Fred Harrington had almost reached Beaver Island across 30 miles of choppy Lake Michigan water, when he decided to turn back.
“With only one good paddler left, I made a decision to go back rather than go the rest of the way to the island,” Harrington says.
Five of his six paddlers had gotten "violently" seasick early Monday morning, while on their way to Beaver Island in a 34-foot canoe. The U.S. Coast Guard picked up the sick paddlers.
They were headed to a traditional Native American ceremony celebrating the summer solstice on the island.
Harrington, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, stayed with the craft and guided it back to shore in Emmet County.
He often paddles to Beaver Island on the summer solstice, to a place he calls the "Odawa Stonehenge." It is a stone circle that forms a celestial calendar.
“We’ve had ceremonies out there for a long time,” Harrington says.
Harrington says the canoe would have been difficult to navigate through the currents around Beaver Island.
He calls the 34-foot craft a "jiimaan," which he says means ‘they are kissing’ in the Odawa language. He says canoe is a word that comes from another tribe.
“When you look at the front of a watercraft,” Harrington says, “they are kissing — the water and the craft.”
The jiimaan has a moose painted on the front and a three fires emblem on the back. Harrington built it with a group 15 years ago.
“We wanted our children and future generations to be able to go out on the water … and realize that this is the way they lived in the old days,” Harrington says.
“Our people were travelers.”