It Was Summertime in Northern Michigan

If you’ve ever wondered where in the world you’ll find the most delectable, divine, mouth-watering fudge, then today is your lucky day. I’ll tell you. It’s Mackinac Island. An impossibly well manicured stretch of green protruding from the Great Lake Huron of Northern Michigan.

Throwing you back some hundred years in American history, you won’t find a single car on any of the intermingling tracks syphoning you around the island. Far from making the pace of life leisurely, the second you step off the water taxi, you’re dodging bicycles and burly Clydesdale hooves like your life depends on it. In fact, it probably does. Horse drawn carts full of cameras click at each pinstriped awning above every fudge factory with their promises to be the best you’ll find. That’s a lot of clicking. And not least from the trails of horses and their snap happy riders which stretch on and on like rocky mountain timber trains. 

“These are the American glory days!” boast the spangly stars and stripes decorating The Grand Hotel. A horse and cart fashioned entirely from a hedge prove the point further. Swept away in a whirlwind of red, white and blue, you lose your sense of dignity as you buy a seventh box of fudge. Though it won’t just be the confectionaries which leave you with a sweet taste in your mouth and a dizzying desire for more, more, more. I discovered this as I stumbled through an extraordinarily abundant apple orchard towards the shores of Lake Huron. Following a winding promenade, bleached white under the glaring Michigan sun, I was guided away from the mayhem. By the shore stood an uncannily symmetrical house. Four equally open windows framed by olive shutters peered over a pristine white veranda. It wouldn’t have looked awry on the set of Gone With the Wind. Despite the scorching sun, the lawn was a luscious green surrounded by a painted picket fence without a chip in sight. Even so it lacked the eeriness that often comes with perfection, that kind of nuclear test town suspense. On the contrary, it seemed the homely heart of quintessential American life. I stood and imagined my own life-cum-musical in the dreamy confines of its wrap around veranda.

I drifted back into the buzz of the town and once again sailed across the saltless waters of the lake, still tasting the history of the sugary sweet American dream. A taste which would’ve certainly lingered on whether I’d eaten 7 boxes of the world’s best fudge or not.