Mackinaw Island, a day in my Life

When I as a young man in High School I was fortunate enough to work two summers on Mackinaw Island. For those of you who are not familiar with the island here is the short story. Mackinaw is located between the lower and upper peninsula of Michigan. The island is 8 miles in circumference and there are no motorize vehicles allowed. Except for an ambulance, fire truck and police car. In fact it’s a fine to even use a skateboard or any other type of transportation except for bicycles, your feet or my personal favorite, a horse.The worlds beat fudge. I still have some in my freezer.

The porch of the Grand Hotel. The largest covered porch in the world.

During my last summer working at one of the hotels, I was interested in photography and back at my hometown I was working at a camera store. I had a Minolta camera and couple of lenses. So I decided to photograph some of the island.
While on the island I was photographing the annual yacht races. It happened to be the 100th anniversary of the event. The B&B I was staying at was right on the harbor.

During races back during my highs school years I photographed the race and this is where I discovered I had an eye for photographing.


I showed the Minolta people a few of my photos from the race and they paid my $700 for two images to run as national posters. Wow, getting paid to shoot photos, do you think I was hooked? Sorry Minolta I’m a Nikon and Leica man today.

I love my Leica M8 camera.

On the island there are around 900 horses. You can rent them or a buggy and during the winter they will even pull a slay from the small airport located in the center of the island.
Main Street.

Local flowers on the other side of the island.

A view from the Fort. Going back to places you have grown up in and made life-changing discoveries about your self is very fulfilling. I highly recommend it. I don’t know if I will ever go back to Mackinaw however, I would like to again some day.