{"id":34650,"date":"2025-12-11T12:58:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T18:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=34650"},"modified":"2025-12-10T16:01:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:01:24","slug":"book-report-mackinac-island-by-robert-e-benjamin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/11\/book-report-mackinac-island-by-robert-e-benjamin\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: <i>Mackinac Island<\/i> by Robert E. Benjamin (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/mackinicislandhoward.jpg\" width=\"200\" alt=\"Book cover\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"4\">This is the third of the three local history books I picked up in our trip up north <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/18\/good-book-hunting-june-10-14-2018-michigan\/\" target=\"_new\">in 2018<\/a> which featured a brief visit to Mackinac Island, a famous resort island more famous because it does not allow cars, so people traverse the island in horse-driven conveyances or bikes.  In the summer.  I have to wonder if they use snowmobiles in the winter and presume so.<\/p>\n<p>I read <em><a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/24\/book-report-mackinac-island-its-history-in-pictures-by-eugene-t-petersen-1973-2018\/\" target=\"_new\">Mackinac Island: Its History in Pictures<\/a><\/em> in 2018 and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/20\/book-report-we-live-on-mackinac-island-2017\/\" target=\"_new\">We Live on Mackinac Island<\/a><\/em> in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>This book, of course, is more like the former than the latter.  A high-level history of the region chronologically, with a paragraph for various years starting in 1624 and continuing to the present day, although the story thins out toward the end &#8220;continued being a resort, basically&#8221; was the history.  In its history section, it also goes far afield, talking about some of Schoolcraft&#8217;s trips in the upper Midwest and some of Pere Marquette&#8217;s trips which were outside Mackinac Island.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s sprinkled with historical photos and starts with Indian legends and ends with touring information, so definitely a tourist take-away.  Which I was and did.<\/p>\n<p>We only visited the island for a couple of hours on a summer day.  What did we do?  Took a tour in a horse-drawn carriage.  Walked around the fort.  Walked around the lower commercial area a bit.  And took the ferry back to the UP where we crossed the bridge back to the LP where we were staying.<\/p>\n<p>When I showed my beautiful wife what I was reading, she started to daydream about places we could visit: Sanibel Island again, maybe the keys, Mackinac Island (staying on the island, perhaps)&#8230;.  But, you know, that&#8217;s interesting and all, but when I do that sort of thing or when I&#8217;m on vacation, I think, &#8220;What would it be like to live there?&#8221;  Like, for a period longer than a week?  Wintering on Mackinac Island?  Spending a year on Sanibel Island?  I would still be an outsider&#8211;hell&#8217;s bells, I still feel like an outsider in Southwest Missouri even though I have ancestors from the area and I&#8217;ve lived here for sixteen years.  Probably I&#8217;d feel like an outsider anywhere, and I would probably adjust and get bored living anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it&#8217;s just best to visit places for a little bit and to read up on their history from the comfort of my own home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the third of the three local history books I picked up in our trip up north in 2018 which featured a brief visit to Mackinac Island, a famous resort island more famous because it does not allow cars, so people traverse the island in horse-driven conveyances or bikes. In the summer. I have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34650"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34654,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34650\/revisions\/34654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}