Legend of Hubby

 

On my recent trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes, I told the legend of the dunes to Jim and Joyce, our guests from out of state, who were unfamiliar with it

Long, long ago, before voyageurs paddled canoes down rivers and streams, before mighty lumbermen cleared forests with sharp, shiny axes, before wooden ships carried sailors across great freshwater seas, there was a beautiful forest at the edge of a mighty lake. Lake Michigan.

 

One day there was a terrible forest fire on the Wisconsin side of the lake. A mama bear and her two cubs were forced to shore and finally into the water.

 

“Promise me,” said Mama Bear to her cubs, “That you will swim very, very hard, and never let me out of your site.” The cubs promised and the family began to swim, uncertain of how long it would take them to reach the other side. Mama Bear looked behind her frequently and saw her cubs fighting to keep up with her.

 

Finally, Mama Bear reached the dunes in Michigan. She looked behind her one last time but the cubs were not there. Mama Bear climbed the dunes and lay down to wait for her cubs. Fall came, and then winter. Mama Bear did not leave the shoreline, patiently waiting for her cubs. Years passed, and finally decades.

 

The gods took pity on this strong Mama Bear and brought her cubs to her in the form of North and South Manitou Island, so that at her place of vigil she would always be able to see them.

 

This is the Legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes that I told at breakfast. Later, as we were walking on the shores of Lake Michigan to see Mama Bear, I was telling another story to Hubby: “My church youth group came and climbed the Dunes here when I was 14. It was grueling. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t going to make it back up.”

 

“Well, you could have stopped.”

 

“What was I supposed to do?” I laughed “They were my ride.”

 

“You always have the option of becoming the third cub.”