Mackinac Island is a resort island famous for its late-19th-century character, situated in the Straits of Mackinac, connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The name is pronounced "MAK-i-naw".

Get in

Contrary to what you might assume, the Mackinac Bridge does not go to Mackinac Island, which sits off to the east of the famous suspension bridge. The primary method of reaching the island is by commercial ferryboat from one of the two mainland ports: Mackinaw City on the Lower Peninsula, and St. Ignace on the Upper Peninsula.

There are three commercial ferryboat lines that provide service to Mackinac Island in the spring, summer, and fall. Each serves both Mackinaw City and St. Ignace, and offers frequent service to Mackinac Island in the summer, the principal travel season of Northern Michigan.

• Arnold Transit: 800-542-8528
• Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry: 800-828-6157
• Star Line Mackinac Island Ferry: 800-638-9892

All ferry services to and from the island are suspended during the winter, and visitors customarily arrive and depart by charter air service, private plane, or in especially cold weeks by snowmobile over a temporary (and often unsafe) "ice bridge" covering the straits.

Get around

In keeping with the island's pre-20th-century flavor, no private motor vehicles are allowed on Mackinac Island. The primary methods of personal transportation are bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, and travel by foot. Most of the historic and cultural sights on Mackinac lie within 1 mile of the ferry docks, so seeing them on foot is an attractive option for the energetic.

Many visitors take the standardized "buggy" ride offered by Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. Leaving from near the Arnold Dock in "downtown" Mackinac Island, the MICT tour buggies (which are actually efficient, rubber-tired vehicles) carry tens of thousands of Island visitors annually to Arch Rock, Fort Mackinac, and the Surrey Hills carriage museum in the Island's interior.

Many bicyclists bring their own bikes to the Island. An extra ferryboat fare is charged. Rental bikes are also available.

Mackinac Island's steep hills make travel around the island a challenge. This feature, geologically unusual in the Great Lakes region, led to one possible explanation for the Native American name of the Island: "Michilimackinac" = "great turtle." The Island's rounded back was seen as reminiscent of the shell of an aquatic reptile.

See

All three of Mackinac Island's foremost sights were built during the late 1800s or are interpreted as if one was visiting them in that period. These sights form key elements in the total-immersion nature of Victorian culture and iconography on Mackinac Island.

The central "city" (the entire island has a census population of 483) consists of only two streets, Main Street and Market Street. Most of both streets are lined with shops that depend on the seasonal tourist trade. Main Street has good examples of vernacular false-front commercial architecture of the late 1800s. Many Market Street buildings are even earlier, built during the fur-trade boom of the War of 1812 period.

On a steep hill above Main Street is Fort Mackinac. Although the stone walls of the fort were raised by the British Army in 1780-81 in a failed attempt to keep the American "rebels" from gaining control of Michigan, most of the frame buildings inside the fort were built in the 1800s. The Mackinac Island State Park currently (2005) interprets the fort to its life in the 1880s. An admission fee is charged.

Halfway up another steep hill to the north-west is the Grand Hotel, a substantial 1884 summer "palace" offering upscale accommodation. Visitors often find the hotel, with its record-length front porch, to be an attractive place to appreciate a relatively complete pre-World War I environment. The 1980 Christopher Reeve movie Somewhere in Time is set and was filmed here. An admission fee is charged to non-guests.

The stores, fort, and hotel are open in the late spring, summer, and fall, and closed in the winter and early spring. Most of Mackinac Island's visitors come to the Island between the Lilac Festival (early June) and Labor Day.

Do

Mackinac Island's ban on motor vehicles has created a unique style of participatory recreation, accessible to year-round residents and visitors alike. Most Islanders get from place to place by bicycle or horse-drawn carriage, and welcome visitors who do the same thing.

Thousands of tourists bring bicycles to Mackinac Island each year. All three ferryboat lines welcome bikes, although they charge a supplemental fare for them. M-185, known locally as "Main Street" or "Lake Shore Road," the 8-mile, relatively flat paved trail around the Island, is a favorite destination. Bicycles can also be rented by the hour, but prices are relatively steep.

