Detroit au Naturel

The last two weeks we've focused on American culture — on things man-made. The thing is, this land has been here long before America. So this week I want to spotlight some of the scenery of Metro Detroit. A sort of "Detroit au Naturel," and while we're at it we can learn a bit about the people native to the area.

We start this Saturday where season 31 of The Amazing Race ended. A site with a bit of a complex history. On the northern banks of the Detroit River stands Fort Wayne. Built in the 1840s, the fort has played a role in several conflicts over time — but the history of this land goes back much further. As the fort's historians put it, "dating roughly from 750 to 1200 A.D., the Fort Wayne Mound was once part of a larger burial complex in the Detroit region known as the Springwells Mound Group." So while you may catch a soccer game on its grounds today, let's be respectful of those who revere this land.

Our next stop is Belle Isle — or Wahnabezee. Another place with a history divided. Our destinations are the Aquarium and the Giant Slide. The aquarium is the oldest in the country, and the slide — well, it's been back in operation since 2022 after some safety improvements. If you're anything like me, you've got memories of friction burns from that slide. I think I'll let those remain memories. On the isle there are kayak rentals and plenty of other options to fill the entire afternoon — beaches, biking, food trucks. You can't go wrong.

Keeping with what's becoming a bit of a tradition, Sunday is less active but no less inspiring. Kensington Metropark provides 4,000+ acres of woodland and hills for hiking, and Kent Lake for watersports. A small fact about the town that preceded the park: the area now occupied by the park was once home to the village of Kensington, which turned into a ghost town after the railroads that could have run through the village were routed to neighboring Milford and South Lyon instead.

It's interesting how different people with different customs will consistently find value or meaning in the same land — potentially for different reasons. Sometimes I ponder how history in Europe or Asia goes back thousands of years. We're taught 300–400 years of American history; meanwhile, we may be walking on a thousand-year-old burial site. I find that curious.