging nets. Joe is also adept at making handmade nets from rope, and he says a good net sewer could make a net in one day. He works in his living room where he keeps two big hooks to fasten the nets as he sews. Joe likes to have 20 to 30 nets on hand to replace the ones damaged in Lake Superior storms.-Holly Smith, fieldworker
Dennis Hale
In a terrible storm on Lake Huron on November 29, 1966, the ore freighter DANIEL J. MORRELL was in high winds and waves when suddenly, without warning, it broke in half and sank, killing 28 shipmates. Only Dennis Hale, a 26-year-old watchman from Ashtabula, Ohio, survived. After being thrown into the icy lake, wearing only boxer shorts, a pea coat and life jacket, he spent 38 hours on a life raft until he was rescued .The three shipmates on the raft with him perished. In 1996 Hale published Sole Survivor: Dennis Hale's Own Story. Although his sensitive story remains traumatic in each telling, he still speaks about his experience to select, appreciative audiences. Hale now uses the speaking engagement as a way of dealing with the experience and keeping the memory of his shipmates alive. Dennis Hale tells his dramatic story of survival and his role in Great Lakes shipwreck lore at this year's Great Lakes Folk Festival. - LuAnne Kozma, field worker
Willi Kruschinski
Willi Kruschinski, a naturalized citizen born in Germany in 1941, was 15 when he became an apprentice to a wooden shipbuilder. He joined the Merchant Marines as a ship's carpenter for several years, sailed to the U.S many times and grew to love it. In his early twenties, he decided to settle in America and took a job at a California marina. Preferring colder weather, he took a ship's carpenter job at Jacobson Shipyard on Long Island. Because Kruschinski was a rigger and certified splicer, he was assigned instead to rebuild and restore the replica of the ship "Bounty" that was used in the film Mutiny on the Bounty. He moved to Chicago, where he worked for Rodi Chris Craft as a yacht restorer. After hunting and fishing in northern Wisconsin for a number of years, he moved to Winchester in 1972 and bought the Turtle Lodge and Restaurant. While running the resort, he met customers with boats that needed repair. He eventually sold the lodge and launched his own restoration business. Kruschinski became well known in wooden boat restoration, the mahogany decked Chris-Crafts his specialty. He also restores wooden canoes and fishing trawlers. After twenty years of focusing on restoration, he began building wooden rowing boats known as Rhinelander guide boats, using cedar strip construction and brass hardware of his own design. Kruschinski also has applied his woodworking skill to carving fish decoys, lures and duck decoys. He is particularly proud of a small northern pike he designed with a hinged jaw in which he places a live minnow. The highly territorial muskie goes after the lure to protect his territory and food. As Kruschinski says, "he gets mad when he sees that northern eating his food." An animated storyteller, Kruschinski enjoys relating his experiences in the Merchant Marines, talking about the boats that he loves, his decoys and lures, and his experiences diving on wrecks in Lake Michigan. He is also an enthusiastic chef and regularly prepares his numerous fish dishes for friends and family. - Holly Smith, fieldworker Burbot/lawyer netter and cook
Sue Boston McMahon Howard Boston's family has been in the sailmaking business for three generations. Today his children and grandchildren operate three sail lofts--in Mt. Clemens and Holland, Michigan and in Sarnia, Ontario--each its own business. Boston family members also have been involved in the sport of ice boat racing, particularly on Lake St. Clair, both as makers and suppliers of ice boat sails and as racers themselves. Sailmaking today involves computer-aided design and new sail materials such as Kevlar and Mylar. Each loft features large wooden floors and sewing machines set on tables raised off the loft floor or, in some lofts, built below floor level. Sail material is laid out and cut on the floor and the cut sail pieces are kept taut on the floor with old-fashioned ice picks. Workers attach hardware like grommets to the pieces, sew the pieces together, seam up finishing edges, and attach cut-out emblems and numbers. Sailmakers may also rig or outfit a sailboat that is, attach the sail to the vessel with all the rigging, rope, and hardware needed. The Boston family faithfully keeps the traditions of sailmaking alive, and still knows the old handwork methods, while incorporating new technology. At Boston Sail, the family also makes other sailing products out of the sailcloth and canvas, including sail bags and other small items like duffel bags from scraps leftover from the sailmaking process. Sailmakers hire riggers, seamstresses and others who are knowledgeable about sailing.--LuAnne Kozma, fieldworker
Lee Murdock Great Lakes Folk Songs from the Ivan Walton Collection
During the 19th-century age of sail, Great Lakes sailors sang an amazing number of songs-work chanteys, amusement songs, songs about the iron ore and lumber trades, about ships and crews, and of disasters and storms on the Lakes. As this era waned and then nearly disappeared, it began to fascinate University of Michigan literature and folklore professor Ivan H. Walton. In the 1930s Walton began a two-decade-long search for these songs along the shores of the Great Lakes, interviewing former sailors in gin mills and union halls and on Beaver Island. Turning his massive collection of songs, song fragments, notes, and letters into a book-length project was not to happen in his lifetime; he retired and died before ever publishing his life's work. Enter Joe Grimm, an editor at the Detroit Free Press, who has long been fascinated with Walton's collection of folk songs. Grimm took up Walton's effort where Walton left off and in a "collaboration" of two scholars who never met, published Walton's body of work in Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors (2002). Grimm continues to chronicle Walton's life and work in the new book Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton. Equally enthralled by the beauty of Great Lakes sailing songs is Lee Murdock, whose musical talent regularly brings the songs Walton collected to life today. Murdock not only contributed the musical scores to many of the songs in Windjammers but more importantly, he performs and interprets these songs. He has released twelve albums/CDs including Lake Rhymes: Folk Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors with a songbook for educators. Murdock's work is both a documentary of the sailors, fishermen, lighthouse keepers, outlaws and everyday heroes of yesteryear as well as an anthem to the people who live, work, learn and play along the shores of the Great Lakes today. Grimm and Murdock, together with folklorist Laurie Sommers, who documented Walton's legacy and contemporary folk music in the community of Beaver Island, will present in lively discussions and performances the songs of the Ivan Walton collection and the exciting discoveries of historical maritime research.
