Happy

I know Fort Holmes doesn't look very happy, but he's actually thrilled that today is the last day of school on Mackinac Island. For me, summer begins today at 3:00 pm, and I'm ready - so ready. Please understand, I'm not bad mouthing my students or their parents; teaching is just emotionally tiring, especially during the last month. I'm ready for summer break so I can recharge my batteries.

I Told You

Remember I told you spring comes late to northern Michigan? I wasn't kidding. This is what most of the trees and shrubs on the island look like. They're all just starting to leaf out.

Finally

The tulips in my garden have finally opened; they opened on May 25th. Spring in the UP is generally late, but this year it was exceptionally late. This winter just held on, and on, and on. 

Our spring hits so late, out plant date is Memorial Day. Usually, I can get away with planting things a couple of weeks early, but not this year.  This year, we had multiple frosts the week right before Memorial Day. 

Spring!

We are finally getting flowers blooming on Mackinac! Planted in the ground flowers, not ones that were started in a greenhouse and transplanted. Mine don't get quite as much sun as the tulips at Grand Hotel, so mine aren't quite this far along. Flowers always put me in a good mood so I'm glad I get to see these every morning on my walk to school...

Good Morning

Not much beats a freighter tooting "Good Morning," just as you arrive at work. I love where I live!

Waiting for Spring

Today is May 13th, and Mackinac Island still has snow. It's not everywhere - mostly in shaded spots in the woods, but it's still there. 

It really hasn't felt like spring much up here; it's been cold! I have yet to wear capris, let alone shorts. And none of my flowers have bloomed yet. You read that right - I don't even have tulips yet!

Teacher Appreciation

This past week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Each day we were treated to something special - including these beautiful flowers, courtesy of  Grand Hotel.

On Friday, one of my sixth graders brought me this hilarious set of pens. I have no idea where they found them, but I love them!

Teaching can be a thankless job, but the Mackinac Island community pulled out all the stops this year. We all felt very appreciated!

Happy Worm Day

 Happy Worm Day 2026!

This year's Worm Day is the latest since I've been keeping track, but it's a day to celebrate none the less.

 The first day we find huge numbers of worms on the pavement after a rain means spring is here!

Not Funny

Mackinac Island awoke to snow this morning.  Not funny Mother Nature, not funny.

Wet

Mackinac has had a wet spring. Not wet as in lots of rain, but wet as in the heavy snow pack has melted. Now the ground is saturated with all that water and it's finding its way into places people don't want it- like basements. One spot on the island is so badly flooded, that these pumps have been running, round the clock, for several days now. 

Busy!

March and April were busy months for me. I signed on to be the lead costumer for the Mackinac Island Community Theater's production of Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was a ton of work but it was all worth it when the sets, the costumes, the performers, and the music came together on opening night. It really was a treat to be part of this show!

Classic Mackinac

The other day when I said we got "a few" groceries, I may not have clearly explained how many groceries we actually picked up. We hadn't left the Island in months, so our cupboards were bare - quite bare. Everything on that cart is ours. (You can't see it in the pictures, the everything on that cart is labeled with our name.)

As is typical on Mackinac Island, we asked the dray to haul our groceries to the house. (We live about a mile from the dock, up hill.) Using the dray service is fairly cheap and everything is usually up to the house in a couple of hours. That was the case the other day. Except...

When we started to unpack we discovered one bag, the denim blue cooler in the top right of the picture, wasn't ours. It looked identical to ours, but didn't have our name on it. Someone had inadvertently taken our cooler and left theirs on the cart with all of our stuff. Since the entire cart was ours, the dray driver  assumed the cooler was ours too, and delivered it. It looked just like ours so, at first, we didn't even realize there had been a mistake. Once we discovered it, we weren't super worried. Our cooler had our name on it, so we knew we'd get it back. We also knew the owners of the other cooler would be concerned; their bag was full of high-end cuts of meat.

