- Vacation location in Michigan:   Grand Haven, Michigan, an idyllic fishing and recreational and camping town on the shores of Lake Michigan--the stroll along the boardwalk to the historic lighthouse is breathtaking. The evening sunset is spectacular! And there's nothing better than the soft, soothing sands along the beach!

- Appetizer:  the barbeque meatballs at Win Schulers in Marshall, Michigan--melt in your mouth. Four generations of family members have been operating this historic restaurant since 1909. First class service and exceptional food are just some of the reasons this epicurean delight has withstood the strains of a changing economy.

- Hotel:  The Ritz-Carlton (Dearborn) ambience and personal attention are the hallmarks. The Ladies and Gentlemen of the hotel as they are called provide some of the best guest service on the planet! And having won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award twice separates this prestigious hotel from the other wanna-bes.

- White bean chili soup: Kirby Grill in Grand Haven--soup so good your knees will buckle when you taste it.

- Summer vacation:  Mackinac Island with lunch at The Grand Hotel. The Hotel boasts the world's longest porch. No cars allowed on the Island just horse drawn carriages. The aroma of fudge and equine droppings fill the air but travel there in June for the lilac festival for a nostril treat!

- Pizza: Buddy's in Detroit

- Amusement Park:  the Michigan Adventure Park in Muskegon takes high honors and a ride on the roller coaster Shivering Timbers is spectacular. Over 60 rides and attractions and a spectacular water park with 20 wild water rides.

- Michigan restaurant:  The 1913 Room at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids. This is the only AAA Five Diamond restaurant in our state and the service and the menu selections are first class. In 2008 it won that distinction for the seventh time.

- Canoe trip:   the White River in Montague, Michigan. The site of blue heron taking flight, ducks swimming frantically away and startled deer racing through the grass and the occasional muskrat swimming in the river provide memories that will last a lifetime.

- Golf course:  Crystal Mountain in Thompsonville, Michigan. Panoramic views of northern Michigan foliage and firs and well manicured fairways.

- Romantic getaway:  the Betsie Bay Inn in Frankfort, Michigan. Rooms are outfitted with hot tubs, saunas, canopy beds, and wood burning stoves. Perfect getaway for married couples and if you weren't married when you arrived, you will be when you leave!

- Snack:  the Pronto Pup Stand in Grand Haven has been delighting hot dog aficionados for over 60 years. Grab a couple of doggies and then stroll along the boardwalk. And then settle in for the Musical Fountain at dusk along the Grand River.

From the January/February 2008 issue of

Paddling in winter becomes a process of rediscovering Michigan’s rivers and the landscape — and of discovering again the sensuous pleasures of gliding through clear water in a canoe.

If you love rivers, you find reasons to be near them. Winter is a good enough reason. In winter, even rivers you have known all your life seem new. Get in a canoe and float downstream past the first bend and for all you know you could be riding water on another continent. Just what the doctor ordered for seasonal affective disorder, income-tax jitters and existential dread and people who try it tend to get enthusiastic.

Bill Edmonson was so enthusiastic that by 10 a.m. on a February day on the Pere Marquette River, he broke his second canoe paddle of the day. Like the first, it sheered off where the blade met the handle. Also like the first, Bill held the handle up in the air and looked at it with astonishment, the way he might have looked if he had dipped it into the water and something bit it off. Bill's a big guy; he doesn't know his own strength. His exertions broke two good paddles that morning, and we had no more spares. In his easygoing way, nonchalant, never riled, a southern good-old-boy raised by an accident of history in the north. Bill addressed Mark Wilkes, his partner in the bow. Looks like you're gonna have to do all the work from now on. Mark shrugged, adding the item to a growing list of life's injustices. Another day in the salt mines, he said.

Here in Michigan, the sight of a canoe strapped to an automobile in January or February draws a fair amount of attention. For years, my friends and I have been considered mildly insane for doing it, a judgment we once encouraged because it granted us license for further extreme behavior. It still pleases us to pull into a restaurant parking lot on a cold, snowy morning and park our canoe-topped trucks next to vehicles loaded with skis and snowmobiles. The waitresses always ask in a wonderful, wide-eyed way if we are actually going canoeing

We were college friends and friends of college friends who came together to canoe and camp one weekend every winter. At first, while we were in our early twenties, we pretended the winter expeditions were macho initiation rites. The rivers we paddled were scenic and free-spirited, and they passed through nice country. But we were interested primarily in having a roaring good time and exposing ourselves to hardships severe enough to challenge our powers of endurance. In later years, we would come to appreciate the trips for more subtle reasons.

The Pere Marquette or the PM, as nearly everyone knows her, has always been a favorite among our little group. I got off to a shaky start in the relationship in 1975, during my first winter trip, when Mike McCumby and I ended up walking out of the woods carrying nothing but the rapidly freezing clothes on our backs. We had tried to back paddle our heavily loaded canoe away from a fallen tree, were caught sideways in conflicting currents, and capsized. For months, our friends were extremely helpful. They pointed out that the mishap was the result of our own stupidity in attempting to canoe the river during freakishly high water, for going alone and for attempting a tricky paddling maneuver without the experience to do it right.

It did not, they insisted, prove anything was inherently wrong with winter canoeing. Mike took the criticism well and was back on the PM the following winter. I spent a few years thinking about it. Naturally, I primarily thought about all the fun I was missing. A few minutes on a northern river in winter is enough to convince you that canoeing should indeed be a year-round sport. In winter, rivers are different, their character altered by banks of sculpted ice, by barren trees, by countryside that has been largely abandoned to the snow. Paddling then becomes a process of rediscovering the rivers and the landscape, and of discovering again the sensuous pleasures of gliding through clear water in a canoe. You feel the air, cold and harsh, so brittle it seems to shatter as you pass. You might turn to watch your breath fogging in the air and see a pie of snow fall from a hemlock on the bank. Once you begin noticing such things, it's difficult to stop. You see ice grown into minute, precisely detailed sculptures where the water touches a trailing branch, and notice the silent obliteration of snowflakes as they touch the river. You hear the trickle of runoff beneath the snow along shore, the hissing of current against fringe ice, the distant thumping of a pileated woodpecker.

The river breathes and whispers, blending with the thin sounds of the canoe brushing against water and slush and the dripping of a still-held paddle. A half hour of this and you’re eager to make extravagant claims for the virtues of wilderness, even a wilderness only a few bends concealed from highways and houses.

Adapted by MichiganBlue Magazine with permission from “A Place on the Water: An Angler’s Reflections on Home ”(St. Martin’s Press) by Jerry Dennis, who resides in Traverse City.  Lisa Jensen is the editor of MichiganBlue Magazine.