Region 13:

St. Ignace & U.S. 2 to Naubinway

THE EASTERN GATEWAY to the Upper Peninsula is the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The town of St. Ignace grew up on Moran Bay's natural harbor. It's just east of the majestic Mackinac Bridge, which has connected Michigan's two peninsulas since 1957. (See Mackinac Bridge point of interest under "St. Ignace.") St. Ignace ferries transport visitors to storied Mackinac Island, the Midwest's great Victorian resort, just as they have for 125 years.

When the first French explorers, fur traders, and missionaries came here in the 1600s, the area's Ojibwa inhabitants had long been fishing in the Straits area's productive waters, and meeting on Mackinac Island, five miles out in Lake Huron, to trade with other native peoples. Mackinac Island, named for its prominent turtle shape, holds a prominent place in the Ojibwa people's creation myth. The Ojibwa had been joined recently by Huron and Odawa bands who left their homes in southern Ontario, fleeing the Iroquois.

Although rich in history and once the port city for travelers coming north to the U.P. from Michigan, St. Ignace never enjoyed the lumber or mining booms of other major U.P. towns, and its small-scale downtown reflects it.

Good overviews of the area's long history can be had, for free, in St. Ignace along the harborside boardwalk and at Marquette Mission Park. (It honors the famous explorer Father Jacques Marquette. He first came to the upper Great Lakes in 1671 to establish a Jesuit mission here.) The viewpoints and lives of native peoples in the 1600s are conveyed at the Museum of Ojibwa Culture, also in St. Ignace. Much of the local population today is formed by Ojibwa descendants, intermarried with descendants of French voyageurs, plus lumbermen and fishermen.

There are more funky sights along major U.P. highways than most other places. This strip of previously owned merchandise is for sale along with the business itself. The sign reads: "For Sale. RETIREES, SIDELINERS, BISSNESS OPPOR'TNY, AS ONE UNIT."

Recorded history of the Straits area goes back to 1634, when Jean Nicolet passed through the Straits trying to find a route to the Orient. Soon French fur traders and their agents had superimposed a far-flung fur-trading system on the preexisting Indian trade networks. The fur trade's center was first at Fort DeBuade (1671) in St. Ignace. Then in 1715 the French moved trading operations to the stockaded French village at Fort Michilimackinac, now reconstructed on its original site in Mackinaw City, just west of the Mackinac Bridge. (It's pronounced "MICH-ill-i-MACK-i-naw" with only short 'i's.") After the British defeated the French at Montreal in 1760, they took over the fort, and 20 years later moved the fur trade to Mackinac Island, protected by Fort Mackinac atop a steep limestone bluff above the harbor.

Today Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Mackinac are among the Midwest's most unusual most popular visitor destinations. Each features costumed reenactors, authentically restored or recreated buildings, furnished interiors, and museum exhibits created by the Mackinac State Historic Parks. All three "forts" were actually more like trading outposts of a government authority far away, according to Lake Superior State history professor Bob Money. They were lightly fortified and, he says, designed mainly to impress Indians.

Visitors can tour Fort Mackinac and have lunch, supper, or dessert at Michigan's oldest building, with a fabulous view of the historic town and the water beyond. See separate Mackinac Island section, "Region 15.". The French village at Fort Michilimackinac has been reconstructed using ample historic and archaeological evidence and interpreted as it would have been in the 1770s, occupied by British troops but still home to a French priest, traders, and women doing domestic work. It gives a rare look at French life when the Upper Great Lakes were under French control.) See under "Mackinaw City" in this section.

Jesuit priests were troubled about the harm done to native peoples by the fur trade and by alcohol, brought by traders. Indians had not developed a genetic tolerance for alcohol. Jesuits were legendary in their determination to spread their faith and save Native American souls, whether these "heathens" wanted to be saved or not. Father Jacques Marquette established a Jesuit mission at St. Ignace, named after St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order.

"It is difficult for us to comprehend the . . . flaming zeal of the French missionaries [largely Jesuits] to save the souls of the 'savages,'" commented the late historian Willis Dunbar in his Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State. "They regarded life as a torture, and death as a great release. They not only endured hardship, they courted it. . . . It did not matter to the Jesuit how hopeless it might seem to convert the Indians to Christianity. . . . His job was to carry out the will of God, to forgo all bodily pleasures, and to labor unceasingly to convert the Indians. . .. When a man has not the slightest desire to live any longer than God ordains, he is not only unafraid to brave danger but he welcomes it."

The strategic place at the Straits is unusual in America because the area's recorded history goes back to the 1600s, yet it has not been overlaid with a thick layer of development. Here it is possible to experience, more or less, the natural landscape of several centuries ago. Much of the land north and west of St. Ignace is part of the Hiawatha National Forest or Lake Superior State Forest. This public land, now precious, reverted to government ownership when logging companies, having harvested the timber, stopped paying property taxes. This part of Michigan is virtually without industry except for tourism and some limestone quarrying. Tourism is such a big part of the economy here that unemployment in Mackinac County (the St. Ignace area) can soar in winter to 18% in from under 5% in summer.

The area's economic bases during the 17th and 18th centuries — hunting and fishing — are still important today. Commercial fishermen can continue to fish if they are tribal members. (State regulations favoring the sport fishing industry prevent others in most areas from commercial fishing.) Fishing and hunting are part of the tourism economy that sustains the area.

Mackinac Island —beautiful, history-rich, and car-free — is Michigan's top destination for overnight travel. It is a horse-powered survival from Victorian tourism. St. Ignace today is shaped by ferries to Mackinac Island and the many lodgings serving day-trippers and other island tourists. From St. Ignace, the ferry trip is a bit more interesting, the lodgings less expensive, and the pace slower than in Mackinaw City, the other Mackinac Island embarkation point just south of the Mackinac Bridge. A seasonal tourist town, it has been made more intense and more crowded by large nouveau Victorian hotels, a Branson-style shopping arcade, and a waterpark.

Tourist cabins like these from the earlier phase of automobile touring are among the first distinctive sights one sees entering the U.P. These quaint lodgings are scattered across the U.P. Most are long abandoned, slowly sinking into oblivion, but others are well maintained, sometimes with charming vintage touches. Completion of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957 resulted in a lodging building boom which eclipsed the tourist cabin and hastened its decline.

The eastern U.P.'s transforming event was the completion of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957. Tourist cabins, pasty shops, and diners had already dotted U.S. 2 leading west from St. Ignace, but the increase in automobile tourism after 1957 resulted in many more more lodgings and roadside attractions.

Second-homeowners and retirees are becoming an ever more important part of Mackinac County, from Curtis and Naubinway in the west to Hessel and Cederville in Les Cheneaux Islands in Lake Huron to the east. An exciting upcoming plan, facilitated by Michigan State University Extension in St. Ignace, is to construct a paved bikeway/path from St. Ignace clear to DeTour by Drummond Island on the east. Part would be next to super-scenic M-134, part would be away from the road. All affected governmental units have signed on to it.

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ST. IGNACE & U.S. 2 TO NAUBINWAY: THE TOP ATTRACTIONS (to locate, see MAP)