A Story to Tell

So where exactly is Beaver Island?
Beaver Island is part of Charlevoix County Michigan located in the northwest corner of Michigan's lower peninsula. Centered in the top of Lake Michigan, the island is the largest of a scattering of small islands which include Garden, Squaw, High, Hog, Whiskey, Gull and Trout.

As the crow flies, it's 18 miles from the mainland but by ferry (which departs from Charlevoix) it's 32 miles. The ferry runs from April and throughout the summer and fall months until sometime close to Christmas. After Christmas and up until April, you can only get there by plane. The island has two small airports.

How big is the island?
Beaver island is almost pear shaped. It's about 3 miles wide at the top end, 6 miles wide at the bottom and 13 miles long. This makes it roughly the size of Manhattan. Big difference though: while Manhattan is home to 1.5 million people, Beaver Island only has somewhere around 400 yearlong residents.

What's the island like?
From the perspective of someone who was born and reared in a major city, Beaver Island is other-worldly.

The air is fresh and clean and the night skies repeatedly amaze you. There are gulls on the beaches, eagles over head, swans in the harbor and loons on the lakes. If you take a slow drive early morning or early evening and don't see deer in the double digits, you're not looking. Lake Michigan looks like the ocean, the sunsets are a watercolor wash nearly every night, and the pine, birch and hardwood forest are deep and lush. There are marshlands and swamps and meadows that explode with wildflowers.

There are 7 inland lakes and a natural harbor called Paradise Bay on the northeast shore. This hook-shaped bay is home to the town of St. James. The town consists of the Beaver Island Boat Company ferry dock, a few gift shops and restaurants, a grocery, a hardware store, a marina, numerous small and quaint motels, two small museums and the usual post office, bank, health center, school and library. An old coast guard lighthouse still stands at Whiskey Point, the tip of this hook-shaped bay.

Forget about annoying stoplights and merging traffic lanes - there aren't any of either. Instead, you find the King's Highway - a stretch of paved road that measures 5 miles, and lots of sand and gravel roads with names like Sloptown, Barney's Lake and Donegal Bay Road.

What are the people like?
Beaver Island is home to an intriguing collection of personalities - as varied as in any other small town America. Many of the 400 or so residents were born, reared and educated on the island. Some left home for college or career on the mainland, only to return to the island solitude in their retirement.

The summer months bring thousands of day trip tourists and weekend vacationers, along with many families who have winter homes in fairer climates. It is in these warm months that the population is said to be around 2500.

The island history is as rich as the land.
From Indian fishing villiages to Mormon and Irish settlements, Beaver Island is yet another slice of the American melting pot.

It is believed that the Odawa indians settled on the island sometime in the 1700s and the early 1800s brought the white man - a Catholic priest came to convert the indians, and traders, trappers and lumbermen came to take advantage of the unspoiled land. By the mid 1800s, trading posts on the harbor were flourishing due to Beaver Islands remarkable resources.

There's a fascinating history of the rise and fall of the Mormon settlement on the island. James Jesse Strang, a zealous Mormon leader with illusions of grandeur claimed to have been led to the island by God himself. The Mormons are largely responsible for civilizing the island wilderness with the clearing of land and the building of roads and houses.

Strang's faithful following grew in numbers to the point of qualifying their community for state representation. It didn't take them long to elect Strang to the Michigan state legislature. By the 1850s, the majority of the non-Mormons left the island.

Strang actually had himself crowned as king of Beaver Island, making this little spot of America the only place to have ever had a monarchy. Strang's egocentric reign ended with his assassination in 1856 by two disgruntled followers. It didn't take long for the exiled to hear of Strang's demise. They mobbed the island and drove off the Mormons.

The Mormons had refused gentiles the right to fish on Beaver Island but once the word was out that he was gone, Irish fishermen began to settle on the island. These Irish encouraged their families and friends back in Ireland to come to "America's Emerald Isle."

Much is written about the rise and fall of the fishing and logging industries of Beaver Island, as well as the colorful and oftentimes courageous individuals that made it all happen. The Beaver Island Historical Society has made great strides in documenting this history of the Emerald Isle of America in a series of journals. These collections - five in all - range from geological and horticultural writings by scholars to folklore shared by island residents which has been past down from generation to generation.