The Man Who Walked Around Lake Michigan
“If you can walk one mile, you can walk ten”
Map of Michigan with red line tracing Brendan’s path along the western shore of Lake Michigan, from near the Ohio border up to Mackinac Island.
Brendan Donley is a man of faith.
On May 5th, he began a religious pilgrimage along the shore of Lake Michigan. A 502-mile journey walking the entire west coast of Michigan. His inspiration: The Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage across Spain that Catholics have undertaken since medieval times. Over 200,000 people walk that route each year. It ends at the shrine of Saint James the Apostle, a path of spiritual growth and reflection.
Brendan Donley chose to walk his own Camino de Santiago in Michigan. He started in South Haven and spent the next month walking north. He walked through Holland, Muskegon, Manistee, Traverse City, Torch Lake, and Charlevoix. He hobbled across rocks. Made his way through forest trails. Crawled through the thicket. Some days, he walked 20 miles. Day after day. He saw the shores of Lake Michigan as few others do, maybe some parts nobody ever has.
I caught up with Brendan near the end of his pilgrimage, somewhere between Petoskey and Charlevoix. It was a scorcher. He texted me he was somewhere east of Charlevoix, walking along the lake. I got in the car and drove on US-31. One eye on the road and one eye on the trail. I eventually caught sight of him through the trees. Blue hat. Shorts. Red shirt. Walking stick. Socks. Sandals. Backpack. Water bottle. That’s him. I swung around and pulled over onto a backroad. Parked next to a line of pine trees. We sat in the air conditioned car and talked about his pilgrimage. This is what he told me:
OWR: How did you end up walking the length of Lake Michigan?
BD: It started a few years ago. I grew up Catholic. Fell away from it, as a lot of people do. Maybe five or six years ago, I started getting all these signs, revelations, and crazy coincidences. I like the term “Godwink.” I was neither imagining them nor was I wanting them to be. I wasn’t looking for signs. If anything, I was probably going to bat them away. I was almost looking at them with a skeptical mind. There were a lot of these in a row, and it felt like God was saying something to me. And I didn’t even know what that meant. I was wanting to get back in touch with my faith. Wanting to do atonement. Wanting to figure out what I believe.
