CRUISING THE GREAT LAKES … BILINGUALLY
A REPORT ON THE C. COLUMBUS

 By Shirley Linde

If you want to cruise the Great Lakes and at the same time practice your German, a cruise on C. Columbus owned by the German cruise company Hapag-Lloyd could be the cruise for you.  It is a bilingual cruise with announcements, menus, shore excursions and other programs in English and in German. On our cruise of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and Lake Huron two-thirds of the passengers were from Germany and one-third were from the United States or Canada so there were many opportunities to exchange pleasantries in either language.

 C. Columbus was built in 1997, carries about 400 passengers, and cruises the Great Lakes in several itineraries each summer. Our cruise was Sept. 11 from Chicago to Traverse City (Michigan), Mackinac Island (Michigan), Sault Ste Marie (on the Canada side), Thunder Bay (Ontario), Duluth (Minnesota), Little Current (on Canada’s Manitoulin Island), Midland (Ontario), ending in Sarnia (in Canada across the border from Port Huron, Michigan).

 The Great Lakes were formed thousands of years ago when the last glaciers melted, and they form one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. Cruising on the Great Lakes is like cruising in the ocean, without the salt. You mostly don’t see shore except when coming in or out of port. It can be smooth as silk or tumultuously stormy. On this trip skies were sunny and calm except for one rain-filled day and night at aptly named Thunder Bay.  (The ship sailed very well, hardly blinked an eye in a 50-knot gale that night.)

 The cruise started from Navy Pier in downtown Chicago on a sunny Saturday and our first port stop was Traverse City, Michigan where passengers either took a wine-tasting tour of award-winning wineries of the area or took a bus tour through Michigan farmland to Sleeping Bear Dunes Park. The area had a Farmland Preservation Program of interest. An ordinance allows the county to buy development rights from farm owners so the farmers could realize the monies that they would gain by selling to developers but could continue to occupy and farm their land, thus preserving the rural character of the countryside and the agricultural industry. A model program we hope will be copied in other areas.

 Next day the ship arrived at Mackinac Island, named after the Ojibwe Indian word for turtle. There are no cars on Mackinac, only bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. The constant sound is the clip clop clip clop of the horses. Passengers visited the fort or the famous Grand Hotel with its 600 ft. veranda and the 50 or so rocking chairs for sitting and gazing at the grounds and the lake, or they biked or hiked around the island coastline. The island is 2 miles wide and 3 miles long. Historic Victorian houses look out toward the water. Worth a stop was the Butterfly House, nicely put together in a greenhouse with hundreds of butterflies that will land in your hand or sit on your head. How sad that with development encroaching on the natural environment plus pesticides we seldom see butterflies anymore. I miss them.

 In Sault Ste Marie the Columbus docked at the town pier. Some went on a rail excursion a hundred miles north to see the Agawa Canyon scenery. Those who did not go on planned excursions hiked along the St. Marys River waterfront walk to the dam, or in the other direction to the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Center, a very neat museum with a collection of bush planes housed in the waterfront hangar where the concept of water bombing to fight forest fires was developed by a bush pilot. There are several dozen cool old and new bush planes, and be sure to take time to see the film. The Sault Ste. Marie Canal opened on the Canadian side in 1895, the largest and first electrically operated lock in the world. Ships now use the newer locks on the US side. That and some dredging opened up the waterways from the Atlantic Ocean down to the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes all the way to Lake Superior. The St. Mary River is the border between Canada and the U.S. and is also the connection between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, and was an important fur trading route. There are twin Sault Ste. Marie cities, one on the US side, the other on the Canadian side.

Next port was Thunder Bay and indeed it thundered and blew and rained in torrents. Those going on tours struggled to see the scenery through the downpour. Thunder Bay was a fur trading center, now is an important grain export harbor. There are also many amethyst mines. This was our only bad weather day.

