Friday Sept 2

We spent a great day touring Fort Mackinac. Here's your history lesson for today.
From 1000 BC to 1650 AD the first summer visitors to Mackinac Island were the Great Lakes American Indians who paddled here every summer to fish for  trout,  pike, sturgeon, herring and whitefish. These early visitors considered the island to be a sacred place and named it "Michilimackinac".
European settlement in the Straits of Mackinac began in 1671 when Father Jacques Marquette esablished a mission to Huron Indians on Mackinac Island. A year later, ghe mission was moved to  the north side of  the Straits and, around 1708, to the south shore near present day Mackinaw City. Here, the French soldiers constructed Fort Michilimackinac, a strategic depot for the upper Great Lakes fur trade.
Michilimackinac remained a French outpost until 1761 when British soldiers took control after their victory in the Seven Years War.
From 1779-1781, during the American Revolution, the British dismantled Michilimackinac and moved the garrison and fur trade community  to Mackinac  Island. Fearing an American attack, the British wanted a more defensible location for their fort. Mackinac Island, with it's limestone bluffs, proved to be the perfect place for such a fort. The civilian fur trade community established the village around the bay below the fort. The fort and island became United States territory because of the American victory during the Revolution.
So today we took a walking tour of the fort. It houses the oldest hospital in Michigan and one of the first bath houses. We watched as "soldiers" demonstrated firing their 100+ year old rifles and the cannon. Each of the buildings in the fort are original, built by the Army and used by soldiers more than one hundred years ago. We learned that enlisted men earned between $13 and $34  per month while officers earned between $1,400 and $2,500 per year.
We had a wonderful time at the fort and the view from there is simply amazing.
We continued our walking tour after the fort, until the rains came. Later, after it cleared, we took our grill up to the picnic tables and grilled burgers. Yummy!
Not sure what tomorrow will bring as the weather isn't lookin' to good!  Big storm coming!
Love and Blessings,
Margo and Skip