In a business endeavor by Greg Olson and Art Wells, 10 canoes and 1 trailer and an old rickety van were purchased to run a few canoes in their spare time on the Muskegon River.  Working from their homes on Pear Ave. the two men discovered that the interest was there for another canoe livery on the Muskegon River.

 

Greg and Art purchased the larger portion of the current existing campground to use as a storage area and office for their "dream" of  becoming a viable business in the Croton Area.  They did not offer camping in the small primitive area as they did not see a need to do so since Croton Township owned and operated a campground across the Causeway.

10 canoes and another 10 haul canoe trailer were added to their inventory.

 

8 more Grumman Canoes and a 8 haul trailer were added to the inventory bringing total canoe count up to 28. The business was growing!

 

At this time in the Newaygo Area Salmon Snagging was allowed by the Department of Natural Resources.  Greg and Art would come in to work on a early Saturday Morning to discover a 100 or so fishermen in their cars parked all over the property sleeping, cooking fresh caught salmon, and having a wonderful time sharing time with fellow fishermen.

In the spring of 1984, dozers from Howarth Excavating were brought in to clear a larger parking area and to cut out campsites so camping could be offered to fishermen who wished to primitive camp near the Kimball Launch.  20 sites were opened up with the larger sites being in the center of the campground.  A hand pump was also added to bring a water source to the property.  The campground was licensed by the Department of Environmental Quality and our campground officially opened for the Memorial Day Weekend.

 

Creation of power sites gave campers a viable option to bring up their travel trailers if they wished to do so.

16 more canoes were added to the inventory as well as a 16 haul canoe trailer.

 

 

 

Seeing the interest in tubing on the River, Greg purchased 25 tubes to discover if this would be a option he would wish to continue in his business.  The tubes were gone before noon on most weekends!

 

Orange International 66 passenger bus added to the fleet to haul tubers back from High Rollaway on weekends.  Total vehicle inventory includes 2 1984 Ford 16 passenger vans and 1 bus.  (Yes, Orange Tank, and Green Problem Child were running customers on the river since about 1988.)

 

Purchase of 6 Sevelyr 4 person rafts were added to inventory.

 

 

Ever since the addition of the campground, it had a caretaker who was onsite to put customers on the river on weekdays, as well as weekends.  Campground duties and chores were also his responsibility.  The caretaker moved to the other side of the state, and Float Trips suddenly had no CDL driver to drive the Orange Bus on weekends.  Owners Greg and Janet Olson knew where to look.

There was this lady, who had been picking up and dropping off their children daily for school for about 6 years.  Janet told Greg this lady was like a well tuned expensive clock coming within about 30 seconds of the same time regardless of road conditions.  She treated her "precious cargo" with concern and fairness.  She kept the kids in line.  Perhaps...just perhaps...she would be interested in making a little cash in the summer time when School Bus Drivers starve as they are unable to draw unemployment benefits.

In April, I received a phone call from Janet at home one day and was approached with this idea.  I said "sure"  what the heck, it might be fun and will break up the summer time as during those days was always looking for any reason to get out of the house due to various personal issues.

On the Saturday of Father's Day weekend I hit the county roads running the Old Orange Stick Shift Bus back and forth time after time to High Rollaway. ( I remember on one of my first loads with the bus I met the Vanderjagt Clan.  Still coming as they had been way back then!)

The summer continued and I learned that river tourists were certainly a lot different than driving children!!!!  Some good!!!  Some very naughty.  Option I had...put them off the bus if they behaved too naughty or abusive to others as complimentary transportation is provided for their use.  They do not have to ride the bus.  I never had to do this...however, I remember threatening it a time or two in my OFFICIAL BUS DRIVING VOICE!!!

 

On Labor Day Weekend I was informed by Greg Olson that I might have a new boss the following year.  It was explained due to personal interests the corportation was being listed on the market.  It was light a floodlight went off in my brain!  I promptly asked to wait 1 week before listing the business.  This was granted me...and first thing Monday Morning I was sitting in the office downtown at Indpendent Bank talking to bank manager Art Wescott. The following day I received word from Art that Independent Bank was willing to write a commercial loan so that I could purchase the business.  I was elated.  So were Greg and Janet Olson!

 

Walked out of that office in a sense of elation.  I was a business owner.  Owned 100% of the stock of the corportation, all land, all assets, all inventory.  I could not wait to get to work.  Except we were in the middle of a Spring Blizzard.  It was almost Easter and we were getting snow.  I wanted to to be out raking leaves and learning from the bottom up what it meant to own a business.

