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CEDARVILLE
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Les Cheneaux Historical Museum. Exhibits and excellent videos illuminate the natural history development of the Cedarville/Hessel area, from Indian artifacts to lumber camps and tourist and resort eras. ...
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Safe Harbor Books. This personal bookshop has a good selection of regional, Great Lakes maritime and nature books, plus rubber stamping supplies. ...
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Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum. Boats & boat-related things in a 1920s boathouse: sailboats, canoes, rowboats, old photos ...
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Creekside Herbs. A unique amalgam of display gardens, culinary and medicinal herbs, aromatherapy oils, glassblowing and other handmade art, all based on mainly Native American spiritual thinking ...
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Michigan Limestone Operations Cedarville Plant. Pull off highway M-134 and see freighters take take on loads of limestone at Port Dolomite ...
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Prentiss Bay Marsh. Scores of nesting boxes for tree swallows are scattered across this wetland. ...
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Les Cheneaux Historical Museum
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Summer people and year-round residents have created a remarkable range and quality of videos that illuminate the area. Visitors can ask to see several different videos about Les Cheneaux's birds, geology, plants, and history. (They're also for sale for $28.) "From Ice to Islands" is a natural history that explains the unusual glacial action that resulted in the islands' northwest-southeast axis. "Les Cheneaux en Bateaux" deals with the islands' social history, with a special emphasis on locally built wooden boats for fishing and resort transportation. Gorgeous close-up photographs of local flora and fauna may well succeed in inspiring visitors to slow down and observe the beautiful natural world around them here.
Displays are organized to show the development of Cedarville and Hessel since their settlement in 1884. There are local limestone fossils of unusual interest, Indian crafts, and dugout and bark canoes. Photographs and artifacts depict lumber camp life, the hotel and tourist era, and the area's famous wooden boats - from fishing boats to mahogany Chris-Craft runabouts that a few summer people still use to reach their island homes. The boat models are beautiful.
The museum's glory is its collection of photographs, contemporary and historic. A very precise and industrious amateur photographer, Andrew Tanner, recorded the simple joys of resort life from 1885 to 1920: fishing and boating, picnics, and fish fries. Hundreds of his large, detailed glass-plate negatives resurfaced in recent years and are used in museum videos and displays.
Avid students of natural and human history could happily spend a rainy day here without the least regret. Impatient kids are likely to last about 10 minutes, however. The museum shop is strong on books and note cards of local interest. Inquire or look at the website for occasional Monday-evening programs. Summer Wednesdays bring featured artists from the area, one from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and one from 1 to 4 p.m.
On Meridian Rd. in Cedarville, one block south of light and supermarket at M-134 and M-129. 484-2821. www.lescheneaux.org (see culture). Open from Memorial Day weekend thru the first week after Labor Day. Open daily 10-5, except Sun 1-5 and closed Sun & Mon in June. $2/adult, $5/family. Handicap accessible.
Return to Cedarville
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