After an hour or so when we still hadn't heard anything, I posted a photo of the cooler in the Mackinac Island Residents Facebook group. I hoped someone would see it, realize their mistake, and call me. Nope.

After another hour, I decided to call one of the police officers, just to let them know the pricy meat was safe and that we would happily return it to whoever it belonged to. Luckily, he decided to pop down to the dock were he met a very worried man returning our cooler which he accidently took because it looked like his. (He didn't notice our name until he was ready to unpack it.) Small towns being what they are, about 15 minutes later the police came up to the house, swapped the coolers and everyone got busy happily putting away their items. 

Later that night I did get a message from a parent who had seen my Facebook post and given my phone number to the owner of the unlabeled cooler. The Police Chief just beat them to the punch and got everything moving in the right direction before they cold get ahold of me. 

Hopefully the new island family learned a few valuable lessons about island life from their experience:

1. Label everything with your name and phone number. It makes getting things back easier in the rare occasion of a mistake.
2. Check to make sure what you take from the dock is yours. Refer to #1.
3. Whether or not you appreciate Facebook, the Mackinac Island Residents page can be a very useful tool.
4. Mackinac Island people are honorable. Things might get "misplaced" for a while, but things are almost never "stolen."

Boats!

The boats started running yesterday - hooray!

Allen and I were lamenting not being able to get to the mainland to see Project Hail Mary in the theater and then, surprise - the boats started up again. We were thrilled! We both read the book and had been really looking forward to the movie. Living on Mackinac Island makes seeing movies a bit of a challenge. We often have to wait for them to stream, but this was one of those movies we knew would be better on the big screen.

I was super worried they would change many of the parts of the book I loved, but thankfully the film remained pretty darn true to the book. There were changes of course, but not so many or so large as to ruin it. (I'm sadly remembering the film version of Ready Player One here.) It would have been better as an eight-part miniseries, but overall I enjoyed it. And, because we had boats, we were able to pop over for the night, see my mom, pick up some much needed groceries, and catch the movie. 

If you are a sci-fi fan, a science nerd, or a science teacher I highly recommend the book!

Happy Easter

Easter tends to be pretty quiet at my house - TV, baking, that kind of thing. This year I made these cute little cookies for us to munch on. Let me tell you - I am in love with rolled buttercream. It looks like fondant, tastes like buttercream frosting, and it's easy. The only caveat is you need to have something to mold it with (think cookie molds or embossed rolling pins.) My family does not appreciate the flavor and texture of royal icing, so discovering this has been wonderful. Plus I have a gazillion cookie molds, so I was good to go.

We celebrated today with some cure bunnies for Easter and suns for spring; 'cuz everyone on Mackinac Island is ready for sunny weather!

Spring Break 2026

It hit 50 degrees (about 10 C) on Mackinac this weekend. It was so nice outside, Allen and I spent some time on the front porch enjoying the sunshine. We often don't travel over spring break - it's city 'budget season' and the weather is often iffy for flying. So, I'll be content with a wee bit of sun...

Still Piled High

At first glance, this picture might not look very interesting. But, if you give it a second look you may notice that when I took the picture, I was standing on top of the snow - snow that was at the same level as the chair seat on top of my mom's porch.  You're looking at about six feet (almost 2 meters) of snow; and that's after a week of warm-ish weather in which we've lost some. That's how much snow that storm left on Mackinac!

Arch Rock, 1909

This 1909 postcard says, "As usual we saw some old friends of J.  -Nellie" Apparently J's friends weren't much to write home about. 

I'm having fun looking at all these old cards. They contain a lot more information than I originally thought. Today I learned the Pasadena was an expensive apartment building on Nineteenth Street in Toledo, Ohio. It's since been torn down, but in its day it was quite modern - having both elevators and steam heat.

Snowmageddon '26

Did we get snow in March 2026's snowstorm? Why yes, yes we did. Mackinac Island got a shit-ton of snow. Those are my classroom windows on Monday morning. (School was cancelled, but two teachers live right behind the building and went in to take pictures.)