 

The snow stopped overnight.  The temperatures rose and by Saturday I was able to go out and begin raking some of the campground.  Easter Sunday, I had a pregnant beagle tied out front of the outhouse as I raked. 

 

 Rick Buttleman, another bus driver, as well as business manager for Vic's Canoes downriver stopped in with John Erard.  John had just lost his wife to complications from ovarian cancer surgery a couple weeks before. He had quit his job to take care of her during her illness.  He needed work...and a place to live.  I looked at a 22 foot Midas Travel Trailer that had been dropped off into the Float Trips Parking Lot the day before by my ex-husband.  I promptly said..."Not sure how much can pay you at first, but right now you want to work, move into that trailer, I make sure you have food in your tummy and become my property caretaker."  Handed him a rake, and thus began a wonderful relationship for many years with a man that became a true friend and companion to me during the early years of my ownership.

 

The next day was back to work driving school bus,  and a young gentleman whom I was social security guardian for called me at work.  I was a "proud" momma of 5 beaglie pups.  Daisy had her babies.  So now I owned a campground to get open as well as a mess of puppies.  When would it end?

 

Following weekend we were dropping trees which were definately dead...raking like mad.  And trying to act like we knew what we were doing.  Rick Buttleman showed up with his three teenage children, rakes in hand and with their help we soon had the campground clean.  Now was time to drop some trees along Swan Avenue to open up that area for other use as it looked like a jungle over there.

 

After the trees were dropped and cleared out...we began raking the deep leaves in the area and burning them. Along came the wind and suddenly fire was blazing out of control straight toward the office and the outhouse.  Boys were running with buckets back and forth to the hand pump.  Adults were raking firelanes as fast as we could to try to redirect the fire towards the road and out of the path of buildings.  Jeff Kolenbrander, local boy who worked for Wisner Canoes pulled up in his truck to help us fight the roaring blaze.  After about 1/2 hour of fighting with the fire, the last embers were finally out and the office and outhouse were safe!

 

Ran our first canoe on the last saturday of April to a gentleman from ALASKA of all places who was back to Michigan to visit family and to hit the Muskegon for Trout Fishing.

 

The first of May brought us into a frenzy of a different type.  I decided we needed to enlarge the shed to accomodate some of the items which had been stored on the other side of the garage/office.  I did not stop there:  A covered porch on the front of the office, a playground for children, take a wall out of the office and put in shelving to accomodate the sale of snack foods as well as forgotten camping equipment. 

 

For the next two weeks we worked like a well tuned army.  I would drive bus, sit in the bus garage creating forms and new rental agreements and sending out flyers to our customer list.  The guys would work putting out canoes and trying to build in shifts what I thought should be done.  I got to run the errands to lumber yards to gather supplies almost daily as their construction lists kept growing!

 

Hired my second employee.  Brit Bennett, a student off my bus, but he had worked at the river for the former owners.  I asked him to do some recruitment for me on finding guys to work down at the river.  He turned into a godsend.  Found my river rats.  Built new picnic tables.  Organized the new addition to the shed.  Helped build the playground equipment. 

 

The phone kept ringing and soon the campground was totally reserved for Memorial Day Weekend.  I bit my nails...hoped I thought of everything and the night before the first holiday weekend, I tried to relax the best I could to prepare myself for what I hoped was an onslaught of customers.

 

Memorial Day weekend found the campground full.  Met the Thrashers, Ron Carnes, Henry, Joe Wertz, and others this weekend.  Oh cant forget Bob Crowe.  Took the beagle puppies to work for the weekend and had them in the office in a play pen.  They were now eating doggie food and soon all but 2 had found new homes.  Before the weekend was over, John had decided to keep one of the pups for himself.  This just left 1 male...sorta a special little dude.  When he was born his momma did not have time to remove him from his birth sack...so I had to do this for him.  He was not breathing so I gently massaged his chest and blew into his nose and mouth.  Soon he was breathing on his own.  He was such a sweet little sport.  So Sport became his name.  You got it, I decided to keep the last remaining pup.  So Donna Belle and her brother Sport joined Momma Daisy as the "Dam Camp Dogs."

