An island in time
Mackinac Island is an interesting spot for movie buffs and history fans
“Gone With the Wind” has the largest movie fan club in the world. What comes in second? Surprisingly, it isn’t “Star Wars” or “Titanic.” No, that honor belongs to a film that was a commercial flop initially, but has achieved cult status over the years: the Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour romance “Somewhere in Time.”
The movie was filmed on Mackinac Island, Mich., a vacation resort that could be said to have achieved cult status, too — albeit several thousand years ago. That’s when the Great Lake Native American tribes started visiting it in the summer months (c. 1000 B.C.), fishing in the fertile waters of Lake Huron and marveling at the island’s unusual rock formations, one of which formed a near-perfect circle.
This formation, legend has it, was the portal to the spirit world, meaning that those who created Earth did so on, and through, Mackinac. Signs on the hiking trails that dot the island retell these legends, alongside the history of these early visitors (it’s thought the island was used only in the summer months by Native American nations).
Later arrivals also valued this small island, if for different reasons. Fur trappers used its central location in the Great Lakes region to make it a hub for trade back into the 1600s. How important a trading post was it?
For a number of years, mogul John Jacob Astor had his headquarters here (though he himself never set foot on the island). The French were the first to build a fort, recognizing the island’s strategic importance, but they weren’t the last — the British took over, then the Americans, and then the British retook the island in the first land battle of the War of 1812.
And not long after the Civil War, even more Mackinac admirers arrived — tourists.
They helped establish Mackinac as the second national park in the United States (after Yellowstone). Eighty-two percent of the island remains a state park; its deep pine forests, well-preserved historic fort and houses, and cooling summer breezes made it a natural choice for vacations.
Today, the island is blessed with a number of charming bedand-breakfasts and inns, along with one of the most majestic resorts in the United States, the aptly named Grand Hotel, built in the 1890s. It was here that much of “Somewhere in Time” was filmed, with scenes on its porch (the longest in North America), its swanky ballroom and manicured grounds.
The producers behind that now iconic movie chose the island for all the reasons above, and one more particularly compelling reason: this is an island without cars.
Back in 1898, the island fathers, protecting their horse-andcarriage concessions, decided to ban cars, well before many had come to the island. So as you wander through the streets of town, you quickly realize that you’re in one of the last places in North America not shaped by motor vehicles. There are no traffic lights, and the streets are human-sized lanes.
Visitors and locals alike get around on bikes, in carriages and on horses.
And it’s that last quirk — the constant clip-clopping of horses’ hooves — that makes Mackinac’s history come alive in a far more compelling fashion than it does in so many other vacation destinations with old-timey attractions.
The historic re-creations at the fort are all the more realistic because there’s no SUV zipping past the booming cannons. The streets, with their sherbet-colored Victorian mansions, have a more potent charm when dappled mares saunter by, pulling tassled open wagons.
And if all this isn’t enough old-fashioned fun for you, join the fan club! They gather twice yearly on the island to dress in 1890s clothes, down tea and waltz.