Charlie Nylund
Charles "Charlie" Nylund was born in Marinette, Wisconsin, just across the river from his current home in Menominee, Michigan. When he was eleven years old he began fishing commercially with his father, and by 1956 he was fishing his own gill net tug. From 1963 to 1989 he worked full time as a fireman at the Menominee Fire Station, but he continued to fish commercially on his days off. For more than 60 years Charlie fished mostly with gill and trap nets for whitefish, chubs, and perch in lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie. Now retired, he still helps other fishermen who seek his well-seasoned assistance. Like his father, Charlie is a knowledgeable and versatile fish cook, expert in techniques of handling and dressing Great Lakes fish. Charlie learned to cook fish from his father while working with him on gill net tugs, and at home from his Czech-American mother, who learned most of her fish cookery from her Swedish-American husband and his family soon after she married. Charlie recalls her preparations of "lutefish," pickled fish, and a tasty sil (pickled herring) salad. While Charlie taught his wife Nancy to cook fish, he still does most of the fish cooking in the home, from baking, boiling, frying, and smoking, to hot and cold pickling. While working at the fire station, he regularly cooked fish to expand his fellow workers' tastes for different types and preparations of fish. He often has put on outdoor fish boil feeds for large groups and community organizations. - Janet Gilmore
Ronald Paquin
Ron Paquin, (b.1942) is a proud member of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians and a traditionalist and preserver of traditional skills. He believes he has a responsibility to teach others of his tribe about their heritage and he has devoted himself to teaching family and community members a variety of Ojibwa traditions. Paquin makes birch bark containers, antler and bone carvings, knives, cedar and deer hide drums, porcupine quill boxes, beadwork, black ash baskets, fishing nets, and birch bark canoes. He is a storyteller and fisherman. In 2003 Paquin was recognized for maintaining and reinforcing the tradition of birch bark canoe building with a Michigan Heritage Award. Canoes are important to Ojibwa history and Paquin is committed to their perpetuation. Years ago when Paquin first wanted to make canoes, his uncle deemed it impractical for him because "tourists weren't interested in buying them." However, as he watched the masters of this craft die, Paquin knew if he didn't learn, there wouldn't be anyone left to teach subsequent generations. He worked with family and tribal members to learn the skills and talked with elders to "learn bits and pieces." He also studied older canoes and occasionally turned to books. By 2003 he had made 12 canoes, about one a year. http://www.museum.msu.edu/s-program/mh_awards/awards/2003RP.html
Tom Peters
Born in Green Bay and brought up in DePere, Wisconsin, Tom Peters spent his summers along the western shore of Green Bay at Suamico, where he experienced commercial fishing first-hand. From the age of 12, he helped local fishermen, and after a stint in the army in the 1960s, he began a partnership with veteran fisherman Buck Devroy, an excellent teacher with a dry wit. After working a full shift at a meat packing plant, later changing to steamfitting, Peters, along with Devroy, fished mostly drop and gill nets for perch, a type of fishing distinctive to southern Green Bay waters. Peters eventually eased out of his other work and presently only fishes for a living, gill-netting for perch and whitefish, and trapping crabs and muskrats on the side. Peters also has maintained and modified steel fishing vessels for drop netting and gill netting, and he builds and maintains his own fishing nets and traps. Following Devroy's lead, he runs a more old-fashioned, less intensive fishing operation than most others that brings him immeasurable peace of mind. - Janet Gilmore
Mike Reed
Samsel Supply, a family-owned marine supply company on the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, supplies a multitude of occupational needs around the Great Lakes-from hardware to hand-spliced tow ropes to boat covers to outfitted rescue boats. Longtime employees in the rigging department are experienced in the traditional maritime skills of knotting and splicing. Using a variety of different tools and processes, they make ladders, fenders, and many types of working lines out of rope, cordage, and wire. Mike Reed has worked in Samsel's wire rope rigging department for six years, learning how to make wire rope from 32-year master rigger Mike Mastro. Using fids or "pins" to separate the strands of wire, he splices the strands together to form loops on the ends then burns and pounds off the ends. Reed uses a number of different splices in the process: "Regular" or "Liverpool" splices in which the ends of the rope stick out near the base of the splice, "hid and tucked" in which all the ends are tucked and concealed within the splice, and a third type with a sliding choker hook fastened with a steel or aluminum sleeve jaw clamp. He uses a variety of vises, clamps, and presses to harness and hold the resulting heavy cables. It is no coincidence that Reed is a pro wrestler, and this very physical job demands his kind of strength. - LuAnne Kozma, fieldworker
