Wigwam Jones

Well, how can you not go to a festival in a town called "Bad Axe" and especially if it is called the "Bad Axe Hatchet Festival?" You have to go. So I did.

Bad Axe Hatchet Festival

City of Bad Axe, Michigan

I passed up some interesting events to go, such as the highly-promoted Howell "Michigan Challenge Balloonfest," but I really wanted to visit a festival that was less advertised, something a bit more small-towny, and that's just what I got.

Bad Axe is a very small town situated right on the tip of the 'Thumb' of Michigan (if you laid down your left hand on a map, that's where your thumb would be). It's a beautiful town, and again (like when I visited Chesaning, MI), I was confronted with a town completely full of beautiful homes, most or all of which have been incredibly well maintained or restored, no trash blowing around in the streets, not so much as a blade of grass out of place. It's so Norman Rockwell, it's almost scary.

They've even got a JC Penny Catalog store! Who knew such things were even still around! Creepy!

Bad Axe apparently got its name because an early group of surveyors made a mark on a map about having camped on a site where a broken axe had been found - a 'bad axe'. This became the name of the town when it was later settled. The town uses a 'broken hatchet' icon to adorn everything relating to 'Bad Axe'.

I found it easy to get to Bad Axe, it is straight up M-53, which in the Detroit area is Van Dyke. That's near where I work, so I just drove as if to go to work and then headed north. Turns out that this might not have been the brightest move. Like most Michigan highways, M-53 is not in great shape, and it is under repair in places. I spent nearly an hour sitting in non-moving traffic while a bridge over M-53 at about 20 mile was being repaired.

However, once you get out of the suburbs and into the countryside, M-53 is a great road. It is a two-lane concrete highway, rough in spots, but overall its OK, and it is the straightest and most direct method of getting up the thumb of Michigan. It goes through some incredibly beautiful scenery, and I passed roadside stands selling strawberries, cherries, and even honey, as well as a number of interesting-looking little towns, the kind that seem to invite you to stop and spend an hour just wandering around. I enjoyed it so much, I had to call Mrs. Wiggy on the cell phone just to make general exclamations of delight at her.

Once I got to Bad Axe, I passed by a car show in a small shopping center, but continued on, looking for the 'festival.' I noted that the downtown area was roped off, but no one seemed to be there - this was at around 12:00 noon. I drove out to the local restaurant row and stopped in a Wendy's for lunch and asked about it. Strangely, none of the locals seemed to know much about the festival. One employee tried to direct me to a 'Sugar Festival' being held in a nearby town - they didn't think too highly of Bad Axe themselves, even if they lived there.

I ate my lunch and headed back downtown, where I parked and wandered around the deserted but roped-off downtown area for a bit. I stopped to take a photo of the Bad Axe theater, which used to be a Knights of Columbus hall.

There, I ran into a local photographer who told me all about the theater, and also about the festival, which was largely around the corner near the city park and library. It seemed that the downtown area was roped off for the car show, which would be the cars I saw while I was driving into the town, only they would relocate at about 1 p.m. OK, fair enough.

I went around the corner, and sure enough, there was the festival. I've seen bigger festivals, but I don't mind small ones when they have that 'close knit' feeling - and I think that's what attracts me to them. But this didn't give me any feeling of community. I'm sorry to say it felt half-hearted, uncoordinated, and flat.

There were some interesting things, such as the library book sale, and helicopter rides in a vintage "Hiller" helicopter from the 1960's.

But overall, the feeling was lacking. I saw the pony rides, I saw the kids at the various amusements, and I saw the Pioneer Log Village. All very neat - nothing wrong with any of them - but I just could not get that 'community feeling' that makes me enjoy festivals and fairs so much ordinarily. I can't say why, haven't a clue.

I did see the "Christian Cowboys" reenactment group, and that was pretty fun. Just your basic guys dressed up like cowboys, shooting each other with sixguns. Probably not terribly authentic, but they took it seriously, and I got a kick out of it - the kids did too. The guys who run the show inject Bible parables into the plots, but it isn't overwhelming in the least - actually quite a light touch is used. They also gave a nice speech to the kids about gun safety - namely never to touch or pick up a gun if you find one, but rather to tell your parents or an adult right away; complete with a graphic demonstration of the effects of even a blank cartridge on a soda can. Well done.

There was also the car show - the town ran their Civil Defense (Air Raid or Tornado Warning) sirens to announce it and deafened me completely. It was quite nice.

As I drove back to Detroit, I found myself with a bit of extra time, so I paid attention to the road signs, and turned off when I thought I might see something interesting. This is always kind of fun, you never know what you're going to find.

I saw a sign just south of Bad Axe on M-53, it just said "Petroglyph." I didn't know if this was a place or a town name, but I remember having seen petroglyphs carved into the side of a mountain in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so I thought it might be that, and I investigated. Turns out I was right.

The petroglyphs the sign refers to are the Sanilac Petroglyphs, which were discovered carved onto a sandstone hillock in the area. These are the only petroglyphs to be found in Michigan, and they date back between 300 and 1,000 years.

Sanilac Petroglyphs

They're not much too look at, unfortunately, but they are interesting. I did my best to get a photo or two of them. The site has been vandalized in the past, of course (because human beings are self-centered, selfish idiots), so there is a fence around it with a cover over the top to protect the soft sandstone from further erosion, and it is only open when there are student guards present (interns).

As I was driving out of the Petroglyph area, I also saw a couple of farmhouses and barns that seemed to me to be particularly attractive, so I took a few photos of those, as well.

Well, that's it for this week, my little droogies. I hope you enjoyed this. Click on any photo if you want to see larger, and here are the links to the Flickr Slide Shows, as usual:

Bad Axe Hatchet Festival Car Show

Bad Axe Hatchet Festival Christian Cowboys

Bad Axe Hatchet Festival Total Car Show + etc

Sanilac Petroglyphs