News-Record.com

Our day trip to Charlevoix on a perfect northern Michigan day was disappointing only in one respect.

After a pleasant lunch of perch and whitefish on the deck of the Weathervane, overlooking the canal that connects Round Lake to the great Lake Michigan, watching the drawbridge rise for tall-masted sailboats, I headed for the local bookstore to peruse what surely would be an extensive collection of Ernest Hemingway material. After all, the famed writer had spent many summers as a child and young man here.

I was wrong ... but not in the way I originally thought.

It wasn't Charlevoix where Hemingway fished and hunted and married Hadley in 1921; it was Horton Bay, as we discovered by happy accident. Rather than return from Charlevoix to Harbor Springs via Petoskey along the lakeshore route, we decided to follow the Boyne City Road and work our way back inland.

About halfway, we arrived at the hamlet of Horton Bay on Lake Charlevoix, where we were arrested by two surprising landmarks: The Horton Bay General Store and the Red Fox Inn, both structures dating from the 1870s and absolutely impossible to pass by -- especially the Red Fox, which advertises a Hemingway bookstore.

More like a museum, whose proprietor/curator is James Vol Hartwell, a historian of all things Hemingway/Horton Bay.

Hartwell is an attentive host, probably because the Charlevoix-Boyne City Road is definitely off the main tourist path and he isn't overwhelmed with customers. He attempts to introduce us to every item in the store, many of which obviously have been resident for decades. But his passion comes honestly -- his grandfather, Vollie Fox, was Hemingway's fishing guide. Hartwell has collected some of the lore in his own slim volume, "Fishing For Life -- Stories of Vollie Fox & Other Horton Bayites." It includes a hand-drawn map of the area as it appeared about the time of Hemingway's visits and marks the locations of events from his life and stories.

Hartwell also has notated the table of contents of a paperback edition of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories: "Three Shots" takes place at nearby Walloon Lake, Hartwell's additions say, "The Indians Moved Away" at Horton Bay and Petoskey, "The Last Good Country" at Horton Bay and Walloon, and so on. I buy a copy and ask Hartwell to autograph it, which he does gladly, also stamping a Horton Bay postmark dated Sept. 3, 1921, the day of Hemingway's marriage to Hadley.

The General Store, which also serves as a deli, restaurant, antique shop, ice cream parlor, liquor store and bar, is well worth a look-in, too. But the real treasure of Horton Bay is Hemingway heritage.

Contrary view: Not everyone in Horton Bay remembers Hemington fondly, the NYT reported a few years ago.