Carp Lake or Lake of the Clouds?
August 31, 2010
IMG_0060, photo by JimSchoensee.
I was looking for the legend of why the Lake of the Clouds got its name. It turns out that this signature scenic site in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park got its romantic name in the 1930s or 1940s depending on the source you believe. The later source has some more detailed information, so I’ll relate it here:
The name “Lake of the Clouds” makes me chuckle. The lake was originally named “Carp Lake” by the settlers of these parts in the 1840s. In this usage “carp” is short for “scarp,” or “escarpment,” the rocky basalt-and-conglomerate ridge you see to the left, and has nothing to do with the ugly bottom-feeding fish. When the area became the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in 1945, some marketer thought “Carp Lake” wouldn’t fly with city-slicker tourists and insisted the name be changed.
Whatever name it goes by, it is indeed a beautiful vista – get information about Lake of the Clouds trails from Hunts Guide to the UP.
Check this out bigger and in Jim’s slideshow.
More Porcupine Mountains on Michigan in Pictures.
