As the calendar flips to 2025, the Mackinac State Historic Parks team is hard at work protecting, preserving, and presenting the rich history of the Straits of Mackinac by creating new exhibits, galleries, and tours, improving visitor experiences, celebrating a major anniversary, expanding our collections area and library, and finishing major infrastructure improvements on Mackinac Island.
As we prepare for the first official day of winter, let’s look at the amazing adaptations animals use to get ready for the long winter.
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:
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.
When you think of Mackinac, you might think of fudge, or no cars, or horses, or the fort. But potatoes? “The best potatoes in the world grow at Mackinac.” Or at least they did. Read on!
In 1798 an article detailed plans for an exciting new museum, a “cabinet of curiosities,” located in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Which Mackinac wonders would you pick to display in this “infant museum” of early America? How about nuts and wild rice?
Are there deer on Mackinac Island? How did they get there? Learn about the fascinating history of deer on Mackinac Island here.
Before the Straits of Mackinac became a center of international fur trade, its waters were renowned by generations of Native Americans as an abundant fishery. Of the many species in these freshwater seas, the delicate whitefish, usually weighing 3-5 pounds, was the most prized catch of all.
As the season for growing things begins to wind down, we look back at a fabulous season of gardening.
