Seeking Michigan is a web-based history project being spearheaded by the Library of Michigan and the state archives of Michigan. Iis a project that features impressive content. Recently Seeking Michigan has made available a wonderful short film produced in the 1950s on trout fishing in Michigan. The film is particularly focused on the gear and techniques used when trout fishing on Michigan’s inland lakes. It’s campy and dated, and troubling in lots of ways, but it serves as a nice window on another time.
As the film makes clear, it was produced by Chuck Floyd and the Michigan Department of Conservation. It served as an advertising piece for the use of what were then heavily-stocked brook and rainbow trout lakes throughout both the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula.
It is actually an episode of a regular 15-minute television show called “Michigan Conservation” that the Department produced under Chuck Floyd’s direction in the years after 1954. It would be interesting to see the rest of the episodes that were made.
Fishing Fun from Seeking Michigan on Vimeo.
Seeking Michigan also has a nice page on John D. Voelker (aka Robert Traver) that touches on the archive holdings and on the locations of his personal papers.
