Nights in the hills above Thumb Lake run long and heavily snowed; a foot can arrive between supper and sunrise without making a sound. charlevoix maintenance works through that dark with plow and shovel — drives opened, walkways cleared, salt down where ice sets on north-facing steps. When the melt finally runs off the ridges and the Jordan Valley rim greens up to the west, the same properties switch over to mowing, trimming and edging. There is satisfaction in both halves of it: a driveway cut open at five in the morning, a lawn striped clean in August. Boyne Valley township, Boyne Falls and the Charlevoix County roads around them.