User:Joebreak/Flashlight Bend

Flashlight Bend- Flashlight Bend is a 40+ acre privately owned camp along both banks of the North Branch of the AuSable River in Northern Michigan. The camp consists of seven buildings including the main cabin, the new bunkhouse, the old bunkhouse, the tool shed, the annex, the tenthouse and the sauna. A suspension bridge spans the river and serves as the roof to a small screened in room called 'The Riviera' on the Northern river bank. Also included on the property are a five story tree-house, a riverside badmiden court, an artisian well that flows into two front lawn bathtubs and then down to the river, a kickball/beercan ball field that uses two of the buildings as markers for the games and a two-seater outhouse, open to the woods and known as the Jenison Field House.

The bare land was bought in 1935 by Barnard Pierce, and shortly after, Dr. Robert Breakey became his partner in building the first buildings on what was then called the 'Pierce-Breakey Camp' In the first years the camp was used primarily as a hunting camp, and an escape far from the cities of southern Michigan. Dr. Breakey bought out Mr. Piece in 1940 and the property has since been passed down to the 3rd generation of Breakey's in a trust called Flashlight Bend.

Name Change: In 1941 during a November Hunting season, legend has it that a friendly poker game got out of control. One of the drunken players was a guest of a nearby cabin and claimed that he had been cheated out of his money. He allegedly pulled a gun at which point Barnard Pierce picked up the Flashlight on the table next to him and threw it across the room hitting the unruly guest in the forehead and knocking him unconscious. The impact was significant enough to leave a severe bend in the top of the Flashlight and thus, from the brave and violent rescue act, a new name for the camp was adopted. This flashlight still hangs on the wall of the main cabin.

Flashlight Bend is known for both peaceful retreats and wild raucus parties. Every year since 1946 there has been an annual Labor Day Boat race where people from up and down the river build their own non-powered boats by hand to race down the currents of the river with the finish line being the bridge across the river at Flashlight Bend. In 2008 there were over 100 boats entered in this race, which has prizes not only for the fastest floating boat, but also more creative, punniest, most like a boat and ugliest.