Michigan Maritime Tour Visit Beaver Island! Explore Fishtown! July $699 14-17, 2018 * Our Michiganders on the Road 4-day, 3-night Michigan Maritime Tour explores some of the Great Lake State s premier maritime history sites, including the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, Legends of Thunder Bay Shipwrecks, Fishtown, Beaver Island, and lighthouses galore. You ll visit sites rarely seen even by those well-versed in Michigan s rich history. See Shipwrecks! Tour Lighthouses! And So Much More... To register for this tour, call (800) 692-1828 or visit hsmichigan.org/programs * Includes motor coach transportation; all lodging; all dinners and breakfasts; some lunches; all admission fees, taxes, and gratuities. Historical Society of Michigan membership required; memberships start at $25. Price is per person based on double occupancy.
It s no surprise that Michigan hosts more than 113 million tourists annually. Who wouldn t want to visit a state with so many natural and cultural wonders? Our 4-day, 3-night Michigan Maritime Tour explores some of Michigan s premier maritime history sites, including Beaver Island, the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, Legends of Thunder Bay Shipwrecks, the Presque Isle and Rogers City lighthouses, Fishtown in Leland, the Leelanau Historical Society Museum, and more! Day 1 July 14, Saturday Photos courtesy of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. We ll depart promptly on Saturday morning for Alpena from our office in Lansing aboard a 56-passenger Compass motor coach. Compass s motor coaches feature comfortable seating, a bathroom on board, space for carry-on luggage as well as cargo bays for suitcases, and even electrical outlets for charging cell phones and e-book readers. Bob Myers, our assistant director for education programs and events, will lead the tour. Bob has many years experience with bus tours and plans every detail of the tour himself. As a result, our Michiganders on the Road tours are unique to the Historical Society of Michigan. We have three en route boarding locations to make things more convenient: Lansing, Flint, and Bay City. The latter two are at Michigan Department of Transportation Park-and- Ride lots along the way. If you live in those areas, you can meet the bus there and leave your car in the lot during the trip. Our route north from Bay City takes us along US-23 an official Michigan Heritage Route that hugs the Lake Huron shoreline all the way to Alpena. There are gorgeous views along the way and picturesque communities with names unique to Michigan: Pinconning, Au Gres, Au Sable, and Ossineke, to name a few. As always, Bob s traveling companion, Cluck the Rubber Chicken, will supervise the motor coach stops. We ll enjoy a boxed lunch (included with the tour) right on Thunder Bay at Alpena s Bay View Park. Thunder Bay earned the nickname Shipwreck Alley for the many ships that came to grief in its waters. Today, more than 200 vessels lie beneath the waves in and around Thunder Bay. Many wrecks survive in a remarkably good state of preservation and are protected from looters by the 4,300-square-mile Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve. After lunch, we head over to the nearby Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center for a tour. The center offers 9,000 square feet of exhibits, and its 93-seat theater shows daily films. A centerpiece exhibit, Exploring the Shipwreck Century, includes a full-size replica of a wooden Great Lakes schooner and shipwreck, where you ll be able to walk the decks, experience a Great Lakes storm, and actually touch the wreck on the Lake Huron floor all without getting wet! Next, we ll board a boat to visit the shipwrecks themselves. Many wrecks in Thunder Bay lie in shallow water, easily visible from the surface. Alpena Shipwreck Tours will take our group out on Thunder Bay aboard the 65-foot excursion boat Lady Michigan to view some of them. It s a deeply moving experience to see the remains of these long-ago vessels that plied the inland seas. What sailor s day in port would be complete without going to a saloon? That s where we re headed for dinner: the John A. Lau Saloon in Alpena. Famed as Alpena s Oldest Historical Saloon, it stands close to the harbor in Old Town Alpena. It offers excellent food, a delightful old-time saloon ambiance, and a resident ghost: Agnes Lau, who allegedly haunts the place and frequently makes her presence felt.
