Trip to Searchmont and Ranger Lake

 I'm doing a parish pastoral visit in Sault Ste. Marie this week, but I decided to take a trip to the neighbouring community of Searchmont. I had seen the turnoff on the highway, but had never been, and it was one of the few remaining places in the diocese I had not yet seen.

A few more kilometers in, and I had arrived! 

The drive in showed the location of the ski resort, and the community centre, but what I was really interested in finding was the former Catholic church of Saint Hubert, which had been sold off years ago to a private buyer. I had to take a side road marked with a "No Trespassing" sign, but I found it.

I couldn't believe the state of disrepair of the building. Someone paid good money to buy this structure. What on earth happened?

I got out of my car and walked around. There were no windows, and no front door, so I was able to peek my head inside. What I saw just broke my heart.

This is just some of the graffiti. Some of it was quite vile. Although the church was now in private hands and was no longer officially a sacred building, something still felt just so wrong.

I wanted to peek in further, but the structure was clearly unsafe and I just couldn't take the chance. So I decided to walk around and look for the old cemetery. 

Found it! It clearly wasn't really maintained, but it wasn't in bad shape either. Some wooden crosses had fallen over and were rotting, but several (including the main one) were still standing. There was only one stone monument:

Whoever this person was, according to the monument he had died 100 years ago this year. So this cemetery was actually pretty old. I wonder if anyone alive remembered him, or if there were any stories about him in the history of the community.

After this, I headed out. Having seen the turn-off for Ranger Lake, I decided to take a detour and visit that place as well. After all, who knew when I'd be back this way?

The road was pretty rough. Pavement gave way to a dirt road, now muddy with the melting snow of last week. I had to drive pretty slowly and dodge plenty of potholes. Finally I got to Ranger Lake:

To my surprise, there was nothing there. Well, there was a private resort with the same name, but no settlement to speak of. I wonder why it merited a road sign mention at all.

So I turned around and headed back. I'm glad I was able to make the trip before the snows really hit, and it got my one step closer to finishing the territorial exploration of my diocese. But I'll admit, my heart was heavy, thinking of that former church. If I could have walked away with that cross on the steeple, I would have taken it with me. I wonder who owns the place now, and what his intentions are for it.