Is Drummond Island Too Noisy?

Drummond Island — Most people turn left once they get over the bridge and into the U.P. They take US-2 and go to Marquette, Manistique, and Mount Bohemia. But there’s actually, believe it or not, stuff on the other side of I-75.

If you take a right on M-134 and drive about 40 miles, you eventually get to the eastern tip of the peninsula. Then, if you wait in line for about about 15 minutes, you can get on a ferry which will take you a mile across the water to Drummond Island the furthest eastern point in the U.P.

Though it’s not actually part of the the Upper Peninsula, is it? It’s an island. And even though it might only be one mile away from De Tour Village, they run the ferry all year and cut the ice in February, it’s still a separate island. But the phones have 906 area codes, culturally it’s the U.P., and what else are we going to call it?

Drummond Island, the last island before Canada and the first island among many that forms a huge archipelago arching down through Canada forming the Georgian Bay, is part of the U.P., despite not technically being so.

Drummond Island has a year-round population of about 1,000 people. And though there isn’t really any bonafide downtown anywhere, there’s a post office, restaurants, bars, shops, a small grocery store, gas stations, a golf course, a resort, and pretty much everything else you might need scattered around the western side of the island where most people live.

There are 53 islands in this corner of the U.P. making it essentially one big wooded archipelago. Boating is, of course, a big deal in the summers, though perhaps even bigger is off-road-vehicle culture. Some of the heaviest tourism the island sees are people bringing four wheelers, side-by-sides, and snowmobiles out to the island, or renting them while they are here.

There are more 100 miles of ORV trails on the island running all the way over to the eastern tip where you can see Cockburn Island in Canada on a clear day. They also host Jeep events in the summer and have an active Drummond Island Snowmobile Club. And while the motor tourism of Drummond Island is great, it’s the foot traffic I find more interesting.

There are people on Drummond who, going against the grain of the island, prefer to walk rather than ride. Heritage Trail on the northeast side of the island is a 3-mile hike through the woods and along the lake. There are no ORVs or E-bikes welcome. Foot traffic only. The trails are maintained by Drummond Island Silent Sports, a volunteer organization dedicated to promoting non-motorized sports on the island.

It’s a fun concept, silent sports. I had never thought of the idea of putting silent before sports to describe hiking in the woods. But in the context of Drummond Island and the buzzing noise from the ORVs, I see the necessity and very much like the idea.

I hike a lot. There are a bunch of nature preserves full of great trails where we live and so I take my kids out into the woods to hike them in the sun, sleet, or snow. Walking in the woods is good for us in every season. And because we didn’t bring any ORVs over on the ferry to Drummond, we spent the late afternoon hiking the Heritage Trail.

The trails are nice and small. They only took enough out of the way for one person at a time. The result is it really feels like you are walking in the woods as they are. The ground is rocky and rough, the foliage is plenty. The tree cover is heavy and the light is dim on the trail. The red and orange loop is about 1 mile, the newer blue loop adds about 2 miles to the hike. A long stretch of the blue loop runs right along lake. The views are sublime on this section. The shore is one of big rocks, and the lake beyond is full of islands and other shores on the horizon. In October, the colors of the trees were just past peak though still vibrant. Reds, oranges, and yellows. The sound was, predictably, silent.

I think ORVs are just fine. I rode a side-by-side the other week and had an absolute gas. But I think hiking is good, and the quiet that comes with it is very good. Drummond Island Silent Sports may have come about in response to what is generally very loud ORV culture. But I wonder if the concept of silent sports might apply on the mainland just as much.

Our world is very loud today. We don’t realize it because we were born into it and have become desensitized to all the noise of this world. The television and radio were invented a long time ago. As were the motorcar and the steam engine. Spotify automatically plays in the car, podcasts are streaming into Bluetooth headphones, and notifications break up our conversations.

I wonder if perhaps all of us should take a cue from Drummond Island Silent Sports and start prioritizing hiking, snowshoeing, and anything else involving just us and the woods and calling them “silent sports” too. On Drummond, walking rather than driving in the woods is what is meant by silent sports. Maybe for the rest of us the silent part just means turning off our phones and going for a hike in the woods. Finally listening to the birds, the sounds of the little waves, the crunching in the woods, the shaking leaves in the breeze, and the quiet of the world.

Silence is a beautiful thing.