Presque Isle lighthouse photos courtesy of the Presque Isle Township Museum Society. Day 2 July 15, Sunday You ll notice that all the restaurants on our tour are locally owned, not chains. Bob says that you can go to a chain restaurant anytime, so when you re on a Michiganders on the Road tour, you have to be more adventurous and sample the local cuisine. All of the dinners include your entrée, dessert, and coffee/tea/soft drink. We cover the waitstaff s tips too. You re welcome to have a beer or glass of wine or grog, since this is a maritime tour but that will have to be on your own dime. We ll be tuckered out after a big dinner and a full day of touring, so we ll repair to the Days Inn in Alpena for the night. Like all of the hotels on our tours, the Days Inn offers a complimentary breakfast in the morning. Historic lighthouses are first on today s schedule. The Presque Isle Lighthouses are just a short drive north along Lake Huron, and there are two of them: the Old Lighthouse, built in 1840, and the New Lighthouse, built in 1870. The Old Lighthouse at Presque Isle one of the oldest-surviving lights on the Great Lakes marked the entrance to the harbor at Presque Isle Bay. Its stone-and-brick tower measures 30 feet in height and 18 feet in diameter at the base. The lighthouse became a museum in 1995 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We ll tour the site, and if you re greatly daring, you can climb the circular stone staircase to the lantern room for a spectacular view of Presque Isle Bay, the harbor, North Bay, and Lake Huron s rocky shoreline. Presque Isle s New Lighthouse is only 147 years old. The 113-foot-tall lighthouse featured a third-order Fresnel lens, enabling light to be visible at a distance of more than 25 miles out on Lake Huron. We ll tour the keeper s house, now a museum, and if you re ready for a climb, you can ascend the 130-step staircase for an unbelievable view over Lake Huron. On a clear day, you can see Great Duck Island to the north and Lake Esau and the Rockport docks to the south. The New Lighthouse is part of a 99-acre park, which is where we ll enjoy another boxed lunch and congratulate ourselves on our courageous ascent of the lighthouse tower. We ll then reboard the bus and continue our drive north to Rogers City. What s in Rogers City? The famous 40 Mile Point Lighthouse, of course! The lighthouse went into service in 1897 to guard Hammond Bay, midway between Rogers City and Cheboygan. It consists of a twostory brick keeper s house and a 52-foot-tall square tower topped by an octagonal cast iron lantern room. In the lantern room, you ll find the light s fourth-order Fresnel lens, which was made in France in 1872. The 40 Mile Point Lighthouse could not prevent the wreck of the Joseph S. Fay, whose bones lie on the beach nearby. The 216-foot wooden steamer had a schooner in tow off Hammond Bay in October 1905 when a violent storm blew up. The schooner broke loose and went to pieces in the surf near the lighthouse. Today, you can see a 150-foot-long section of the Joseph S. Fay s hull resting in the sand. As we tour, we ll find a museum in the old keeper s house, the one-room Glawe Schoolhouse, and the pilothouse of the freighter Calcite. All of these are part of Lighthouse Park, operated by the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse Society.
After spending most of the day touring Lake Huron lighthouses, we ll steer west across the Lower Peninsula for Charlevoix and Lake Michigan. Dinner tonight is at Stafford s Weathervane in Charlevoix, located right by Round Lake. Lodging tonight and tomorrow night is at the nearby AmericInn Lodge and Suites. Day 3 July 16, Monday Our early-morning departure today is at the uncivilized hour of 7:45 a.m., but as Bob likes to say, We re on this trip to see things, not have fun! Why so early? It s worth it because we re catching the ferry to Beaver Island, which lies 32 miles northwest of Charlevoix. The 13-mile-long wooded isle is home to about 650 year-round residents. It s most famous as the site of a Mormon colony led by James Jesse Strang, who settled there in 1848. Strang established his own branch of the Mormon Church after the 1844 murder of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Seeking refuge from persecution in Wisconsin, Strang led his people to Beaver Island. He and his followers founded the town of St. James and cleared land, built cabins and farms, and made other improvements to the island. Their buildings included a log tabernacle, Strang s own house, and a print shop. Strang declared himself king over his church in 1850 and won election to the Michigan legislature in 1853 and 1855. His autocratic rule soon led to plots against his life. In 1856, two men whom he had had flogged shot him as he boarded the gunboat U.S.S. Michigan. The Michigan sailed away, taking the murderers to safety on Mackinac Island, and soon afterward, mobs from Mackinac Island and St. Helena Island drove the Strangites from Beaver Island and confiscated their property. Irish fishermen soon settled on Beaver Island. By the 1880s, their expertise had made the islet the largest supplier of freshwater fish in the nation. Fishing remained the dominant business for many years, until overfishing and changing technology led