Why the World's Second-Largest Crucifix Belongs Up North

Indian River — It’s early March and the woods are full of snow. The little paths through the trees are covered in a thick sheet of bumpy ice. The crackling of the frozen flakes and ice beneath my feet breaks the silence as I walk slowly past long lines of pews covered in snow. Beyond the path through the trees, under an empty blue sky, in front of the empty pews, stands a tall crucifix in the woods.

The Cross in the Woods at Indian River was created by Michigan-based sculptor Marshal Fredricks in 1954. It’s 28 feet tall, weighs 7 tons, and is the centerpiece and focal point of the Catholic complex and retreat center here in Indian River. Facing the cross, behind the pews, is a church full of windows where mass is held in the winter. Along the path, and throughout the grounds are a handful of shrines.

There is the Holy Family, the Shrine of Saint Francis, Our Lady of the Highway, the Shrine of St. Peregrine, the Blessed Fr. Michael McGivney Shrine, the Divine Mercy Shrine, the Venerable Frederic Baraga, and the Shrine of Kateri Tekakwitha. Some are muted statues hidden in the shade of the trees above, plaques with names standing beside them. Others are found in small buildings tucked back and away at the end of private paths. The glow of flickering lights in the still windows, still woods.

Standing in the center of the of pews is a bronze statue of Kateri Tekakwitha sculpted by Canadian sculptor Timothy P. Schmalz. Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in New York. Her mother was a member of Algonquin nation and a Christian. Her father was a Mohawk chief. Tekakwaitha lost both her parents to smallpox as a child, converted to Christianity when she was 18, and lived her life in celibacy and in commitment to her faith. She was known for placing crosses in trees in the forest as a form of simple chapel making. Tekakwitha died when was 24, was declared a Blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1980, and was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

Northern Michigan is a Catholic place. No, it might not be the first thing you think of when you hear the words “up north.” Most likely you think of sailboats, tourist towns, the beach, and lots of snow. But northern Michigan is many things, and one of those things is Catholic. Of course, it’s not only Catholic or even majority Catholic. But there is deep Catholic history here, and very visible signs of Catholicism all over the north.

The French brought Catholicism to the American Indians up north long ago. Not too far from Indian River is tiny St. Ignatius in Good Hart, a town which is no more than a stop sign and a little collection of houses on Lake Michigan. The first church on the site where St. Ignatius stands today was built before the Civil War, in 1833. The Jesuits were in the area even earlier in the 1740s.

The big church right at the end of Main Street in Harbor Springs is Catholic, and tallest steeple across the bay in Petoskey is that of Saint Xavier downtown. Farther north is Marquette, the biggest city in the U.P., St. Ignace right across the bridge, and of course the jam-making Catholic monks way up in the Keweenaw. The Cross in the Woods may have been sculpted in the middle of the 20th century, but it’s following a long tradition of Catholicism in the distant northern woods.

I’m sure the Cross in the Woods is much busier when it isn’t 13 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m sure on Sundays in the summer when mass is held outside the pews are full and on weekdays the parking lot busy with gaggles of tourists stopping to visit the shrines. But during my visit in March it was completely quiet. I was all alone there with the shrines, the sun, and the snow. I stood there for a long time under the cross, listening to the snow slowly collapsing from the branches in the woods, the occasional chirping bird, and nothing else but the sounds of the woods.

The Cross in the Woods is a beautiful and serene place, and though I’m not a Catholic myself I believe I understand something about the beauty of this place. I think there’s a deep beauty and deep religiousness in nature and the north. I think it’s enriching for our soul, awe inspiring, and spiritually elevating to encounter beautiful works of nature—God’s creation—in a personal and intimate way.

I think we see the truth of this in the fact that religious retreats and monasteries are rarely found amid the chaos of civilization but rather at the far-flung quiet corners of the earth. I think we see it in the old pre-contact ways of the American Indians and how they saw the natural world around them. I believe we see it in the faith of Kateri Tekakwitha and her chapels in the trees.

Of course, God is everywhere and it is all his dominion, but there is something special about the silent prayer in the field, the shrine under the trees, the unmolested scene of His creation, the Cross in the Woods, and the quiet of the place that seems to still our heart in a busy world. This is part of why I live up north, and raise my children up north. Ultimately, it’s for the sake of the soul.

There is a deep religiosity in the northern woods.