The car-free island where America slows to a storybook pace

On Michigan’s car-free Mackinac Island, horse-drawn carriages, Victorian cottages and grand hotel rituals preserve a rarefied vision of old-world summer travel

It’s true: time travel is real. As I clasp the antler-like handlebars of my gearless baby pink cruiser, it’s clear I’ve arrived in a bygone era. Joining a sea of wheels, bike bells ding, joggers sing and designer dogs lead their owners as if they, not the ubiquitous horses, have right of way. I simply succumb to the seduction that suffuses this uniquely different destination, more akin to the Isle of Capri than the USA’s Upper Midwest.

Mackinac Island (pronounced ‘Mackinaw’) is a pocket of unbridled splendour, basking at the northwestern tip of Michigan’s Lake Huron. Devoid of cars, its soundtrack is the clip-clop of hooves and murmur of wheels as grandly garbed coachmen guide their horses. It steeps in slow-travel escapism for most of the year – in the summertime its permanent population of just 500 is matched by the 500 horses that cater for the one million holidaymakers that arrive here.

Historic Main Street is a pop-up storybook brought to pastel-painted life. Baskets of lilacs and geraniums hang from eaves fronting independent boutiques, art galleries and ice-creameries while the sweet smell of pecan and butterscotch fudge infuses the air. Mackinac Island is the fudge capital of the world – Henry Murdick, inspired by his mother’s recipe, first created it here in 1887 – and Murdick’s Fudge is still made in the traditional method today, using copper kettles and marble slabs. 

Cycling the island clockwise, I follow the easy 13-kilometre Lake Shore Boulevard (M-185): America’s only car-free State Highway. Weatherboarded Victorian homes with snow-white shuttered windows sit pretty, neighbouring steeply gabled Carpenter Gothic mansions and scroll-saw cottages with spandrel fretwork.

Nature’s palette

Some 80 per cent of Mackinac Island is reserved for nature, and it has long been a draw for explorers and naturalists who were attracted to the island’s sublime beauty – including transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. No less than 600 plant species grow on the island, including the bright red jack-in-the-pulpit and the rare purple calypso orchid. For plein-air painters, I imagine Mackinac Island, with its kaleidoscope of colours, must be something of a botanical muse. I watch a watercolourist mount her easel shoreside, then apply paintbrush to canvas beneath the shade of her olden day bonnet, all in keeping with this impressionistic place.

Ferns and fungi, too, thrive within forests of northern white cedar and spruce, where chipmunks, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, yellow warblers and owls hide and thrive. I park the bike to climb some 200 steps into the forest canopy. When it reveals 15-metre wide Arch Rock, Mackinac Island becomes a stage. The breccia limestone window onto Lake Huron is a breathing postcard when a white yacht sails across the limpid, teal-tinted waters. To the local Anishnaabek people, Mackinac Island is known as Michilimackinac (place of the great turtle). It’s through this rocky portal that they believe that their ancestors’ spirits travelled.

Filmmakers have flocked here, too. The 1980 classic Somewhere in Time (set in 1912) was filmed on the island and at Grand Hotel, as was 1947-released This Time for Keeps featuring Esther Williams and Jimmy Durante. I pedal on as if I am Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour) looking for her Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve).  

Grand heights

Grand Hotel rises like a palace in the sky. The prestigious 1887-built summer retreat showcases a 201-metre front port, lined with white rocking chairs. Groomed waiters greet you as if it were still the 1890s when the likes of Mark Twain ran lectures here. The National Historic Landmark overlooks Esther Williams swimming pool (named in honour of the aforementioned actress).

Each of the hotel’s 397 guest rooms were individually designed by Dorothy Draper & Company. Within The Parlor, Amelia’s Tea Experience comes curated by teamaker Steven Smith, with lemon poppy madeleines and Linzer torte. Harpists perform classical melodies to guests on chesterfields upholstered in maximalist patterns of vivid red and green.

In the adjacent Baroque bar, I spot a framed photo of Dorothy Draper herself. The place strongly exudes an aura of The Great Gatsby, with its New York nuances.

Carriages and forts

On a narrated horse-drawn carriage tour into Mackinac Island State Park, our coachman informs us that visitors can even bring their own horse to the island. We pull into the Wings of Mackinac Butterfly Conservatory. Within the climate-controlled glasshouse, lantana and pentas flowers are ornamented by up to 300 species of butterfly. Marbled morphos rest their wings while tiger longwings feast on overripe bananas (their preferred meal).

Overlooking the town is 18th-century Fort Mackinac, preserving 14 period-furnished buildings. Its 1780-constructed Officers’ Stone Quarters remains Michigan’s oldest still-standing building, where the Fort Mackinac Tea Room is located, and it’s here I most feel the pull of the island.

Some 80 per cent of Mackinac Island is reserved for nature, and it has long been a draw for explorers and naturalists who were attracted to the island’s sublime beauty…

Perched on the palisade, I steal cinematic views of the greener-than-green lawns of Marquette Park below, and the marina and ferry-flecked harbor beyond – together, the tiny cyclists appear like living dolls who have popped out for a ride in their doll’s house-like town.

On the balcony beneath a row of yellow and white pinstriped parasols, a genteel waiter delivers my Sandwich Board of curried egg, turkey and cranberry, cucumber and cream cheese along with a fine pot of Lord Bergamot – an elegant afternoon tea befitting of this destination that has transported me back to another time.

Journey notes

Getting there

Mackinac Island is a seven-hour drive north of Chicago. The 20-minute Shepler’s ferry connection offers secure overnight parking in Mackinaw City or St Ignace: sheplersferry.com

Getting around

Mackinac Island spans approximately 10 square kilometres. Bikes (1,400 of them) can be hired from numerous vendors on the island.

Stay here

For heritage cottage, Victorian or Gothic-style accommodation options, visit mackinacisland.org