Dickeyville is a town in south-eastern Wisconsin, not far from the Mississippi River. Elenka, our amiga Lynn from Owen Sound, and I were driving through the town, perhaps named in honour of the Toronto Blue Jays less than stellar knuckle baller, R.A. Dickey. It was late afternoon and we were on our way to Chicago when I saw the circa 1950s, Bates-like motel. We just had to pull in.
 


 
Elenka and I had been negotiating for a few years about the journey we were on and had finally come to an agreement. I’d take her around the top of Lake Superior if she’d come with me to pay homage to the Minnesota Twins new ballpark, Target Field, in downtown Minneapolis. Check out the photo of Elenka.




But back to the Lake Superior; it’s far more interesting. I was mesmerized by the rugged, rocky landscape, canyons with drops of more than 100 metres and its beautiful sea of a lake. There are actual bays and coves along the north shore of Lake Superior where you can swim in the summer. The problem with the area though is that there is no infrastructure. While there are lots of seedy old motels along the way for people passing through on their way to western Canada or vice versa you’ll have a hard time finding accommodation that would make you want to stay – and there seems to be absolutely nowhere to stay directly on the lake. The area is so behind the times, one motel proudly advertised in big bold letters on every door that it was okay to smoke in the rooms.
 



 
It’s roughly six-hundred kilometres from Sault Ste. Marie, where Lake Superior begins in the east, to the Minnesota border where civilization takes over. All along the U.S. shore to Duluth, Minnesota, the lakefront is dotted with resorts, both high and low end. And the crazy thing about it is that while you can swim in some of the Canadian parts of the lake, you can’t swim – at least as far as I could make out – in the U.S. waters because it has mostly deep and unsheltered. When Elenka asked the woman who ran the place we stayed at in Minnesota where the best place was to swim the woman looked at her as though she was from Mars and said that the lake outside her door never rises above 37 degrees Fahrenheit.





So, here’s my idea: Someone with entrepreneurial savvy and deep pockets needs to go up there and strategically place resorts in the warm bays and coves … heated swimming pools would be a good idea too, just in case. Then the still-to-be-named entrepreneur would pay a visit to the Porter Airlines people who already fly in-and-out of both Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay where they would strike up a deal. I’ve even come up with a slogan: “From One Lake to Another with Porter.” (Porter flies out of Toronto Island Airport on Lake Ontario)




 No one was stabbed to death in the shower the night we stayed at the Dickeyville motel. In a murdering of a different sort back in Toronto, R.A. Dickey gave up 4 earned runs off 7 hits over 6 innings in a 4 – 3 loss to Tampa Bay.