In the early 1970s, the Mackinac Island State Park Commission decided to reconstruct “Welcome,” a trading vessel originally built in the mid-1770s. A small boat to accompany the sloop was also built, and it’s now back home. Read on:
Our Park Naturalist, Kyle, is ready to set the story straight: Chimney Rock and Sunset Rock are not one and the same. Let’s revisit Chimney Rock:
The 2024 archaeological field season was concluded. What did we learn?
More than 240 years have passed since wooden sloops brought wild hay to the King’s Cattle on Mackinac Island. During your next visit, scan the watery horizon and imagine the scene from a bygone era. Perhaps you’ll glimpse a broad, white sail billowing in the wind. Or listen closely, and just maybe you’ll hear soft, clanking cowbells as supper makes its way across the Straits of Mackinac.
We’re halfway through the 2024 archaeological field season, and we’ve met one of our major goals for the season. Learn more:
The clothes our historic interpreters wear are a major part in telling the story of the historic residents of the Straits of Mackinac. A lot of research goes into making these outfits accurate, and here’s a little peek at one of the new outfits you’ll find in Colonial Michilimackinac this summer.
Ongoing research has uncovered another fascinating story at Michilimackinac: the “Unlucky Affair” of Lt. James Hamilton and his stabbing. Intrigued? Learn more:
Most of us have had the experience of moving from one place to another, deciding what to take and what to discard. In the summer of 1781, the residents of Michilimackinac had the same experience.
Ice fishing has been an important part of the Straits for thousands of years, but dramatic scenes of net poles so numerous that they appeared almost as a forest are now nearly forgotten.
