Advertisement

While the lake's name bears an uncanny resemblance to Lake Nepessing in the county, this factoid isn't the only Lapeer root from the river that was a vital link in the 17th century fur trade. Frank Sherman, the grandfather of Bruce K. Sherman, D.C., of Associated Chiropractic in Lapeer, traveled the river in the early 1900s with son Max, who is Bruce's father. Frank and his uncle Ernie Rushbrook, who were chiropractors, took hundreds of photos of Canada's famous waterway.

The travels of the Rushbrook and Sherman families are highlighted in the popular Ontario book, "Capturing the French River," which features photography taken by the two doctors.

"My dad passed away a couple years ago," Bruce said. "My dad's buttons would have popped off if he'd known a book was written about him, his trips and life history. It would have made him very happy."

The book is written by Wayne Kelly, who is known as "Mr. Crokinole," a game where players slide discs across a circular playing surface and try to stop on different amounts of points while knocking other players' discs away. He began writing the book in November of 2006 after being introduced to Ruth Beard, the daughter of Rushbrook and niece of Frank. In her possession were the photographs, along with other artifacts from the era including medals, trophies, horse ribbons, oil paintings, and much more dating back to the middle of the 19th century.

"In the course of the conversation, I found out she had about 4,000 such photographs her father and uncle had taken," Kelly said. I was just flabbergasted at the number of phenomenal photos she had."

After determining he had enough material for about eight books, he decided to focus on the 700 or so pictures in the collection of camping and canoeing along the French River. Also on the trips were Ernie's sister Ida, and another sister Bertha Sherman, who was married to Frank. When Max was born May 17, 1913, he joined the four on the trips.

"When Max was born, they took him on expeditions, paddling down white water rivers before lifejackets," Kelly said. "They were a very interesting foursome with the baby taking adventurous trips. The majority of people didn't do that."

Photographs were taken from a view camera equipped with Rushbrook's own homemade timer and shutter release to get many group shots. Bruce said dark room equipment was also brought along the trips.

While the river's history is heavily detailed in this book, the job professions of Frank and Rushbrook are also explained, as the year 2010 will mark 100 years of chiropractics in the Sherman family. Frank and Rushbrook graduated from the Oklahoma Institute of Chiropractic on Christmas Eve of 1909, becoming the very first Canadians in its field of practice. In 1910, they partnered and opened the Detroit Chiropractic Institute.

Max would later join the field, as would Bruce, who has been in Lapeer for 30 years.

"They certainly had a love of nature and that influenced the fact that they were chiropractors," Kelly said. "They had a natural approach to medicine and life in general."

The author added he had a lot of fun writing about the history of the river between the years 1910-1927. He said much has changed during the times of fur trade and logging.

"The village of the French River from 1928 onward is a ghost town," he said. "Now there is nothing there, not a single thing in the area. At one time, it was a booming log town, with as many as 4,000 people living there.

"It's received a fair bit of publicity. There's quite a museum at the French River now in Ontario. Hundreds of thousands of tourists pass through the area each year. It's a piece of history many people hopefully enjoy."

Bruce said he wished his father had been around a little bit longer to see the book. He has many duplicates of photos taken by his grandfather and Rushbrook neatly taped in photo albums.

"The book's kind of a history," he said. "It's an interesting story."

"Capturing the French River" was published in May by Natural Heritage Books, which is a member of The Dundurn Group in Toronto, Ontario. It is 128 pages long.

Jeff Hoard can be reached at (810) 664-0811, Ext. 8127 or jeff.hoard@lapeergroup.com