 

5/31/1998  A squall line of severe thunderstorms moves across Lower Michigan in the early morning with wind gusts between 90 and 120 mph. Thousands of trees are knocked down and hundreds of homes and businesses suffer damage. Sections of the state are declared a major disaster area and thousands are without power, some for several days. (per NOAA records)

 

This event happened on a Sunday morning early.  I was staying out at the campground because a similar storm had hit the Grant Area on the previous Thursday evening taking out my power at home.  Since I had power at the campground I was sleeping on the couch in the office.  I had been on the phone for a couple hours talking to a friend who was having difficulties at home with a personal matter.  We got off the phone somewhere about 3am.  I curled up on the couch with Sport and Daisy and it seemed like I just fell back to sleep when I heard the most horrendous noise.  It was like a train heading right towards me.  Then I saw the lightening flashing outside.  No thunder though.  Just the noise of a train and lightening.  I hit the floor and curled up with the dogs.  Then there was a loud crash outside the office and the power instantly went out.  I went to the door and all I saw were branches swaying on the front porch.  I thought a tree had come through the roof of the office...but if that would have happened I would have felt wind and rain hitting me.  This was not the case.  My Blazer was parked right outside the door and I knew then that the tree must have landed on it.  There was nothing I could do until morning as it was raining and blowing outside so bad I thought for sure I was involved in a hurricane.

 

Not soon afterwards I looked out the window and discovered campers leaving the campground in the middle of the storm.  I was  not sure what had happened out there, but I prayed that everyone was ok.

 

I went back to the couch and curled up again.  I guess I fell back to sleep because soon it was early dawn and the storm had passed.  I got up and looked out the door.  Sure enough a tree was laying there...now panic set in.  How was I going to get outside.  I tried to use the phone, was going to tell anyone that I was trapped in the office.  No phone.  Needed power to use a phone/answering machine system.  Well, to not be defeated, I knew I had to get out of the office some how.  So I opened the door and discovered I could get outside. 

 

The tree on the southwest corner of the driveway was laying perpendicular to the office straight up the driveway.  It had missed the office, the shed, the well pump.  Johns trailer on the north side of the shed.  And most importantly, it had missed my BLAZER.

 

I had to walk south clear to the road to get around the massive trunk taking up my front entrance.  I began my walk down the side of the tree to check on John.  I knocked on the door of his trailer.  He says, ya...what ya need.  I says John we got one HELL of a mess out here.  He answers:  "How come?"  I says didn't you hear the storm last night?  He replies:  "What storm?"  I says the one that has this tree between you and me.  The one that chased all the campers out of the campground.  The one that has taken out the power.  The one that I think was a freight train blowing through the building.  He peeked out the door..looks around and says..."Now What We Gunna Do?"

 

Well, I remembered an old phone in the office, so I went in to see if we had phone service.  I plugged in the old fashioned rotery telephone and we did have phone serivce.  I called my house, no answer.  So I called a friends house to check on them and to see if they had seen Brian, (I was his social security rep.)  Brian was there and said he had went to my house.  Said was very lucky I stayed at the campground cause a tornado had went straight down my road and had blown my bedroom window out and it landed right in my bed where I would have been sleeping.  I told him to bring the chainsaws and try to get to the campground.  Then I called Rick Buttlemans house.  He said he had no power either but had to somehow get to Vics Canoes as there were campers trapped there due to many trees blocking the driveway.  I told him to come here, we would take our vans and saws and go cut the campers out.

 

John checks the rest of the campground out.  We have one camper left, a tenter from the Lansing Area.  He was sleeping in his flattened tent in the parking lot.  Seemed dry, a little shaken up...but smiling saying he was the only one who had hot coffee!  He built a small campfire and brewed John and I a cup of coffee before he packed up to begin to try to get home.

 

When Rick showed up, we took the vans to the Hilltop to try to get gas as it was the only station open in the area due to it having its own generators.  We had to go down to M-82 and east to US 31.  From there we headed North to Jefferson and then headed West to the Hilltop.  It took us almost an hour to get there!  Cars were lined up everywhere trying to get gas in cans for chainsaws! 

 

On our drive to Vics Canoes downriver.  There were trees down everywhere. It took us almost two hours to get there.  We kept having to cut up trees and pulling them out of the roads with the vans to go another mile or so down the road to get out and do it again. Finally we got to the road to Vics Campground.  At least a dozen trees to get out of the way to open up the road for campers to get their trailers out.

 

After about an hour worth of work we had the road open and arrived at the office to talk to Annette the owner.  She thanked us for our running to her aid...helping her campers to get home.  And reminded me we had to stick together sometimes even though we were competition.  This was my first meeting with the owner of  Vic's Canoes/Salmon Run Campground.

