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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

JUST OUT! A new edition of Hunts' Mapguide to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Over 300 entries, all conveniently located on maps and chosen because we think they are the coolest things to do in the U.P. (No ad tie-ins!) Great choices for restaurants, hikes, shops, adventures, museums, boat trips, waterfalls, vistas, road trips, and much more! To learn more click UP MAP GUIDE

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Back to Mackinac Island

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Fort Mackinac. Built in 1780 by the British and fortified by 4-foot-thick walls in places, the fort offers cannon firing, fife and drum music, fascinating historical exhibits, and great village views from blockhouses and from a tea room with delicious food ... more

Grand Hotel. Explore a living Victorian resort hotel, from its famous front porch with fine Straits view and its splendid gardens to an exhibit of top American Impressionist paintiings. ... more

Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. Get an island overview without walking, and find out about Mackinac's fascinating horse culture ... more

Doc Crain's natural and human history tours by foot and bike. Doc's entertaining, authoritative tours illuminate the island's Indian mythology, natural and human history, wildflowers in bloom. He works for tips ... more

Island hub by the Arnold Dock/ Main St. between Astor and Fort. The nexus of myriad useful things: an information kiosk, carriage tours, bike rentals, a grocery, a drug store, a visitor center ... more

Market Street, 1820s fur trade center. At the 1820s center of John Jacob Astor's Great Lakes fur trade, see period cooking and spinning in a French-Canadian house; a blacksmith shop; and the reconstructed store where the permanent hole in a voyageur's stomach led to understanding digestion ... more

Downtown shops and amusements. Among downtown's souvenir, gift, and fudge shops are unusual businesses featuring good flying toys, a haunted house, magic and gags, artists creating expressionist landscapes and scrimshaw engravings, art and accessories, and good books. ... more

An eastside walk to Mission Point. A half-mile eastside walk to Mission Point passes lots of history, with stops at two of Michigan's oldest churches at Ste. Anne's and Mission churches and possibly the Mackinac Island Butterfly House. ... more

An East Bluff Walk to Robinson's Folly. This blufftop walk past impressive cottages affords a good view of Lake Huron, and a return view down on the village. ... more

Ste. Anne's Catholic Church. The parish goes back to 1700 and before. Parishoners have included French-Canadian and Native American traders, Irish fishing families, and the late Senator Phil Hart, among others. It has a small museum and charming garden ... more

West shore walk. Views of the Round Island Lighthouse and the gorgeous sunset behind the Mackinac Bridge make this a favoritie evening walk ... more

Governor's Summer Residence. See where governors since Soapy Williams have spent summer vacations, networking as well as relaxing ... more

Somewhere in Time movie locations. Fans of this Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour cult classic can get a map and visit its filming locations. Hundreds come for October's SIT weekend; thousands are in its fan club. ... more

West Bluff walk to Hubbard's Annex. A stroll past 16 grand and ornate summer "cottages" from the 1880s and 1890s, leads into another cottage area and ends in Lovers' Leap scenic overlook ... more

Region: Mackinac Island

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND

Photography Plus

To visitors, the most visible settlement of Mackinac Island - around the harbor and docks - is a quaint village, but its official name is, surprisingly, "City of Mackinac Island." Local government voted to be a city not a village because in Michigan cities have greater freedoms to operate independently, and also more mandated services supported by higher authorized levels of taxation.

The shore by the harbor was an important seasonal gathering and trading place for Indians long before Europeans came to the Upper Great Lakes beginning around 1620. In 1780 the British moved their fort from the mainland to Mackinac Island, recently acquired in their decisive North American conquest of New France.

The mainland fur-trading village, then still run by French traders, moved to the fort's base along Market Street. The island's principal business street for most of the 19^th century was Market Street. The business center moved to Main Street in the 1870s as the economy shifted to fishing and tourism. Houses lined the street leading past Ste. Anne's Catholic Church to Mission Point. Gradually those houses were displaced by hotels and summer homes.

In 1838, two years after the Indians of the eastern U.P. ceded their lands, U.S. Indian Agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a controversial character in Great Lakes history from 1815 or so to 1840, always eager to impress, convinced the federal government to build this sizable home just down from the fort. Presumably it was to house visiting Indians. Actually it was used as a school and his own comfortable residence. It’s awaiting restoration and reinterpretation.

Today most of the island's 500+ year-round residents live in Harrisonville, a few blocks of newer houses up behind the Grand Hotel toward the island's center. Year-round institutions are the library, the 75-student K-12 public school, Ste. Anne's, Doud's Grocery, the Mustang Bar (moving the pool table back into the barroom is a traditional marker for the end of the tourist season), and a slowly increasing number of restaurants to serve visitors of year-round lodgings. A quarter of the island's year-round residents count themselves as Native Americans, entirely or in part.

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Mackinac Island is a mix of intense tourism and a relaxed, affluent resort, as evidenced by the low-key, impeccably maintained yacht club across from the harbor.

Back to Mackinac Island

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND
RESTAURANTS,
LODGINGS
& CAMPGROUNDS

These are our choices, not ads.

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND
RESTAURANTS
We've recommended 11 places to eat on the island, from dining on a grand Victorian scale to a waterfront hot dog joint with picnic tables.

For full write-ups of our recommended restaurants, click here.

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND
LODGINGS
Consider the locational tradeoffs in this carless setting: downtown is more convenient and also noisier with horse traffic and bars. Larger hotels with more rooms to fill have better short-notice availability. Of course, midweek books later than weekends. Check last-minute Internet specials for many lodgings. See www.mackinacisland.org for complete lodging list and links.

Arranged from west to east

For full write-ups of our recommended lodgings, click here.

CITY OF MACKINAC ISLAND
CAMPGROUNDS