Ron Sherry
Say the name, Ron Sherry and almost everyone in the international sailing community will recognize it because of Sherry's world titles as an ice boat racer. Ron began racing on Lake St. Clair at the age of nine with his five siblings and father, Lorne Sherry. At the same age he began helping his father build DN ice boats. The DN was named for the Detroit News, which held a contest for a new boat design in 1936. Today Ron is also a master ice boat builder. Ron makes about six ice boat hulls a year and sells them to fellow racers. He has built over 400 masts and over 500 sets of runners--long blades that are used below the boat, one on each side and one in front to steer. He is also an experienced sailmaker, having worked at various sail lofts for 15 years. He is an active member of the DN Ice Yacht Club of Detroit, a branch of the International DN Ice Yacht Racing Association. In addition to racing DNs, Ron also sails other types of ice boats, such as Renegades and Skeeters. When not racing in the winter or making boats in the fall and spring, Ron is a world class, competitive summer sailor, regularly competing in six different classes of sailboat. He has participated in over 35 Port Huron and Chicago-to-Mackinac races and has won overall four times.
Carolyn Smith The Engelhard family are long time residents of Bay Port and their name is widely associated in the region with fish and the fish sandwich. The history of this well-known sandwich centers on Henry Engelhard, a 2000 Michigan Heritage Awardee and Carolyn Smith's father. Once the co-owner of the Bay Port Fish Company and a highly resourceful individual, Henry saw the possibilities of a successful business using a plentiful, inexpensive, local resource. With instructions and secret batter recipe from one of his customers who was buying 250 pounds of herring a day for a fish sandwich in Indiana, Henry launched the Bay Port fish sandwich. The year was 1949. In the ensuing years Henry and his wife, Edna, catered the sandwich at several regional events, and in 1953 they erected a stand along the road in the front yard from which sandwiches were made and sold. Carolyn and her sisters worked at this stand for the next ten summers. In 1978, Edna again agreed to make sandwiches for a one-day event to promote Bay Port; this was the beginning of the Bay Port Fish Sandwich Festival. Today both Edna and Henry are gone, and Carolyn is the keeper of the secret batter recipe and continues the family tradition of the fish sandwich. As designed by Henry and Edna, for example, the fish is supposed to overlap the bun and be so large "it takes two hands to hold it," as Henry was often heard to say. The type of fish has changed over the years, as fish species decreased in number, from herring to mullet to, now more often, whitefish. During these transitions, Carolyn strives to maintain the character and quality of the fish sandwich. She is often called upon to serve this local specialty at occasions of visiting state and regional dignitaries. It is still the centerpiece of the annual Bay Port Fish Sandwich Festival, held the first weekend of August, when visitors from miles around return for this Engelhard family treat.
Walter Watkins Walter Watkins, born in 1927, began his career as a Great Lakes sailor in 1951 at Gull Lake Boat Works. A year later he signed up to be a Marine but could not serve due to illness. So in 1952 he joined the Merchant Marines as a deckhand and eventually rose to watchman and boatswain on Great Lakes freighters. Today in retirement in Kalamazoo, Watkins is known in the community for his love of sharing his experiences and skills learned during decades of maritime work. He likes to work with young people and does knot tying instruction for scout groups, and also contributes to the community in other ways. For instance, he made a knotboard, a display of different kinds of knots, for the Kalamazoo Fire Department. Walter brings his knot tying skills and firsthand knowledge and stories of working on Great Lakes freighters to the festival.
Children's Folk Activities Area: Children's Maritime Traditions in the Great Lakes
View our lineup and descriptions of Children's Folk Activities here. |
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