 

Upon returning to the campground, I remembered that the ice man had filled our ice chest the day before.  People needed ice and I was going to loose all of mine if I did not do something fast.  I  called the Party Store in Newaygo and they said they were almost out of ice and would take all I have.  I loaded up the back end of Brian's pick up truck and he ran the ice to town.  He never even got it into their ice chest.  People were buying it out of his truck.

 

The day ended with plans to attack the tree sitting in the driveway the next morning and taking a window frame at home to hardware store to try to get new glass for it. 

 

The night would be one of darkness and quiet in the campground.  Only the glow of the propane lantern in the office could be seen from the road letting those pass know a campground even existed.  School was cancelled until the area received power.  It ended up being over for the year as some of the local areas did not receive power for over two weeks from what was determined to be many small tornadoes which hit the area.

6/1/1998 West Michigan was cleaning up from the tremendous destruction caused by the squall line of the day before. Meanwhile on Lake Michigan, water levels continued to rise and fall several feet at some locations through the day as seiches generated by the extreme winds of the squall line continued more than 24 hours after its passage. (per NOAA records.)

Upon the arrival of a Monday morning without school, I awoke to the smell of fresh coffee perking on an open fire outside my office.  Now I was camping for survival at a campground.  Looking back I recall the sounds of chainsaws everywhere in the neighborhood.  Looking at the tree laying content with itself down the center of my driveway with a trunk close to 4 foot high, I walked over and parked myself upon this once majestic mighty oak and began to sip my morning coffee.  How could wind crush the life out of something that had been growing for well over 100 years in just a couple of seconds.  The area had been so fortunate...so many trees down...and in some cases on top of so many houses, and no individual had been hurt.  God must truly have been with us that night.

Then the work began.  The sound of the saws fired up at the campground and the once mighty oak became wood to be split for firewood for campers over the summer.  It took close to a day and a half to get the tree fully out of the driveway to an area where it could be split to create servicable pieces. 

On tuesday I happened to glance up at a tree on the other side of the driveway near where the tree had fallen.  About 30 feet in the air I discovered a huge crack running about 10 feet down the center of the tree.  Probably, when the one tree cracked and broke off, it swirled and bumped against the other tree before it fell, causing damage to the still standing tree.  John, Rick, and I knew what had to happen, for if we did not cut this tree down it would surely fall during the next storm whenever that might be and perhaps take out the office.

This tree required chains and two vans attached to it at various angles to swing it away from the office.  If we pulled at the wrong angle it would fall and take out the shed or the hand pump.  It also required climbing a ladder being held straight up to carry a chain up to a over hanging branch.  Now here is where the problem arose.  John (Yogi) at this time was pushing 375 to his 6'2" height, and was terrorified of heights.  Rick, just promptly said he was not going up the ladder.  This left me.  Now, I am not overly fond of heights either, but I know it had to be done.  So having John and Rick hold the ladder I began to climb straight up.  Back down I came.  I had to have both hands free in order to grip the ladder to where perhaps I could climb it.  So, being a woman of sometimes amazing ideas, I think, well Sue, just hook the chain to the back of my jeans and climb the ladder using two hands.  So up the ladder I go again.  I get about 15 feet off the ground I suppose and I feel my jeans beginning to slide from my hips.  Looking down I see John and Rick staring up at me.  I think to myself there is no way I can go up any further to try to grab the branch that I need to grab before my pants fall down my legs.  There are those two sets of "male" eyes below me....so down the ladder I go again...getting to the ground just as I gives a full moon to 1/2 the county...but I to this day do not think the looking "male" eyes saw anything for if they did they never mentioned it to me!  About a minute later in comes two guys in a car wanting to rent a canoe. 

I looks at John standing with the ladder...and these two young guys in the car.  Off goes the lightbulb.  I walks over to their car.  Tells them that I really do not know if we can get them and their canoe out of the landing due to possible trees falling...so under normal conditions I would have to say no to the canoe rental.  However, if they wish to climb that ladder and attach this chain over that branch up there, I would be more than willing to give them a FREE canoe adventure.  Up the ladder one of the young innocents went...and out to the river we sent them with a free canoe rental.

While these guys were out on the river we dropped the tree right where we wanted it...did not land it in the office.  Did not drop it on the shed.  And did not take out the critical hand pump.  More firewood to chop up and later split and more mess laying in the same area of the driveway.

We were able to get to Thornapple Pubic Access (High Rollaway) to get our river adventurers safely back without difficulty of trees down in the access area.