This is not a scene from one of my bike rides. It’s from the 1986 Russian science-fiction/comedy/satire Kin-Dza-Dza. I happened upon it at YouTube last night while looking for Russian clips with English subtitles that would be useful for learning the language. I think I could become one of the cult fans for this movie — I may already have. (I’ve also blogged about it at The Reticulator.)

The large object is an interplanetary space vehicle on the planet Pluk in some other galaxy. It’s a creaky rustbucket, but it seemed to do the job.

It reminded me of an interplanetary space vehicle I came across on one of our tours to Black Hawk sites.

No, the space vehicle is not in this photo, but if I remember right, it was just a block or two to the left. This location is where we were waiting for the ferry to take us across the strait from Detour village to Drummond Island, in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

It was near the end of the fourth day of a ride to that destination in June 2004. Black Hawk also used to go to the same destination, though I am not sure how often. During the 1820s he often made the trip from his home at present-day Rock Island, Illinois to Fort Malden to get presents from the British, on whose side he had fought during the War of 1812. Fort Malden is across the Detroit River from Detroit. His trips there are fairly well documented.

But some years he probably went to Fort Drummond, instead. The British had a fort almost in sight of where I was standing to take the above photo, if it wasn’t for the buildings on the right blocking the view. Then a boundary commission determined that Drummond Island belonged to the United States, and the British vacated it.

I’ve often wondered how Black Hawk got across. It was no small matter — because he usually travelled with a large party of men, women, and children. My best guess, based on knowledge of how he got across the Detroit River, is that some of his Odawa or Ojibwe friends ferried his party across on canoes. But there are other details I wish I knew. There are descriptions of how other Native groups would make a grand spectacle out of their arrival. It would be interesting to know how that would be done when one had to depend on others for a borrowed ride.

I had to borrow a ride, too. I rode the entire distance to the Mackinac bridge, then Myra met me to take me across on the car. (Bicycles aren’t allowed on the bridge.) Then after a lunch I resumed my ride to Detour Village, where Myra waited for me. The ferry took us across, and we stayed a couple of nights at a bed and breakfast on the other side, at the site of the old fort.

I took this photo in Detour village on the way back. The strait is in the background.

I can’t seem to find any written description of what it was all about, so I’m going by hazy memory. It was something that Myra had learned about in the local museum while waiting for me. If I remember correctly, it was a story of a cult that built the vehicle, but when it didn’t work out the group kind of fell apart and abandoned it. Or something like that.

Maybe it would have worked better if they had got together to compare notes with the builders of that space vehicle on planet Pluk.