CURTIS

Region: Tahquamenon & Seney, Grand Marais & Whitefish Point

Portage Creek flows under Curtis's Main Street, connecting Big Manistique Lake to the north with smaller South Manistique Lake. This pleasing scene of J.T. Gordon's antique shop and little motel is a focal point of the town.

Two of the largest U.P. lakes are Big Manistique Lake and South Manistique Lake, separated by an isthmus where the busy, charming little resort village of Curtis is located. Each lake has enough marshy shoreline to provide good cover and food for fish. Near dawn and dusk, anglers are out in the lakes' many bays. BIG MANISTIQUE LAKE, over 10,000 acres in size, is the shallower, in many places just five or ten feet deep. Fishing is known for yellow perch, walleye, smallmouth bass, and northern pike.

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During the early 20th century, quantities of fish caught here were iced and shipped south to Chicago. SOUTH MANISTIQUE LAKE, 4,000 acres, never gets deeper than 30 feet. It is has a very large, underfished muskie population with several 20- to 30-pound fish caught each year. Forty- to 45-pound muskie could be in the lake. South Manistique also has a lot of smallmouth bass and bluegills. Walleye had traditionally been plentiful until heavy fishing depleted their numbers. Then the Curtis Lions Club started a stocking program. Now walleye are reproducing so well that stocking isn't necessary.

A good place for advice, bait, tackle and fishing-related T-shirts and such is the FISH and HUNT SHOP on the east end of Main Street (906-586-9531). Owner Mike Soder has built his business into probably the biggest snowmobile dealership in the eastern U.P. In summer it sells boats and jet-skis. His right-hand man, Dan Duberville, a former fishing guide, is up on snowsleds but much more of a traditionalist. (He himself prefers Iverson snowshoes for getting out in winter.)

South Manistique Lake.

The Manistique lakes are also ideal for boating and active water sports like water-skiing and jet skis. Visitors from Oakland County outside Detroit are amazed at how uncrowded the lakes are. A public boat launch is in the town park on Big Manistique Lake. From H-42/Main Street, turn north a block west of the bank.

Historically Curtis benefited from its railroad depot, and from its location between Big and Little Manistique lakes. After 1900, as loggers moved on, resorts and fishing camps took hold here. Farmers from Indiana and Ohio came in August, after threshing was done, to relax and escape the heat and relax. Hay-fever sufferers started coming then, too. Once perhaps a hundred small resorts were around Curtis. Now most are snowbirds' summer homes, but some small resorts remain in town and around the lakes. (The chamber of commerce web site, curtischamber.com, still lists 24 lodgings with "resort" in their names, but some are beyond the Manistique Lakes area.) Much later, Curtis's railroad hotel was moved to a wooded site on Big Manistique Lake. It's now the popular Chamberlin's Ole Forest Inn, a restaurant and bed and breakfast.

Over the years some of the local resort staff married into families of well-to-do resorters, gradually elevating the social tone, you might say, to a level above the folksy friendliness of the area. A Curtis woman married a man who worked for National School Studios, photographers of hundreds of millions of mug shots for class photos in U.S. schools. He rose to become its head. Their brothers' families summered in Curtis and hired many local people to work for National School Studios, creating a connection that remains today and enriches town life.

The Erickson family has donated land to the Curtis Community Arts Council for Curtis Park on the south side of Main Street at the west end of town. Its 40 acres include woods and trails, a pavilion, a pavilion, and an arts center. Concerts in the Park, held on alternate Thursdays at 6 p.m., start on the last Thursday in June and go into late August. (Civic leaders hope to expand the park south to Little Manistique Lake.) See curtischamber.com/ and then "artonthelake" for more about the arts council, its programs and classes. Summer community theater productions have been staged since 2005. Festive, surprising Art on the Lake is on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

As a centrally located vacation base camp, the Curtis area has some real advantages. Major attractions in the Eastern Upper Peninsula make good day trips: the nearby Seney National Wildlife Refuge, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore at Grand Marais, Tahquamenon Falls, Lake Michigan beaches at Manistique. An extra plus for in-town resorts: kids can walk and do things on their own — get an ice cream cone, fish, go to The Trading Post. It supplies souvenirs, sundries, good books, and art supplies. Locals hang out downtown at the Three Lakes Restaurant and two bars, Tally-Ho and the Whitefish.

Vacationers can check their e-mail at the appealing Curtis Public Library (906-586-9411). It occupies the 1911 town hall and auditorium. Quotations decorate bookshelf edges and wood valences over windows. For instance, "Adventure is not outside a man but within." And "It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder. It's the stillness that fills me with peace." Local woodworker Bill Kolasinski made and donated them. The library is a half block north of Main on Davis. Turn north at the bank. Open Monday noon to 7, Thursday and Friday 10 to 4:30. Next door is the Curtis Historical Museum, open irregularly most days in summer. Call library for info.

HELMER is a wayside hamlet on H-33 at the northeast bay of Big Manistique Lake, six miles south of McMillan and M-28. There the Helmer House Inn (now closed) hearkens back to Helmer's earliest days around 1880. A minister built it as a Presbyterian mission, then sold it to Gale Helmer, who turned it into a resort hotel and added a post office/general store.

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