Mackinac Island. The harbor is on the right - Haldimand Bay. I pedaled the perimeter, 8 miles, plus 6 or so miles over the middle and through the main settlement. All of the black lines are bike, hike and carriage roads. The island is almost three miles long by two miles wide at the widest point.

Mackinac Island is host to two butterfly conservatories. The one on McGulphin Street behind Ste Anne's Catholic Church is the better of the two in my opinion. The second conservatory is on Surrey Hill, adjacent to the carriage tour barns. This one is the smaller of the two and didn't seem to have as many butterflies. They also had forced-air ventilation that kept everything in the room, including all the plants and butterflies, moving so it was difficult to take a good picture.

It's interesting that I can't identify any of these butterflies. I intentionally picked up an identification chart so I could. These three pictures are of the butterflies with their wings folded. The identification chart is of the butterflies with their wings open. Apparently, the colors and patterns are different top-side to bottom-side!

I didn't mention the carriage tours? You can take a tour of the Island in a horse-drawn carriage. You can tour in single, double or three horse rigs. The single horse rigs are a private tour so they cost by the hour.

One of the many summer "cottages" on the island. Most are private summer cottages but many have been converted to B&Bs for the tourist trade. This is a private one. You'll see a picture of this one later (Part III) that'll give you an idea of the setting.

A view of the harbor from the summer cottage above. The boat to the left is the ferry I came over on. I came from St Ignace on the north side of the Mackinac Bridge. The larger boat on the right is owned by the same company, Arnold Transit Co, but came from Mackinaw City, on the south side of the bridge. There is much heavier tourist traffic from Mackinaw than from St Ignace.

Everything here is done by horse. I'd guess there are as many horses on the island as there are people. In fact, the whole island has a vague "barnyard" odor. In any case, this is a street sweeper. A rotating brush is underneath and sweeps debris into a container just in front of it. A water tank is on the top. I was disappointed when I found the brush is run by a gas motor - I thought it would have been driven my the horses pulling it!

The Grand Hotel. Lodging here runs from $350 to $650 a night. Apparently they thing an awful lot of themselves. There is a sign in front on the entrance road that says,

"Proper Dress Required at the Hotel and the Hotel Owned Street.
Gentlemen after 6pm must be attired in coat and tie.
Ladies may not be attired in slacks.
Please no bicycles or saddle horses in front of the hotel."

Further, if you want to look inside the hotel, very opulent I'm told, they will charge you $10 unless you are a guest. I suppose all this keeps the riff-raff out. It certainly worked for me!

Typical downtown scene. There are bike racks all over the place

(almost all over the place - see next issue).

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