Life In Gotham is on Vacation

This week, we are most pleased to introduce our newest contributing writer, Emily Lambert, Brooklynite extroardinaire, who's love for Our Town comes in a close second to things wild and natural. Read her compelling account of a ten day trip to an all-but-forgotten island high on Lake Superior, where there are more large wild animals than humans -- Next time you have to fight for that seat on the subway, that may not sound like such a bad thing.

If your childhood was anything like mine, you probably heard about the city mouse and the country mouse at least every other night. I think the story of the two friendly rodents was soothing to my ex-New Yorker parents, who wanted their West Coast raised kids to appreciate their flight from pre-Giuliani madness. As you may remember, the story’s country mouse and city mouse visit each other’s respective homes.

Predictably, the country mouse finds the city big, dirty and distracting, while the city mouse longs for life back off the farm. In the end, each mouse goes happily home and leaves the small listener fast asleep -- reassured that everything and everyone has its place.     

So last week I left my city home, of course to live a more confusing tale. The destination was Isle Royale, an island (actually an archipelago) whose designation as part of Michigan State is an accident of history. One of the nation’s least visited national parks, the island in Lake Superior is closer to Canada than mainland U.S., and it’s earmarked by the United Nations as an international biosphere.

While Isle Royale is not absolute wilderness thanks to pre-park mining, tourism and logging, it’s still pretty damn remote. My college friends wanted to backpack there, and, hearing their descriptions, I had no reason to resist.

It was even more beautiful than I expected. Every hike led us through countless mini-environments, each amazing, from marshlands to fields of edible thimbleberries to a hilltop with a 10-mile view. We camped each night by a different place along the shoreline, and listened to loons’ prehistoric chants. The water of Lake Superior was clear and cold, but not too much so for some -- quite a few, actually -- summer swims.

Skinny-dipping was no problem -- we went days without seeing people. No people, no stores, no electricity, no roads. I could only imagine the place in winter, after the ferry stopped running and national parks employees left for the season. A husband and wife
research team comes each January and stays for seven weeks tracking wolves and moose. Other than that, the island’s on its own.

Though only 1,000 or so miles from my Brooklyn apartment, I felt close only once, when a deformed mouse ran across my picnic table.

A few days into the experience however, I saw more similarities -- and they went beyond the fact that both New York and Isle Royale are both islands, mind you. Life in both places is full of small, time-consuming chores that you don’t find in less extreme locations. Just as buying big in the city is a logistical challenge, preparing the food you’ve backpacked in to cook over a small burner is much the same.

In New York, you find a place to live and make it your own. To live on Isle Royale, same deal. (You'd have to build the shelter from scratch, though. And New York would still be more expensive.) And in both places, the payoffs are supreme -- coming in brief moments of satisfaction, like the sight of the stars or the skyline at night.

I wouldn't exactly call our stay up north relaxing – for most of us, that would take more than a week -- but I did notice the days running together. When the ferry came to take me back to civilization (if one wants to call Houghton, MI, civilization), I wondered if I could spend my whole life in that unpopulated paradise.

On the seven-hour boat ride back, as four-foot swells kept the Dramamine close, I craved solid ground, preferably paved.

Back at home, at work, with the landlord and rent I affectionately term “insane”, I know I couldn’t spend my whole life on a remote island. For one thing, my great aunts in Midwood would complain. As would my grandparents in Westchester. But my Isle Royale visit rekindled the love/hate affliction I think every New Yorker must learn to live with.

And one thing I know for certain: I will never live in the suburbs.

Email: dj@asan.com

Next Update: 15 September

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