We easily surpassed two feet (over 60 cm) of snow in this weekend's blizzard, and the wind caused huge drifts.  Luckily Mackinac didn't get any of the ice build up they were expecting, nor did we lose power.

I wasn't able to catch Allen before he started digging out the snowmobiles, but they really need to be on top of the snow to work right. It took us quite a while to get them all dug out and ready to use - not to mention cutting into the bank left behind by the snow plow. Thankfully, the neighbors came over to lend a hand.

Folks also came down to the school to help. Numerous volunteers helped dig us out so we could go back today! This morning I had beautiful sunlight streaming in my windows and clear paths of egress in case of emergency. Definitely a storm for the history books. I can't remember another time we got that much snow in such a short time.

No Garage - No Problem

Most houses on Mackinac Island don't have garages. Many people have storage sheds, or all-weather storage tents like this one to store lawn mowers and things like that. During the summer months, snowmobiles are generally up on palates and tarped in behind or next to houses, but in the winter scenes like this one are very common. Without garages, we all just park our snowmobiles in the yard. It's not like getting snowed on is going to hurt them. 

It's another way you can tell a local snowmobile from  tourist machine - many of ours have cracks in the fabric covered seat cushions from sitting outside winter after winter. We also tend not to ride our snowmobiles all that much. That blue machine above is a 1999, and it's only been driven 2500 miles (about 4,000 km). On a typical day, I ride it one mile (about 1.5 km) to school and a mile home - that's it.

Mrs. Fix-It

My husband sometimes teases me about keeping a sewing machine in my classroom at school. It's been there since 2017 so I can make the bumpers for the high school robotics team, but every now and then it comes in handy for other jobs. 

This week I had a student rip his coat while playing at recess - we're talking a huge, ten-inch long tear right down the front of his jacket. With his permission, I was able to patch it with some ribbon we had leftover from a sewing project we did earlier this year.

To me it was far from perfect, but when my student saw his coat hanging in his locker, he smiled and said, "You can't even see where you fixed it! Thank you!" 

It was a little thing to me - took all of about 20 minutes of my planning time, but it seemed to mean the world to him. Over the years I've learned, sometimes it's those little things we do as teachers that mean the most to our students.

Stranded

Last week we had a just awful weather. It was either foggy, snowy, rainy, or a combination of the three. None of which are good for flying or crossing the ice bridge, so numerous people got stranded; some in St. Ignace wanting to get home, while others were on the island wanting to leave. I was glad both of my kids managed to fly home before the fog hit.

The occasional plane was able to take off, but not often enough to make a dent in the seventy plus people waiting to get back to Mackinac. Some of them had to wait six days - SIX DAYS before the weather improved enough for regular flights to resume. I was stuck on the mainland once, for three days, and I thought that was bad.

Getting stuck is one of the risks you take when you live on Mackinac Island. This time of year, if I leave the island, I always have extra undies, a toothbrush and several days of medication in my backpack - just to be safe. You never know when Mother Nature will decide to hamper your travel plans.

The first picture is of one of the planes bringing people home after that week of not flying. The tiny speck, inside the circle, is one of the planes that shuttle people, mail, and freight to and from Mackinac during the winter.  This year, a round trip flight is $118.00. The first 50 pounds of freight is free, but it's $0.50 per pound after that. You can see why the ice bridge is so appealing - no freight charges and no schedule!

Crayons

"Crayon." It's a term we locals use for the tourists who cross the ice, sometimes just assuming it's safe because they saw a video on YouTube, in droves once word gets out that the Straits have frozen over.  Often their colorful, branded gear matches their snowmobile - hence the name "Crayon." You can usually spot the locals by our mismatched, non-snowmobile specific gear, and our scratched up helmets. Hauling kids or supplies in a sled behind the machine? Definitely a local. Our snowmobiles are like our cars - we use them on a daily basis to get to and from work, to take kids to school, and haul trash out to the dump. Crayons often have special gear they only use for recreational snowmobiling. 

