N.E. Wanderer: The Road to Mackinac Island

Early morning on Mackinac Island

Just about the time we were getting sick of snow and cold weather, we starting thinking about where we might go for summer vacation. Having traveled extensively throughout the Northeast, we had a difficult time trying to determine where we might go when the mercury started hovering around 80 degrees.

We had decided we wanted a drive vacation, but I was adamant that we weren't going to drive south in July. As born and bred New Englanders, the thought of visiting a place with oppressive humidity was unappealing, so we opted to head west.

The choice, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Why there? Well, about 25 years ago on my way to Glacier National Park, where I was to work for the summer, I visited Mackinac Island. Back then, the internet was still pretty young, so I must have read about Mackinac elsewhere and was fascinated with the place. Upon arrival in Mackinaw City, I hopped a ferry and set out to explore this unique place whose only modes of allowable transportation were bicycle, walking or horse drawn carriage. Automobiles were forbidden.

My visit was limited to a few hours, just long enough to rent a bike and circumnavigate the island before returning to the ferry. With its vibrant village, old fort and wide range of lodging options, the place just stuck with me and I vowed to return someday to spend more time.

The alarm sounded at 5 a.m. so that we could get an early start. The drive to Michigan would take a little more than two days, since we didn't want to push ourselves too hard. After all, vacations are supposed to be relaxing, right?

The once opulent Balsams Resort - Now, not so much.

Our route took us through Northern New Hampshire, Quebec and Ontario before entering back into the U.S. in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Traveling through New Hampshire was relaxing enough. We took a brief stretch break at the former Balsams Resort, which was unfortunately an abandoned dilapidated structure, a far cry from the gem it was at its peak of popularity.

Quebec was mostly farm country until we hit the outskirts of Montreal. Once there, the road construction on Highway 10 cause stop and go traffic for more than an hour - ugh! When we finally broke free of that, we continued to Ottawa, arriving around the same time that all the federal employees were probably getting off work for the day. This slowed us again.

Starting off Day 2 at Pembroke Honda

As we approached Pembroke, Ontario, our designated stopping point, our check engine light suddenly flashed to attention. It was day one and we were experiencing our first "what could go wrong?" moment. Our saving grace was that coincidentally there was a Honda dealer in Pembroke and they were able to get us in first thing the following morning.

The beginning of day two started in the service department of Pembroke Honda. We were pleased they got us in first thing, but the repairs took a couple hours. Basically, they had to flush the emissions system. A hundred and fifty dollars later (fortunately in Canadian), we were on the road to our next destination, the world's largest nickel, a roadside attraction in Sudbury, Ontario.

And it really wasn't that heavy.

All you ever wanted to know about the world's largest nickel.

Ashton under the Nickel.

Thanks to Google, we got directions to the nickel. The nickel was modeled after the 1951 Canadian nickel and it stood perched on supports outside the Science North building. It's about nine meters in diameter, or about 30 feet in non-metric terms. We opted not to take the underground mine tour since we still had several hours of driving that day, but Trip Advisor rates the tour pretty high. We snapped a few photos and were on our way.
About 3-1/2 hours later we arrived in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario where we grabbed Chinese food and spent the night.

The next morning, we drove across the border to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to the Soo Locks Visitor Center. Here, there was an interesting museum and a multi-level viewing area where you could watch ships passing through the locks. We were fortunate to witness a barge heading east loaded with aluminum and a freighter heading west carrying iron ore. It was pretty impressive to see the 1,100-foot freighter maneuver into the 1,200-foot lock. I must say I was impressed by the skill of the pilots guiding such a huge ship into such a narrow lock. I've seen locks before, but don't ever recall seeing them in action, so it was pretty interesting.

Freighter entering the lock.

Barge entering the locks

From the locks, we took the hour and quarter drive to Whitefish Point on Lake Superior. Its claim to fame is the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum which is on the grounds of an old lighthouse. We were getting off and on showers and we were anxious to get to Mackinac Island, so we only stayed long enough for Ashton and Bethany to dip their toes in chilly Lake Superior waters.

Hey trivia buffs, Duluth, MN is the western-most Atlantic seaport.

On the way to and from Whitefish Point we drove through the town of Paradise, Michigan. I'm not sure who named it, but our view was it didn't live up to its name. What we found while driving around rural Michigan was that many of the towns had very little commerce going on. Many were more like settlements without even a gas station.

Rumor has it, Lake Superior is pretty chilly.

Beach at Whitefish Point, Michigan

After our hour-and-a-half drive from Whitefish Point, we arrived at Shepler's Ferry Service in St. Ignace. Shepler's has been transporting people to and from Mackinac Island since the mid 1940s and it under its third generation of family ownership.

It's about a 15-20 minute ferry ride to Mackinac Island. As you approach the island, the historic Grand Hotel and iconic Fort Mackinac come into view. You disembark on the town dock and walk the wooden platform, through a building and emerge on the main street where you are seemingly transported back to a simpler time. Once through the building, it opens up to a wide street lined with historic clapboard buildings, the clopping of horsedrawn carriages and streams of bicycles meandering down the road and lined up along the curb.

The next blog post will be the "on island" post. In the meantime, here are a few more photos of getting there.