By Kalvin D. Perron
Staff Reporter
BAY MILLS — Clayton “Bud” Parish can vividly recall walking the local trails at night, lantern in hand, making his way through the woods and snow. Back then, the majority of the houses on Bay Mills resided on the Democratic Trail, or Demo Trail, or one of the various trails that forked off from it. The trail began behind the old store, where Northshore Market currently stands. It ran behind the existing roadway in the cover of the thick trees for the long, cold winters, and ended by the old school by the South Pond located across from Kings Club Casino.
While the original trails existed as long as anyone can remember, the trail referred to as the Democratic Trail was built in the 1930s as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. The WPA was created by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his New Deal Plan. The plan was responsible for financing the construction of highways, public buildings, airports, parks and bridges and employed over eight million people between 1935 and 1941. The trail was referred to as the Democratic Trail because the work on the trail was done as a result of an executive order signed by the Democratic president.
Parish said that the original trails were used to keep people from going out in the weather. They meandered through the woods to Raco, Mission Hill, Brimley Road and other places. He recalled that the most popular trail was the Well Trail that led to a well behind the residence of Bernard and Catherine Shaw. At any given time you could find one or two people there, pail in hand, gathering water, he said.
The trail was used primarily in the winter months because it was located in the safety of the trees, that protected residents from the cold wind and blowing snow. During the summer months it was rarely used because it was too wet. Brimley Road, the main road at the time, was nearly impossible to travel during the winter because of the drifting snow that blew off the water.
Parish said that once or twice a year six teams of horses would come and plow the main road, followed by four teams of horses pulling a large steel roller to pack it down behind it. He said that many times the snow would drift over where they plowed the very same day, causing the main road to be used primarily for horses and sleighs. Houses built on the main road were used mainly as summer houses.
On any particular winter day, Parish said you could find someone snaring rabbits, or hunting partridge on the trail. Along with fish, these two animals made up a large portion of their diet. Additional food and firewood was brought to the homes by home-made sleighs, or hand sleighs, or pulled in by horses or dogs. Trails were often plowed by children with small pieces of wood who made a game out of it, Parish recalled.
“As a small boy we would make snow plows out of small slabs of wood,” he said. “We would plow the trails for hours, acting like we were either the horse or the driver. We turned a lot of work into games back then.”
After decades of dependence on the local trails, Parish said people began to frequent them less as automobiles became more prevalent within the local community.
“When I was a young boy, the only time someone used a car in the winter was to drive across the ice,” he said. “As the years passed and more people got cars, along with the improvement in the roads, people began to quit using the trail altogether.”
While the remnants of the Democratic Trail and the tributaries that branched off it are hardly recognizable, and years have transpired since it was graced with the soles of the many tribal members who travelled it or made their home on it, tribal elders, such as Bud Parish, consider the memory of it an important piece of their past.