to its demise. In 1901, the Beaver Island Logging Company began extensive logging operations on the isle. Today, the island s economy revolves around tourism. We ll take the two-hour ferry ride from Charlevoix to Beaver Island aboard America s Emerald Isle and then have some free time to explore the little community of St. James. Don t miss the Old Mormon Print Shop Museum it s on the National Register of Historic Places and tells the story of James Jesse Strang, the Irish community, island musicians, and Native Americans. After lunch, we ll board buses for a special three-hour guided tour of Beaver Island to hear the story of St. James and Beaver Island. We ll stop at the home and tomb of reclusive Russian author, pacifist, and physician Feodor Protar, take time for beachcombing at Iron Ore Bay,
Museum photos courtesy of the Leelanau Historical Society & Museum. Day 4 July 17, Tuesday Photo courtesy of Meggen Watt Photography. Photo courtesy of Amanda Holmes. and visit the historic 1858 Beaver Head Lighthouse. Touring Beaver Island is a magical and unforgettable experience. America s Emerald Isle leaves Beaver Island in the late afternoon, depositing us back in Charlevoix in time for dinner at Scovies Gourmet. Scovies is another of Charlevoix s outstanding restaurants and is located right by Round Lake. We ll spend our tour s final day exploring the Leelanau Peninsula and Fishtown. Our first stop is the charming little community of Leland and the Leelanau Historical Society Museum. The museum was founded in 1957 and opened in its first building the former county jail in 1959. The society built a new museum in 1985 and has enlarged it twice since then. It boasts more than 20,000 items in its collections and archives, which it presents in exhibits that interpret Leelanau life and maritime history. The museum s quality is such that it received the Historical Society of Michigan s 2014 State History Award for Outstanding Local Society. After our museum visit, we ll have free time to explore Leland s Fishtown. What s Fishtown? It s one of Michigan s few remaining commercial fishing villages, where you ll find fish tugs, docks, fishing shanties, smokehouses, and racks of drying fishing nets. Fishtown isn t just about fishing anymore, of course, so many of the old shanties are now home to gift and clothing boutiques, art galleries, and specialty food shops. We ll turn you loose on Fishtown to shop, eat, and pick up a souvenir or two as a reminder of our Michigan Maritime Tour. We ll depart Leland in the early afternoon for our return trip to Lansing, with drop-offs along the way in Bay City and Flint. We re enormously excited about our Michigan Maritime Tour. We think it s one of our best tours yet, and we can t wait to take you on this wonderful journey through the Great Lakes State s history. Give us a call at (51 7) 324-1828 or e-mail us at hsm@hsmichigan.org if you have any questions.
July 14-17, 2018 Yes! I(we) want to join Michiganders on the Road for the Michigan Maritime Tour for $ 699* per person. * Includes motor coach transportation; all lodging; all dinners and breakfasts; some lunches; all admission fees, taxes, and gratuities. Historical Society of Michigan membership required; memberships start at $25. Price is per person based on double occupancy. We encourage the purchase of travel insurance in case unforeseen events force you to cancel at the last minute. Deposits or payments made after the reservation deadline of June 2, 2018, cannot be refunded. PERSON 1 PERSON 2 NAME NAME ADDRESS ADDRESS CITY, STATE, ZIP CITY, STATE, ZIP E-MAIL E-MAIL PHONE ( ) PHONE ( ) I would like to pay the full tour price of $699 per person. Price is based on double occupancy. I would like to pay the $150 per person deposit for the tour. The balance of $549 per person will be due on or before the reservation deadline of June 2, 2018. Deposits are fully refundable on or before June 2, 2018. Deposits or payments made after the reservation deadline cannot be refunded. I want to become a Historical Society of Michigan member so I can go on this tour. Level 1 membership: $25. This membership includes Chronicle magazine and more and applies to all those in the same household. Historical Society of Michigan/Michigan History magazine combo package: $39.95. The combo package includes all the benefits of membership and a one-year subscription to Michigan History magazine. Membership applies to all those in the same household. I am a single person and would like single-room accommodations. I understand there will be a $150 surcharge for this service. I am a single person and would like to be paired with another single of the same gender so that my reservation can be based on double occupancy. I am a single person, and I am traveling with so that my reservation can be based on double occupancy. I would like to have vegetarian meals. A check for $ is enclosed, payable to Historical Society of Michigan. Please charge $ to my credit card listed below. CREDIT CARD NUMBER NAME ON CARD SECURITY CODE EXP. DATE BILLING ZIP CODE PAYMENT METHOD Check Enclosed. Made Payable to: Historical Society of Michigan Credit Card (see form on left) Mail or fax this form to: Historical Society of Michigan 5815 Executive Drive Lansing, MI 48911 Fax: (517) 324-4370