Walloon Lake Is a Literary Pilgrimage for Fans of Ernest Hemingway

Words were my first friends. I was a dorky, lonely child in the ’80s whose favorite place was the local library. That little girl would absolutely squeal if she knew I designed the logo that now flashes across my own library card. All this is to say, I’m a book-obsessed Michigan resident with a weakness for literary history. There’s a literary destination in Michigan I need to visit, and this is me convincing you to make the same pilgrimage to Walloon Lake to walk in the footsteps of a young Ernest Hemingway.

I’ve already completed one Hemingway pilgrimage to Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, where I stared at his typewriter and made polite conversation with a few six-toed cats. Now I want to head north, not south. On Walloon Lake, I can visit the city that houses another of his homes: Windemere, the boyhood summer cottage where Hemingway learned to fish, hunt, row, and eventually write sentences that punch you in the ribs.

The Real-Life Inspiration Behind the Story

In 1898, the Hemingway family left Oak Park, Illinois, and traveled north to what was then called Tolcott, later renamed Talcott, and finally Walloon Lake. Dr. Clarence Hemingway and Grace Hall Hemingway bought four lots on the north shore and built a modest 20-by-40-foot white clapboard cottage with a gabled roof. They named it Windemere. The structure still stands and holds designation as a National Historic Landmark.

Getting there in the early 1900s required grit. The family boarded steamships in Chicago for a 24-to-40-hour ride up Lake Michigan to Harbor Springs, then transferred to a commuter train to Petoskey, then another line toward Walloon Lake, and finally a small steam vessel called the Tourist to reach their cottage. The fare from Chicago ran about $5 to $7 per person. Clarence made that 350-mile trip several times a season. Summer in Michigan meant commitment.

Hemingway arrived at Walloon Lake as an infant and returned nearly every summer until 1921. He worked at Longfield Farm across the lake, fished in Horton Creek, and wandered through the woods with friends in nearby Horton Bay. Those northern Michigan landscapes later surfaced in The Nick Adams Stories. In “The End of Something,” he wrote, “He looked across the bay to the hills that were beginning to sharpen against the sky.” You can stand on the shore today and see those same hills sharpen.

Walloon Lake itself feels carved from ice and patience. The glacier-formed lake covers more than 4,000 acres and reaches depths of over 100 feet. After the ice melts in April, you can sometimes see 30 feet down into water so clear it feels edited. The Bear River drains from the lake’s east end and winds toward Lake Michigan. In “Big Two-Hearted River,” Hemingway observed, “The river was there.” Direct. Certain. You stand along these waters and understand that line on a cellular level.

Today, Windemere remains in the Hemingway family and is not open to visitors. A sculpture titled “The Old Man and the Cat” honors his legacy near the village. You can’t tour the cottage, yet the shoreline, the trees, and the light of the surrounding area remain available to anyone willing to look closely.

Walloon Lake also delivers a modern northern Michigan experience. Stay at Hotel Walloon for polished comfort with lake views, or book a log cabin with a hot tub and let the night air carry the scent of pine. Grab dinner at Barrel Back Restaurant for lakefront dining that pairs whitefish with a clean horizon. Walk off your meal at Indian Garden Nature Area or bike the trails at Cherry Lane Loops. The mix of literary history and fresh air feels balanced, not staged.

Tips for Planning Your Literary Pilgrimage

Visit in late spring or early fall for cooler air and thinner crowds. Bring a notebook. Even if you write nothing profound, the act feels appropriate. Drive through Horton Bay and imagine a teenage Hemingway rowing across the lake to meet friends. Stop in Petoskey and think about him speaking at the Carnegie Library after returning from World War I, still in uniform, still sorting out the physical and mental weight of war.

Read a few Nick Adams stories before you go. Let the landscape and the language overlap. Pay attention to how the lake shifts color from morning to dusk. Order the local fish. Stay up late. Wake early. Papa would approve.

Michigan has always shaped writers, dreamers, and restless teenagers with notebooks. Visit Walloon Lake. Stand where Hemingway once learned the rhythms of water and woods. Make your northern Hemingway pilgrimage real. That dorky library kid in me still believes words can change a life. A lake like this can help. And if you need a bit of assistance finding other Michigan adventures to get into, give our Travel Planner a try!