March 8 Kiwanis Meeting Program: Time-travel to Mackinac Island

A multimedia show describing Mackinac Island, Michigan was presented by Ron Whalin. Located in Lake Huron, the entire island permits travel only by walking, bicycles, horseback and horse-drawn carriages. The island is about 8 miles in circumference and has about 15,000 visitors on a typical summer day. Ron and his wife participated in a “Road Scholar” program which began the day before Labor Day, 2010. People can travel to Mackinac Island via ferryboats, other types of boats or small airplanes (there is a small airstrip).

Ron showed photos of the many attractions which were viewed while riding in carriages and walking on some of the 60 miles of trails. The photo above shows Fort Mackinac.

One afternoon, the class toured the Grand Hotel, one of the finest hotels in the USA and the site where the film “Somewhere in Time” was filmed. High Tea was served after which Road Scholars were free to explore the hotel on their own.

The above photo shows the class on a walking tour of historic summer cottages. These homes are generally occupied only in the summer and were built on land leased from the Michigan State Park on the island.

After Labor Day, almost all of the 700 horses leave the island for farms on the Upper Michigan Peninsula. Only about 20 horses remain on the island in the winter.

About 500 residents live on the island year-round and they can use snowmobiles to get around - to make the best of the difficult winters. The last ferryboat leaves the island in mid-January - the ice freezes solid. Some years, the ice is thick enough to support the “Ice Bridge”, a trail across the ice marked by left-over Christmas trees. Length of the bridge is about three miles. This year, the warm, windy February weather melted the Ice Bridge after only a few weeks of operation. Ron showed part of the movie “Ice Bridge”.

The above photo shows a ferryboat returning to St. Ignace on the mainland with the Mackinac Bridge (which links the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula) in the background. There is no bridge to Mackinac Island.