MLive says: “Michigan is home to many awesome islands, including a Lake Michigan island with a rich history and about 600 year-round residents. Beaver Island is the largest island in Lake Michigan and it offers up big time fun for visitors. Along with gorgeous views of the water, you'll find museums, campgrounds, cottages and relaxation. Take a ferry over and you can bring your car to help explore the island.”
Sept 11-13, 2020
I’d been dying to get to Beaver Island for a long time, after reading about the Mormon Kingdom from the 1800s and the amazing landscape there. Luckily, I have friends in northerly places and we found our way there in the beginning of September.
On Thursday the 10th, I packed the car and departed for Petoskey, where my dear friend Jessyca lives. With a ferry to catch in the morning, we briefly caught up and I passed out after my 3.5-hour drive. The following morning I was wide awake and found a very sunny and calm Little Traverse Bay; while Jessyca showered and finished packing, I took a solo walk on the waterfront and soaked up the chilly morning.
We packed the car and headed south to Charlevoix; we got tickets for the ferry at Beaver Island Boat Company, unloaded our bikes and bags, and found an outdoor table to enjoy coffee and snacks from Harwood Gold, a great cafe right downtown and very close to the dock. At the dock, we met our AirBnb host for the weekend, Seamus, and boarded at 11:15 am. We departed by 11:30, headed out of the channel into the big lake.
We spent our ~2 hour ferry ride to the island enjoying the clear sky, calm lake, and checking out maps of the island with Seamus. By the time we arrived, we had a whole plan for the weekend that included hiking, biking, drinking, and sight-seeing. We unloaded at the island around 2:00 pm, loaded our bikes and bags into Seamus’ truck, and commenced “boodling.” Boodling is an island tradition of riding in the open bed of a pickup truck around the island, and Seamus was kind enough to give us a full tour. The law enforcement on the island is relaxed enough that we were sipping beers the entire way, including our driver! We visited dozens of spots on our boodling adventure, as we made our way to the AirBnb.
We arrived at the AirBnb around 5:00 pm, after a few hours of boodling and sight-seeing. We unpacked the car and ate a quick snack, eager to take advantage of the rest of our sunny afternoon & evening (rain was forecasted for the rest of the weekend). We got on our bikes and rode back down the road toward Barney’s Lake Nature Preserve. The roads were easy to ride, mostly even and not too rocky (there’s only one paved road on the whole island, called King’s Highway). We took an easy pace to a trailhead 6-ish miles from the house, locked the bikes up on a trail sign, and started down the path.
Beaver Island is special for a lot of reasons, but my favorite might be because of the endemic species on the island - plants and animals alike! While I was hoping to spot (from a distance) one of the venomous shrews Seamus told us about, instead we spotted a hefty handful of unique plants along our hike. The island has many distinct ecosystem types, including dunes, marshes, hardwood forests, pine forests, and more! Our hike took us through them all.
As much as we were enjoying the hike (I could have stayed on these trails for hours), we were losing light kind of fast. We walked the road back to our trailhead instead of taking the trails to save time, and still got some great views from there. When we got back to our bikes, I was torn between biking an extra half mile to the perimeter to see the lake, and getting back before dark. Jessyca swayed me in the second direction, and rightfully so - we pulled into the driveway at the AirBnb in pitch black night! I was exhausted and my legs were jelly by the time we got back.
We made a big pasta dinner back at the house, and stayed up late drinking wine and talking with Seamus. Sometime around 1 am I decided to take a hot shower and turn in. Jessyca and I shared a queen mattress on the floor of the second story of the house, which has a great skylight and balcony. We slept HARD until 9:30 the next morning. After coffee, tea, and breakfast, we headed out for a rainy jaunt around the southern part of the island. Our first stop was at Miller’s Marsh; I thought hiking in the rain would be a huge bummer, but the rain actually made the marsh even more mysterious and magical. I spotted more mushrooms on this trail than I ever have in my entire life!
After a damp hike around the marsh, we hopped back in the truck and drove to the southern tip of the island. We spent some rainy minutes on the beach, and my breath was taken away by how turquoise the water was! It was the color of sea glass. I couldn’t resist rolling up my pant legs and wading into the lake a bit, per usual. The water was shockingly warm, especially compared to the chilly air. It would have been a great afternoon for a quick swim.
After the beach, we made our way to the islands’s southern lighthouse - it was open! We admired it from the outside, climbed the tower inside, and spotted three flying eagles heading out toward the lake.
From the lighthouse, we headed to town for lunch and drinks. Lunch was quite bad, really, but the island does have its own brewery: High Point Brewery. We hung out there for a while to chat and warm up after spending so much time in the rain. It has a great view of Saint James Harbor, where the ferry arrives and departs. The brewery closed at 6 pm, so we walked down the main road in town before catching Seamus and his truck back to the Bnb.
The rain paused when we got back to the Bnb, so we took this time to explore the property the house is on, which Seamus calls Tara’s Meadow. The meadow was a gorgeous explosion of native plants, with big patches of juniper that made it smell pretty amazing. We stayed out until it was dark, and then made our way back to the house. The rain started back up and persisted all night.
The next morning, we headed out early to catch the 8:30 am ferry back to the mainland. The rain was still persisting at a drizzle, and the storms from the weekend left the lake choppy. We coasted through 12-15 foot swells on the way back, and I watched way too many people get seasick from my spot by the window. As we pulled into Charlevoix the sky had cleared a bit, but most people getting off the ferry were pale in the face and eager to get back on solid ground.
We headed back up to Petoskey and walked around town, as the sun had come out and the weather was warm. I got a chai latte in town and we poked around some shops to stretch our legs and enjoy the change up in the atmosphere, after two days of rain. I got back on the road after that, and started my trip downstate. I am so grateful for spending a whole weekend on Beaver Island, especially with Jessyca as an exploring buddy and Seamus as a host. The history and culture of the island is bizarre and awesome, the landscape is beautiful, and the atmosphere is calm and quiet. I would absolutely love to return.
This is actually the longest I’ve spent at any single county during this project - usually I stop over for a day at most (24 hours/overnight), so getting an entire weekend was such a treat! It forced me to slow down and take my time, and really get to know the place before heading off to the next stop. It’s got me thinking my remaining trips should be a bit slower-paced.