When I say "droves," I mean it. This was the pool table at the Mustang during lunch today. (We had a half day of school so a fellow teacher and I went out for lunch.)  This was Astor St, looking up the street from the Mustang door,

and this was looking down the street in the other direction. 

I do not mean to insult them! I promise I explained the lovely folks in the first picture why I wanted to photograph them. Tourists are great for business, but they do make getting a table as a local a bit challenging. 

Crossing

I'm thrilled that this winter has been much more like the winters of old - snowy and cold. Years ago the boats almost never ran all winter; they typically stopped on the second of January and didn't start up again until the end of March or early April. In the days before Amazon, we stocked up and we prepared. (Some of use still struggle not to stash copious amounts of everything we might need in the basement.)

Given the cold temperatures we've been having, Mackinac is lucky enough to have an ice bridge this winter. (That means the surface of Lake Huron has frozen  between the island and the mainland, and the ice is thick enough to hold the weight of a snowmobile.) Mackinac residents look forward to the ice bridge because it is the only time when our lives aren't governed by someone else's schedule (ferry boat or plane.) Not to mention this year a round-trip plane fare costs $118.00.

Now, do not take my words as a testament to the safety of the ice. THE ICE IS NEVER SAFE. Each and every time Allen and I go out there, we make sure we have information on the current conditions. Are there pressure cracks? Slush holes? Allen and I never venture onto the ice without that information. We take safety equipment with us and follow a set of self-imposed rules to help mitigate some of the risks. We've lived here for over 30 years and we never cross the ice without serious consideration. I DO NOT ENDORSE THE SAFETY OF CROSSING  - IF YOU CROSS THE ICE BRIDGE, YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK.  Now that that's out of the way...

That little blue dot was us as we went to St. Ignace this morning.

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so Allen agreed to take me over, help shovel out the car, and the run to the grocery store to pick up a few things while I was at my appointment. Visibility was good and we could see all the way across (one of those self-imposed rules.)

Allen was nice enough to drive so I could get a few pictures, plus he had gone over earlier in the week and was more familiar with the trail. This year's ice is not smooth - not at all. There is a great deal of jagged ice causing the path to wind through the roughest patches. The zig-zagging and bumps combine to make for a fairly slow crossing; Allen said our top speed was under 30 mph (about 48 kph.) It was a busy day out there. We saw numerous snowmobiles coming and going.

This picture gives you  good view of ice piled up along the shore, as well as the Christmas trees marking the route.

When the island has good ice, lots of people take advantage of the ability to haul items across. We saw multiple loads of drywall and other supplies heading over to the island today. Hauling things yourself can save a lot of money on freight charges!

How long will is last, you wonder? It all depends; wind, temperature, air pressure, and the movements of the Coast Guard cutter all impact the ice. If we're lucky, we'll be able to cross through the end of March, but tomorrow could just as easily be the last day; only Mother Nature knows for sure. Either way, for those of us who live here, the ice is part of our lives. I'm not posting this as click bait, or an attempt to get views (my blog isn't monetized); I am simply recording this unique aspect of my life as a year-round resident of  Mackinac Island.

A Current Favorite

If you are ever in an elementary classroom, take a moment to notice the books on the shelves. You can tell this book, Alone by Megan E. Freeman, is a favorite. Just look at those corners! Some people might get frustrated by that kind of damage, but not me. Only loved books usually get that kind of wear; that book is well traveled and a current favorite of the girls in my classroom (as is book two: Away.)

In verse it tells the story of a middle school girl who fakes a sleepover and ends up having to survive, alone, after being left behind during a community-wide evacuation. If you have a tween girl on your shopping list, I highly recommend Alone. 

COLD

You know it's cold when Mackinac Island cancels school! How cold was it you ask? Well, it was we-won-the-contest COLD. Just in case you can't read the graphic - Mackinac Island had the coldest windchills in the entire state of Michigan today, coming in at -34 degrees F (about -37 C).