 Duluth was our farthest west port stop, being at the very western tip of Lake Superior. This too was a fur trading post, later was a shipping center for timber, grain and iron ore. Lake Superior was the home at different times of the Cree, the Dakotah and the Ojibwe nations.

We took a rail tour on the old North Shore Scenic Railroad that ran east paralleling the lake shore to the Split Rock Lighthouse at the town of Two Harbors, and then took a charter bus to Gooseberry Falls State Park where we could hike around the falls for an hour or so before taking the bus back to the ship. The lighthouse was constructed in 1910 after disastrous storms that sunk many ships and damaged dozens of others. For nearly 60 years the light flashed each night at 10 second intervals across more than 20 miles of Lake Superior waters.

 Our next day was at sea with an Oktoberfest on board and a tour of the bridge with Captain Ralf Zander.

 At Manitoulin Island the ship tendered passengers in to the town of Little Current where they were greeted in a First Nation ceremony. Some went on to a Pow Wow and Heritage Tour with a visit to the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, some went on a hiking and plant identification tour with First Nation guides, and others  went on a canoeing tour and were treated to a First Nation lunch of whitefish, beans, and traditional tea and learned about the Medicine Wheel. The tours were part of the Great Spirit Circle Trail that is a partnership project established to involve local Aboriginal peoples in the tourism industry. Manitoulin is the biggest island in the world on a fresh water lake.

 On our last day we arrived at Midland, Ontario in the morning and tendered in. Midland is a small harbor town at the southern end of Georgian Bay in Lake Huron, land of the Huron Indians. Some passengers went to an open air museum depicting Huron culture; others went on trekking tour in the Awenda National Park. Those not on a tour walked about town viewing the murals painted on building walls.

I used to come to these lakes as a child on our family vacations. The small towns are still friendly, the scenery still beautiful, the lakes magnificent. But I cannot help but compare what has happened to the quality of the environment over the decades since my childhood visits. Logging has stripped the virgin forests in many areas so tourists now see second growth trees; over-fishing has depleted the fish supply; farms and industry have poured chemicals into the river and lake waters.  Some progress is being made, but much more is needed.

 C. Columbus (yes, for Christopher), has a lounge with evening productions of dance and music and a band for dancing. Two outstanding performances were by flautist Hans-Jurgen Pincus. A smaller lounge in the bow featured a keyboard/saxophone/guitar player. Throughout the cruise were lectures on bridge by well-know expert Zeke Jabbour and bridge games by some serious players. The ship had a heated pool, fitness room, sauna, a mostly-German library, a boutique, and a hair salon. Massages were available. A physician was on board. Computers were available for sending and receiving emails, free unless there were attachments, but you could not access your own email account or the internet.

 Dining was either in the restaurant, single seating, or on deck 6, buffet. Most nights were casual, and two Captain’s parties were dressy.  There are designated smoking areas in the dining room and the main lounge.

There are 134 outside cabins, each with telephone, individually controlled air-conditioning, and a private bathroom with shower. Deck 1 cabins have portholes; cabins on other decks have either a large rectangular window or a dramatic round window like a giant porthole. Most cabins have twin beds that can be apart or together. Several cabins have a partially obstructed view, but still an outside view, and are a good bargain. There are several suites with a separate sitting area, several cabins can accommodate three passengers, and there are 63 inside cabins. Two cabins are wheelchair accessible. There are two elevators.

Other itineraries of C. Columbus in the Great Lakes go between Toronto and Chicago through the Welland Canal or between Sarnia and Milwaukee with stops including Parry Sound, Bayfield, Whitefish Point and Grand Haven. From the Great Lakes the ship sails along the US east coast, then to the Bahamas. It will later do a world cruise.

 Other ships of Hapag-Lloyd are Europa, Bremen, and Hanseatic.

 

TO MAKE A RESERVATION:    We work with several agencies and tour operators who are experts in small ships.    If you want to make a reservation, fill out the form at the Reservation Request Page.