The Place Where I Live

I live in a small town in Michigan called Saint Clair, population about 5,000. It’s located about 18 miles south of the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron which links Sarnia Canada with the US mainland. Most of you know from your geography classes that in this part of Michigan, Canada is directly East of the US instead of north. When I go downtown, I’m looking at Courtright, Canada across the river from Saint Clair.

The river at this point is a little over a mile wide, so I can clearly see the houses and the traffic on the road along the river there unless it’s really foggy or there’s a heavy snowstorm. The Saint Clair river runs between Lake Huron and Lake Saint Clair, with the current running south from Lake Huron at about eight or nine knots. Some days the river is angry with white caps, but most days she’s relatively calm and just goes about her business of flowing south.

Along the river here in town, we have the supposedly longest fresh water boardwalk in the world. That is a boardwalk that is actually made of wood, not concrete, because I’m sure the boardwalk in Port Huron, which is a concrete sidewalk, is longer than the one here, but you know, it’s the details that matter, I guess. In any case, it is a really lovely boardwalk.

I have photographed this boardwalk in summer, winter, snow, fog, sunshine and with storm clouds. I have photographed it with ice floating down the river in the yearly thaw after cold winters. In fact, when the ice sheets and shards, which can be several feet across, hit the metal retaining wall by the boardwalk, it sounds like very loudly breaking glass as it passes. It’s a rather interesting experience.

The city replaced the boardwalk last year because the old one had some warping and they were afraid it was becoming a tripping hazard. Now this year, and for the past eight months or so, the water level has become alarmingly close to the level of the boardwalk itself. When we moved to this town 27 years ago, the water level below the boardwalk was about five feet down. Now it’s barely a foot below the boardwalk and passing boats regularly cause wash up onto shore. There are speed warnings for boaters north and south of town where people have houses lining the river. Their lawns and even their private docks are being damaged by wash.

For now, people gather on the park benches down by the river and many bring lawn chairs to sit in the park that slopes up to the street that runs through town. I just hope in the next couple of years that the boardwalk doesn’t end up completely under water, and we will just have to enjoy the river from 10 feet back on the lawn because the park benches have become unreachable unless we want to wade in that very, very cold water.

To see more of my boardwalk and Saint Clair images, please visit my collection here:

https://mary-bedy.pixels.com/collections/saint+clair+michigan