Trail Talk

Jim DuFresne

It was a Sunday when the new MichiganTrailMaps.com e-shop was launched and then those of us who had worked tirelessly for three months to build it … waited. Patiently.

What else could we do? The first order is always the hardest and as Sunday rolled into Monday and Monday rolled into Tuesday there were moments when I wondered if it would ever come.

I’ve waited painfully for other things of my life; for the birth of my first child (we named her Jessica), for an answer from the stunned girl I had just asked to Homecoming in 11^th grade (she said no), for the results of an exam in college I was pretty sure I bombed (I did).

But this time it was almost maddening. I’d be online, checking email every few minutes, looking for that Pay Pal notification. Any sign that the shop, with all its coding and links, was out there working.

As it turns out it was. On Wednesday at 2 p.m., the 15^th time I was checking the account that day, there it was, in the subject line: Notification of Payment Received.

Our first sale!

It was from woman named Lois and she ordered two books, requesting that the author (me) autograph them. On that particular day I was also the warehouse and shipping department so I packaged the books and then hand wrote her address on it because our tech person forgot to inform me I could print out the mailing label through Pay Pal.

Then I stepped outside to head to the post office. In all the excitement I didn’t realize that the clouds had cleared, the sun was out and in the middle of February it was in upper 40s. It’s been that kind of winter. I’ve yet to ski close to home but I’ve been cycling continuously since November.

The cycling has been amazing. A near snowless winter means the shoulders of roads, bike paths and sidewalks are clear. The temperatures have been ideal. I wear a light pair of wool gloves and a thin wool cap under my helmet and once I’m on my bike I never get cold or overheat.

Perfect equilibrium on two wheels.

I tucked Lois’ package in my bike bag and headed out on the seven-mile ride to downtown Clarkston. From my home I followed the bike path through Independence Oaks County Park, pedaling pass four lakes. When I entered Clarkston I passed four more lakes; Park Lake, Upper Mill Pond, Mill Pond and Deer Lake, and then crossed the Clinton River.

Pulling up to the post office I realized I may have just stumbled on a new slogan for the company, one with an eco-friendly theme:

MichiganTrailMaps.com: We Don’t Burn Fossil Fuels Delivering Your Book To the Post Office!

Match that Amazon!

When I returned home I did something else I doubt Jeff Bezos, founder of the giant online bookseller, had ever done; I wrote a personal email to Lois. I told her the books were on the way and thank her for the order. I even mentioned how agonizing it was waiting for that first one and thanks to her the wait was over.

The next day she wrote back to me:

I always looked forward to reading your Saturday article in the Ann Arbor News.  My kids were young then, and we followed many of your family trip plans.  All four kids are grown now but still enjoy outdoor adventures.  You have touched many lives.

Sometimes being small is better.

The only thing you can be sure of in life – beyond death and taxes – is that the amount of undeveloped land in the world, places without the heavy footprint of man, will never increase.

Jim DuFresne

It will only shrink.

As our population grows and our needs for fuel, food and housing increases, natural areas, whether they are small wetlands or vast wildernesses, will always be under the threat of urbanization and mineral exaction.

Death, taxes and development.

I’m not out to single-handedly save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies or the panda bear from extinction. My goals have never been that lofty. All I want is a place to escape the cellphones, Facebooks and 24-hour news cycles of my world. I just want to leave the city I live in, however briefly, to see nothing that man has made and to hear only what nature intended.

In that regard, Oakland County Parks, with help from the Michigan Trust Fund and the North Oakland Headwaters Conservancy, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this year when it purchased Upper Bushman Lake.

I live in an area of Oakland County that is anchored by Clarkston and split by I-75. It’s a land of strip malls and subdivisions and is crowned by DTE Music Theater, the country’s largest outdoor music venue that provides nightly traffic jams throughout the summer.

Yet only a couple of miles away is Upper Bushman Lake. The 31-acre, spring-fed lake is more like a chain of three lakes and forms the headwaters of the Clinton River. The lake is surrounded by wetlands, including a rare prairie fen and a southern wet meadow, and a hardwood conifer forest, one of only 30 in the state and the most southerly.

 The lake and the surrounding 186 acres the county purchased are also ideally located adjacent to Independence Oaks, the largest Oakland County park. But the most amazing thing about Upper Bushman is that fact that the entire lake was owned by a single family who cherished its natural beauty and never allowed it to be developed.

The north end of Upper Bushman Lake.

Dan Stencil, executive director of Oakland County Parks, calls it “literally an upnorth experience right in our backyard.”

Just 2 miles from where parrotheads gather for Jimmy Buffet concerts every summer is now a county park that spans 1,274 acres, including several lakes and 4 miles of the headwaters of the Clinton River. It’s a county park that is larger than two-thirds of all state parks and while a portion of Independence Oaks is developed with picnic areas, shelters, a beach and a nature center, the vast majority is not other than trails.

That is the plan for the new section, referred to as Independence Oaks-North. It will open to the public this April after a small gravel parking lot is placed along Sashabaw Road just north of the park’s main entrance and a trail and boardwalk is built to connect it to Upper Bushman Lake.

 After that amenities in the area will be minimal and activities will be restricted to what has been termed “passive outdoor recreation;” hiking, canoeing, birding, fishing, snowshoeing. No cars in the area, no outdoor motors on the lake, no family reunions along the shoreline.

Simply an undeveloped tract where you can escape.

The cost of such place in today’s world was $2.8 million, split by the county, the conservancy and the trust fund.  Many will argue that in these difficult times the money is better spent on the needs of society. And, lord knows, Oakland County and Michigan has more than their share of budget deficits, under funded schools, laid-off workers and potholes.

But natural areas, if not protected, rarely stay natural and once developed can never be wild again. Where would we escape to then?

 For information on trails, facilities and location of Independence Oaks County Park go to www.michigantrailmaps.com.