In case you're wondering what -34 degrees looks like, here are a couple photos I took today.

No risk of anyone swimming today, I can assure you.  According to the NOAA monitoring station in Mackinaw City, the water in the Straits of Mackinac is about 33 degrees F (about 1 C) today. When the lake water is significantly warmer than the air above it, it evaporates and then instantly condenses in the much colder air - that's the steam you see right above the lake.

I only managed to get a couple pictures because it hurt to have my hand out of my mitten to use my phone!

Hopefully, it will warm up a little next week - it looks like the high next week will be in the teens (about -11 C.)

Filling Up

In case you are grumbling about the price of gas in your neighborhood...

This winter, gas on Mackinac Island costs $7.30 per gallon. Last week, we paid about $39.00 to fill up one of our snowmobiles. Please know - I'm most definitely not complaining about that price; I'm thrilled to have gas available on the island. Thank you Rock Hardware!

We can get about 60 miles on a full eight-gallon tank, so we only need to fill up every couple of weeks or so. We just drive our snowmobile out onto the Coal Dock, and fuel up. 

We've had such mild winters lately, but this year is turning out to be much more like the winters of old - snowy and cold. (I think the high today was 11 degrees F (about -12 C.)  We have two snowmobiles, since Allen and I both work and regularly need to be in two different places during the day. People are often surprised to find out we only have one car. About once a summer we end up wanting to be at two different places (off the island) during the same weekend, but that hardly necessitates paying for two cars all year long. Our car sits in the parking lot more than we drive it! The snowmobiles really are our daily transportation...

Done

It was cold on Mackinac today; so cold we had to have indoor recess. That doesn't happen all that often, but when it happens at the same time the ferry boat announces they "will resume service when conditions allow," we start to get our hopes up. Every one of us is quietly wondering - will we get an ice bridge this year?

Long time island residents tend not to talk about the ice bridge much - we don't want people to think that we encouraged anyone to go out onto the ice. Each and every time anyone ventures out there they are risking their lives, so please know: even though I may talk about looking forward to an ice bridge, my choosing to cross the ice should never be taken as an assurance that it's safe - it isn't. 

Lachance Cottage, Circa 1907-1912

Even though it doesn't have a date, I love this Mackinac Island postcard. It is a card for Lachance cottage, but it is signed by L.J. Metevier, presumably a relation of the Market Street Meteviers (after whom the Metevier Inn is named.)

The card reads: 

Mackinac July 17

Madam:

In answer to your inquiry for rates per week 2 persons in rooms, our rates are 14.00 & 16.00 per week including meals front rooms being the more expensive. We would be pleased to have your reservation and are sure we can make your visit to Mackinac pleasant & enjoyable. Trusting you will favor us by notifying us of time of arrival and price of room desired. 

Yours truly,

L.J. Metevier

I guessed the card's date to be from the early 1900s, but I wasn't sure so I asked AI, specifically Google Gemini, for its input. It had several interesting "thoughts:" I copied everything in blue text directly from AI.

Estimated Date: 1907–1912

• The Divided Back: This is your most precise physical clue. Postcards with a vertical line on the back were produced between 1907 and 1915. Before 1907, the back was for the address only, and messages had to be written on the front. 

• The Signature (J.L. Metevier): Joseph Louis Metevier was a well-known island figure and Civil War veteran. His management of the property fits perfectly within this pre-WWI window. 

• The Price ($14–$16/week): This price reflects the peak of the "Cottage Era" on Mackinac. By the time the postal rate changed in 1917, inflation from the war began pushing these rates toward $20–$25. 

• Postage Rate ($0.01): The "one cent for domestic/two for foreign" was the standard until the temporary war tax of 1917. 

• The Spelling ("Lachance"): Using the lowercase 'c' is consistent with early 20th-century records.

I'm not a huge AI user, but every now and again I do find it quite helpful.