Quickfoot Farm Easement

Drive north on Hoyt Road in Harbor Springs till it hits Quick Road. Turning right toward the ski hills, you look back to the left for oncoming traffic. There in the distance, you’ll see a hill rise up – part farmland, part woodland, one of the prettiest rises in northern Michigan.

I first noticed it when it was covered with snow. Winter, 1973. I was seventeen and had the good fortune to be spending that time in Harbor Springs. Having spent every summer of my life in Northern Michigan, I felt as though I knew it intimately—the winding, (then) unpaved roads of the Lower Shore Drive, the grassy dunes of Sturgeon Bay, the roller-coaster ride of Stutsmanville Road. But nothing prepared me for the stark, arctic beauty of Northern Michigan in winter. If I had loved Harbor Springs before then, I was now besotted.

I first toured the farm on the corner of Quick and Lightfoot that spring with Tom Graham who was just starting out as a realtor. The property wasn’t really for sale — sort of, but not officially. Not that it made any difference. The land consisted of one hundred and twenty acres — far bigger and more costly than anything my sister Tracy and I could afford. We had gotten this notion (a naïve notion, but not without merit, as we were later to learn) to acquire a little bit of land in northern Michigan. If we could just own a little parcel, our thinking went – an acre, maybe — our ties to the area would be assured. Not that our ties weren’t already deep. On both our parents’ side, our family had been summer residents of Harbor Springs since the late nineteenth century.

But this would be ours. What it would be, and what we would do with it — we had no idea. It was with this open-minded, what-the-heck approached that I tromped the land with Tom Graham. And fell in love with it.

In June of that year, I was to tromp it again with my father. You’ve got to see this, I told him. We drove up the two ruts off Quick into a stand of maple and ash, ringed by scrub juniper and pine. A hawk flew up, chased by its nemesis of a smaller bird, and later we spotted deer — as exotic to our city eyes as a herd of impala.

My father, Jim Gamble, was strangely quiet on the ride home.

Dad bought the property in the summer of 1973. He or my mother christened it “Quickfoot Farms.” The name endured, as have the summer picnics and tromps to the upper forty to gather blackberries where the previously unobstructed view is now overgrown with rogue maples. At one point, my father planned to re-forest the property with hardwood trees, but Nature, knowing a good idea when she sees it, beat him to it. Beyond the nascent woods sits a tenaciously ancient barn surrounded by sixty or so acres leased to and still farmed by our neighbors, the Lightfoots. In a clearing where we have cook-outs, there’s a martin house that Ted Bodzick built, fashioned after the lighthouse on Harbor Point. There are also the fading remains of a horseshoe pit hearkening back to when the family had more energy and endless summer nights to spend picnicking. My mother, domestic goddess that she was, would gather wildflowers and place them elegantly into a roll of toilet paper to use as a center piece on the picnic table when we sat down to hamburgers. Thirty years of memories. We still have the sign reading “Quickfoot Farms,” but the kitschy, yellow-slickered yard troll we set upon a stump has mysteriously disappeared.

Our children continue to love “the farm.” City kids all of them – they can have their “Green Acres” moment of hiking through tall grasses, through apple orchards gone to seed, through acres of corn in August. When they drive north on the Hoyt Road till it comes to Quick, they can still look to the left and see that pretty rise. Anyone can. The conservation easement granted to the conservancy will keep that land more or less pristine. Development is sprouting up right and left, but not everywhere—not, at least, on the northwest corner of Quick and Lightfoot.

Key Tract in Harbor Springs Greenbelt Protected The Jim Gamble Family recently donated a conservation easement on their 120-acre farm north of Harbor Springs. Jim's daughter Terry Gamble Boyer, explains what the protection of this land means to her and her family.
Drive north on Hoyt Road in Harbor Springs till it hits Quick Road. Turning right toward the ski hills, you look back to the left for oncoming traffic. There in the distance, you’ll see a hill rise up – part farmland, part woodland, one of the prettiest rises in northern Michigan. I first noticed it when it was covered with snow. Winter, 1973. I was seventeen and had the good fortune to be spending that time in Harbor Springs. Having spent every summer of my life in Northern Michigan, I felt as though I knew it intimately—the winding, (then) unpaved roads of the Lower Shore Drive, the grassy dunes of Sturgeon Bay, the roller-coaster ride of Stutsmanville Road. But nothing prepared me for the stark, arctic beauty of Northern Michigan in winter. If I had loved Harbor Springs before then, I was now besotted. I first toured the farm on the corner of Quick and Lightfoot that spring with Tom Graham who was just starting out as a realtor. The property wasn’t really for sale — sort of, but not officially. Not that it made any difference. The land consisted of one hundred and twenty acres — far bigger and more costly than anything my sister Tracy and I could afford. We had gotten this notion (a naïve notion, but not without merit, as we were later to learn) to acquire a little bit of land in northern Michigan. If we could just own a little parcel, our thinking went – an acre, maybe — our ties to the area would be assured. Not that our ties weren’t already deep. On both our parents’ side, our family had been summer residents of Harbor Springs since the late nineteenth century. But this would be ours. What it would be, and what we would do with it — we had no idea. It was with this open-minded, what-the-heck approached that I tromped the land with Tom Graham. And fell in love with it. In June of that year, I was to tromp it again with my father. You’ve got to see this, I told him. We drove up the two ruts off Quick into a stand of maple and ash, ringed by scrub juniper and pine. A hawk flew up, chased by its nemesis of a smaller bird, and later we spotted deer — as exotic to our city eyes as a herd of impala. My father, Jim Gamble, was strangely quiet on the ride home. Dad bought the property in the summer of 1973. He or my mother christened it “Quickfoot Farms.” The name endured, as have the summer picnics and tromps to the upper forty to gather blackberries where the previously unobstructed view is now overgrown with rogue maples. At one point, my father planned to re-forest the property with hardwood trees, but Nature, knowing a good idea when she sees it, beat him to it. Beyond the nascent woods sits a tenaciously ancient barn surrounded by sixty or so acres leased to and still farmed by our neighbors, the Lightfoots. In a clearing where we have cook-outs, there’s a martin house that Ted Bodzick built, fashioned after the lighthouse on Harbor Point. There are also the fading remains of a horseshoe pit hearkening back to when the family had more energy and endless summer nights to spend picnicking. My mother, domestic goddess that she was, would gather wildflowers and place them elegantly into a roll of toilet paper to use as a center piece on the picnic table when we sat down to hamburgers. Thirty years of memories. We still have the sign reading “Quickfoot Farms,” but the kitschy, yellow-slickered yard troll we set upon a stump has mysteriously disappeared. Our children continue to love “the farm.” City kids all of them – they can have their “Green Acres” moment of hiking through tall grasses, through apple orchards gone to seed, through acres of corn in August. When they drive north on the Hoyt Road till it comes to Quick, they can still look to the left and see that pretty rise. Anyone can. The conservation easement granted to the conservancy will keep that land more or less pristine. Development is sprouting up right and left, but not everywhere—not, at least, on the northwest corner of Quick and Lightfoot.