Upbound

Standing under the Bluewater Bridge at sunset, watching the Joseph H. Thompson transit the St. Clair River and head out into Lake Huron, you get to wondering what it would be like to be on one of these giant ships that ply the Great Lakes. The ships move fairly fast -- about 15 miles per hour -- and can make the run from Detroit to Duluth in two days.

Here, at the mouth of the river, the ship leaves behind the safety of the river lined with cities and towns. The giant diesel engines power up as the ship gains speed and takes to the lake's vast seas. Sunsets, sunrises. Storms, tall waves, wakes of other ships, full moons, stars that you can pick from the sky. Vessels large and small. A network of buoys and navigational aids. Ships and their crews experience the world from an entirely different viewpoint than one does when driving the interstates or flying from coast to coast.

Ed and I visited with a British acquaintance after a concert at St. Martins-in-the-Field at Easter time in 2003. He had been to New York and to Disney World in Orlando, but he had not seen The Great Lakes. "Tell me," he said, "are they really like seas? You can see across them, can't you? They aren't really that big, are they?"

I sometimes stand on the edge of the bluff at the lake house and wonder what it would be like if  Lake Huron didn't have water. It would be a deep canyon -- not as deep as the Grand Canyon -- yet there would be a dramatic cleft in the earth's surface.

These Great Lakes bring wonderment when one stands under the Blue Water Bridge and ponders the travel of a ship upbound into the majesty of Lake Huron.