A large local firm, Mackinac Island Carriage Tours, provides a horse-drawn ride along a set route through the interior of the Island. The Grand Hotel provides guests with horse-drawn transportation from the ferry docks to the hotel by horse-drawn omnibus. Visitors can also rent saddle horses or light buggies by the hour.

A wide variety of footpaths and saddle-horse trails snake through the interior of Mackinac Island. Several of these trails have been in use for at least 150 years.

Three 9-hole golf courses have been carved out of the interior of the island. The lower "Jewel" and upper "The Woods" courses are owned and operated by the Grand Hotel. The "Wawashkamo" continues to operate a links layout that took its final form in 1912.

The Mackinaw Breeze, a charter sailboat, docks during summer months at the Chippewa Waterfront Hotel, and offers cruises from the island's harbor to the Straits of Mackinac. Check its availability at 906-847-8669.

Visit the historic and picturesque Fort Mackinac. Locals make an extra effort to recreate the look and feel of 19th century Mackinac Island.

Eat

During the 1800s, Mackinac Island was a center of the Great Lakes fishing trade, with shoals of lake trout and whitefish pulled out of the Straits of Mackinac and re-shipped to urban markets. Although the island's Arnold Line Dock and adjacent "Coal Dock" were built in part to serve fish shippers and remain in active use to this day, commercial fishing has ceased on Mackinac Island.

Since the 1880s, Mackinac candymakers have made and sold fudge to visitors. These days there are seven fudge companies on the island: Joann's, Kilwin's, May's, Murdick's, the Murray Hotel, Rena's, and Ryba's. Much, but not quite all, of the fudge sold on Mackinac Island is still made with traditional ingredients and in fealty to the traditional labor-intensive process for making this confection, which involves oxidizing, or "paddling", the fudge on a slab of marble. During the process, which traditional candy stores display as part of their marketing, the cooked fudge slowly cools and hardens into a loaf-shaped, semi-circular log. So many tourists buy fudge that Mackinac Islanders often call them "fudgies".

The Carriage House restaurant at the Iroquois Hotel offers an excellent, if pricey, opporutunity for al-fresco dining.

Drink

Mackinac Island has more than 20 licensed locations where alcohol is sold in packages or by the drink. While alcohol has been consumed here in large quantities since the fur-trading era, many current licenses are held by restaurants and bars operating inside the summer hotels. Two drinking places of special interest are:

• The Pink Pony, an old-fashioned street-level bar within the Chippewa Waterfront Hotel, has been dispensing beverages since the late 1930s, and possibly since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. It is a traditional gathering place for yachters who have successfully finished either of the Great Lakes's two long-distance sailboat races, the Chicago-to-Mackinac or the Port-Huron-to-Mackinac.

• The Mustang Lounge, a small tavern of working-class appearance on tiny "Astor Street" one-half block down from the American Fur Company complex, is actually built inside a 1700s log cabin. While the logs are concealed behind modern siding, the structure's durable construction enables it to be adequately heated in winter. Unlike most island businesses, the Mustang remains open year-round. In wintertime it is one of the gathering places of the resident community.

Sleep

In addition to the legendary Grand Hotel, there are several other hotels on the island. Bed-and-breakfasts, inns, and rental cottages are also available.

Grand Hotel Website [1]

Another popular choice is the Mission Point hotel. While well-situated with expansive views, the 1950's architecture has cramped, stuffy rooms reminiscent of army barracks. Inexperienced staff, mostly overseas students working on their English, are indifferent to special requests or anything requiring extra attention. The inattention carries over to the dining room - most guests choose to eat in town.

Stay safe

Because of its unique horse-and-bicycle culture, the island is a relatively safe place for families to walk and bike on streets and roads. However, street crowding is a problem, especially on the island's busy Main Street.

The island's unusual brecciated geology has produced a series of hills and bluffs that are extremely steep by the standards of most of the American Midwest. Many bicyclists unfamiliar with these hills, or inexperienced at biking, or both, get a crashing introduction to the law of gravity.

There are documented cases of hikers, rock-climbers, and thrill-seekers falling off of Mackinac Island cliffs and crags to their deaths.

Get out

Because of its position, Mackinac is a popular stop for those traveling from the Upper Peninsula to destinations in the Lower Peninsula, and (more commonly) vice versa.