I could feel the change on the island on July 1 – peak visitor season was officially here.
July 1 is a special day for everyone at state parks for another reason…its Canada Day! Over the years, it has become a park seasonal employee tradition to host a big cookout on July 1. Adrian, the house manager, bought a ton of meat, Lucas and I made buffalo chicken dip and many others brought dishes to pass. We looked very festive in our matching Canada shirts, custom made by my sister, Megan, and delivered by my parents a few days earlier. We ate, drank the official brew of Canada (Labatts) and played yard games, including yard hockey. The ample number of hockey sticks led me and a few others to rediscover our color guard skills. The ante was upped when Lucas brought out toy muskets (that he repaired when they couldn’t be sold at the store because they had broken in shipping) and I tried tossing those too. Alice, the fort store clerk, now hands Lucas every broken rifle and he is slowly building a toy armory. Turns out, I still had “it” but I did cut my hand while trying to execute a 4-count rifle toss. The injury was totally worth it! We ended the evening with a rousing version of O’ Canada and some sparklers. Happy Canada Day!
After our Canada Day celebration, we all had to buckle down to get through one of the busiest weeks at the fort all season. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week were insane. Lucas and I were lucky enough to have the actual Fourth of July off. We had a picnic in Marquette Park and then went up to the fort to watch the fort’s Independence Day activities. There was a full schedule of activities including a tug-of-war standoff between interpreters and visiting children, three-legged races, a reading of the Declaration of Independence and a 38-gun salute. The interpreters nailed the salute – so cool! That evening, we had another house cookout on the lawn, although much tamer than on Canada Day. There was a great debate on where to watch the island’s fireworks. At the last minute, Lucas and I decided to watch them at the fort. I’m so glad we did, we had a fantastic view of both firework barges. What a magical evening!
The fort continued to be a hopping place after the holiday and our second and third jobs kept us busy in the evenings. Lucas’ cousin, Nellie, came to visit us the second week of July. Since she was willing to volunteer at the park for a day, she was even able to stay in our room with us. It was so good to catch up with her and I think we gave her a great taste of life on Mackinac Island. At the tailend of Nellie’s visit, we also got to hang out with the Gerbers, sailing friends we’d met while cruising. We first met Erika and Ryan on instagram more than three years ago (they posted about a boat project). They traveled all the way from Western Michigan to the Bahamas over the winter. They were now on their way back home and we were lucky enough to have them stop by Mackinac Island on their way. We hadn’t seen them since Annapolis in October and it was a blast to catch up.
After Nellie and the Gerbers headed back home, we had another busy week at the fort. My week was made a lot harder in the ticket booths because we were without internet for 2.5 days in mid July. When there is no internet in our ticket booths, we can’t use our credit card machines. I won’t bore you with the details, but those were some long days in the booth without internet and we were all very happy to have it back.
The Great Internet Outage of 2024 coincided with the big sailboat races of the year – the Chicago to Mackinac and the Bayview to Mackinac. The finish line for these world-famous races is the entrance to the island’s harbor. It was so cool to see the harbor empty out ahead of the race and then fill to the brim with boats as they finished. I have never seen so many sailboats in one place. Of course, none were as beautiful or big-boned as Alaya.
We managed to slip in two trips downstate during the month of July too. The first was a quick trip to see Susan’s booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. We surprised her in the best way. The booth looked fantastic and Susan had a great show. I’m so glad we got to see it this year. Our second trip home occurred the next week, we headed to Chelsea for four days of family time. It was great to see everyone again, I especially enjoyed seeing all my nieces and nephew’s new magic tricks.
July came in like a lion and ended like a lion but it was a lot of fun. There were challenging parts for sure, but we are still loving island life. We just avoid going downtown until about 6 p.m. to avoid the bulk of day-trippers.
