Mackinaw City Highlights Tour

A perfect way to start your stay in the Straits Area! Or, take this tour just before boarding your ferryboat to Mackinac Island or I'll meet you at the dock upon your return. Mackinaw City's story has always been one of transportation - and of being a meeting place for hundreds of years. You'll see local landmarks where railroads, ships, and automobile travelers gathered. You'll hear tales of an era long ago when those who walked this land wore moccasins, sold fur pelts, and built the early infrastructure of a village projected to become "the next Chicago. " The population then was 975! It is less today, but Mackinaw City has transformed from a railroad and fishing village in the 1900s to a bustling, charmed destination point for millions of visitors each year. It's our history and our future that make the Straits Area so exciting today for our guests.

This tour takes approximately 1. 5 hours, depending on admission to various attractions. Walk along a beach sidewalk where you can view the Mackinac Bridge, visit Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse*, and hear the stories of those who worked as a marine reporter, a lightkeeper, or drove a water wagon through the village streets. The Straits of Mackinac has documented evidence of about 200 shipwrecks beneath its icy waves, and local divers have discovered 48 of them. I have actually visited many of these wrecks and will tell the stories of these ships' demise in shrieking winds, foggy calms, and frozen darkness. Have your picture taken next to a 2, 000-pound iron stock anchor once used by a sailing schooner of the 1800s, since recovered by divers from the Straits. Visit Colonial Michilimackinac* and hear local lore of a lifestyle that even today is very different from most other hometowns. See the Icebreaker Mackinaw Maritime Museum*, newly berthed here. *Separate entrance or admission price.