A Walk on the Mild Side at Mackinac Island

While some see fit to run and sweat, others choose to saunter slowly and smell the flowers--especially on Michigan’s scenic Mackinac Island, headquarters of the World Sauntering Society and site of the annual World Sauntering Day, to be held this year on Friday.

What better place to saunter than along the Grand Hotel’s 660-foot porch on this remote island where no cars are allowed and transportation is by horse, bicycle and, of course, foot?

The imposing, white-columned Grand Hotel is headquarters for the World Sauntering Society. But in addition to the society’s members, U.S. Presidents, dignitaries and movie stars have sauntered on the 104-year-old hotel porch, which is featured in Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” as the world’s longest.

Two Hollywood movies were filmed here: “This Time for Keeps,” with Jimmy Durante and Esther Williams in 1949, and “Somewhere in Time,” with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in 1979.

Visitors can saunter around the Esther Williams Grand Pool or, for that matter, around the whole woodsy island, which is only seven miles in circumference and 82% state park. Mackinac Island (pronounced Macki- naw ) straddles the junction of lakes Michigan and Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the lower section of the state.

But whatever the route taken, the technique has its specific form.

“Sauntering is distinguished from lollygagging, sashaying, jogging and walking,” says head stroller and World Sauntering Society archivist W.T. (Bill) Rabe. “The main thing is, with all those things you go from point A to point B. With sauntering you go from point X to point Z, which means you don’t care where you’re going, how you’re going or when you get there. The general idea is to smell the roses when you walk and to pay attention to the world around you.”

There are other, loose rules for sauntering, lest people think this is not an activity to be taken seriously.

First of all, Rabe says, “If you know how to saunter you will know what to wear (leave the high heels at home and wear something comfortable). Never saunter with a small child. Never saunter with a dog so large that the lady you’re with can’t carry it in her arms.”

The Saunterer’s Prayer: “Dear Lord, please don’t let me this day work up a sweat.” (Dan Waldron, Royal Oak, Mich., saunterer-in-residence.)

The Saunterer’s Motto: “Start slowly, saunter slowly, finish slowly and live longer.” (Paul Henry Toepp, Jr., Birmingham, Mich., sauntering statistician.)

Other than Mackinac Island, good spots for sauntering include: the Champs Elysees in Paris, the Serpentine in London, Berlin’s Kurfurstendamm (the main social street of Berlin, where people saunter until 1 a.m.). In California, good sauntering is possible at most beaches, as well as parks.

As for the hotel, it houses a room known as the Sauntering Hall of Fame, which honors such Society-selected world-class saunterers as Oliver J. Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy), who Society members believe sauntered with panache in the heavyweight division; Jack Benny, who is lauded for sauntering with precision in the lightweight class, and great female saunterers Mae West and Marlene Dietrich, two of cinema’s most sultry saunterers.

The hotel’s Saunterer-in-Residence is Helmuth Kornmueller, philosophy professor at Lake Superior State University in nearby Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

“Sauntering,” says the professor, “is not a competition. It is not something you learn. It is something you are born with.”

But is it possible to train for World Sauntering Day? “You can’t,” Rabe says.

Rabe and some friends dreamed up the World Sauntering Society in the late ‘70s in a coffee shop in Sault Ste. Marie. “It started with the big impact of jogging. We just thought that lazy people should have a viable alternative to jogging. Most of us didn’t think too much of jogging because of the exertion involved. And then (joggers) started to drop dead.”

The intent was never to organize a World Sauntering Day.

“It was kind of a crazy thing. People kept saying, ‘When do you do this?’ So I declared the third Friday in June as World Sauntering Day,” says Rabe, who is travel press representative for the Grand Hotel.

In 1977, the first year of World Sauntering Day, about 800 people showed up. Last year 1,000 saunterers wandered over to Mackinac Island to celebrate the day of casual exercise.

In addition to Sauntering Day enthusiasts, the Hotel started drawing curious saunterers the summer long. They blossomed into such a massive group that hotel guests couldn’t find a rocking chair on the porch or a settee in the parlor at tea time. So in 1982, the hotel started charging unregistered guests $2 to visit June through August. In 1983, the cost rose to $3. In 1986, the cost was kicked up to $5 and visitors were finally trimmed from 2,000 a day, during the summer, to a more comfortable 1,000. (The fee can be applied to the hotel’s buffet lunch.)

But you don’t have to visit the Grand Hotel to enjoy sauntering or World Sauntering Day. Anyone can declare his own day of sauntering.

For one thing, it is portable. Almost anywhere is a good place to saunter, with perhaps one exception. “We frown on mall sauntering. That’s exhibitionist. People go to malls to be seen, and we saunterers don’t care if we’re seen,” Rabe says.

GUIDEBOOK

Mackinac Island

Getting there: From Los Angeles, fly nonstop to Detroit on Northwest Airlines, then take a flight to Pellston, Mich. Rent a car for a 20-minute drive to Mackinaw City, where you take a ferry boat ($10.50 round trip). Mackinac Island can be reached by 30-minute ferry ride from St. Ignace on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula or Mackinaw City in the lower portion of the state. Three ferry lines service both cities.

Where to stay: The Grand Hotel (open from early May to the end of October) has 317 rooms. Rates for two, including breakfast and dinner, are $260-$450, plus 18% service charge; telephone (800) 33-GRAND. There are numerous other hotels, cafes and bed and breakfasts on the island’s Main Street, plus about two blocks of fudge shops. Local sights include the 107-year-old Commercial Emporium; 225-year-old Fort Mackinac, housing a museum, and Ste. Anne de Michilimackinac, an historic church transported by the British on sledges across the ice from the mainland in 1780 to escape the French. One hotel, the Pontiac Lodge, is open year-round; (906) 847-3364. For more information: Contact the Michigan Travel Bureau, P.O. Box 30226, Dept. TIA, Lansing, Mich. 48909, (800) 5432-YES and/or the Mackinac Island Chamber of Commerce at (906) 847-6418.