Mackinac Island in the Winter (series)

welcome to Mackinac Island Michigan top rated vacation spot June through October but what about the other seven months of the year we're showing you the inside life of winter time on Mackinac Island check it out the first reaction we hear about Mackinac Island this time of year is wait you can still get to the island and how in regards to the first part absolutely and that's for the second depends depending on ice conditions you can take the Star Line ferry a service that runs to and from say Magnus three times a day but if the straights do get a lot of ice you'll reroute to the st. Ignace Airport it's a process that leaves commuters in limbo almost daily in the winter likes my horn who's worked on the island since 1948 as you can see from the people on the board just learning a lot of construction going on a lot of workers from probably three or four different colonies here now and who exactly are all these guys on the 8:00 a.m. commuter ferry mostly construction workers and like any other commute it's a 30-minute ride fueled by smartphones the occasional newspaper and across the board just a lot of coffee and this mild Michigan winter has been great for construction renovations from the Grand Hotel to restaurants and shops on Market Street it seemed the majority of businesses were getting a facelift this winter but if you remember in the summer automobiles are still not permitted on the island and that means all of those construction materials are delivered the old-fashioned way there's pretty much any kind of freight that anybody needs hauled pretty much as long as it fits on the honor wagon and it's not over a certain amount of weight pretty much all it including Jacob Hudson only three or four teams of horses will run on winter weekdays a busy shift making ten different trips around the island of course for every day winter travel around the island the most common mode is by snowmobile which makes for a very interesting predicament when snow is below average it's just a funny time of year it happens every spring we have snow up on the higher parts of higher elevations of the island and in the lower elevations it's it melts so you ride your snowmobile as far as you can get on a bike or walk down town but to get from one end of the island to the other the streets do have to be maintained and a little different from what you'd expect on the mainland well the difference would be that we'd leave snow on the roads that's the job for Robert McCreevy who's plowed snow on Mackinac Island for 20 years basically we're grooming the roads were not we're plowing some of the snow off and leaving some of the snow on so snowmobiles can get around and you still have to have a cloud so that emergency vehicles can get around so it's kind of a double-edged sword we visited robber in a week-long stretch without snow on the island our first destination was the Island Airport normally his top priority when snow does come in when the boats quit running just constant aircraft here you get all the people you saw commuting on the boat today we'll have to fly over but for us not a whole lot of powder to take care of so what's a crew to do on Mackinac Island and a full fledged automobile you cruise I like to take care of the island and I'd like to know that and people can get around and they can get off the island in the winter you know custodian of the island is what you are and you taking care of it and I like doing that because I love the island so much for the majority of Island workers the day ends at about 4 o'clock that's just enough time to catch the last ferry back to st. Ignace at 4:30 drive home and get ready to do it all again tomorrow welcome back to Mackinac Island in the winter a place where about 500 people will reside year-round including school kids so how are they getting to school what do their classrooms look like we're showing you that today on the island Albert Mosley and his family have attended Mackinac Island public school for five generations we just kind of get up eat breakfast do our homework do our reading if we need to in the morning and then we will go out we will start some real life time we will warm up now when you will make sure everybody has their things in law write down the school and the same way that adults get around on the island that's how the school kids commute to they can get a certificate when they're 12 take the class pass the test pass the driving test and then they can get their license to drive snowmobiles and the ones that are too young you know they'll come a school and a trailer they stop at the front door kids jump out run into school you know it's just like hopping out of a car they're just so used to it that it's it's not a big deal School Superintendent David wasö is used to the quirks of the island life but just like anything on Mackinac there are constant misconceptions to dispel first one is usually you have a school you know people don't believe we have one and then other things anywhere from you know what kind of education can you get on a island that small and I would put you know our kids up against to any of them and they do last year the robotics team went to the world championship in st. Louis and placed in the top 2% for 11th grade teammate Gracie Aqaba robotics is just a complementary step to aircraft I am a student pilot and I thought that doing robotics would help me with that because you know working with aircraft and you know mechanical stuff like that I think that helping build a robot kind of benefit and learning some of the skills that I might need to progress with that the entire robotics team is comprised of about 10 students which is pretty big in the grand scheme of the school currently we have 64 students K through 12 by grade that breaks down to the single digits with the graduating class of 2017 adding up to four seniors they do get to know each other very well you kind of have to get along because if if you only have one or two classmates and you're with them the bulk of the day you pretty much need to get along and I think that's a that's a good lesson for people too in life that you know you're gonna be with people at a job or in school or in life or your neighbors that you just have to get along with and and make the best of it and I think our kids do a pretty good job here and if you're at a sticky spot with your other two classmates you do what any other high schooler would do you make friends with the next school over in this case that's Beaver Island on Friday we went to the airport and picked up the rival boys and girls varsity basketball teams for the homecoming game versus the Mackinac Island Lakers so we're in the sleepy situation this is the room you bring an air mattress or some of the school supply those little gymnastic mats it's usually a cafeteria or gym floor sometimes it's a classroom floor of course there's a lot of action before anybody is heading back to the sleeping quarters by 6:00 p.m. the stands are filled with Islanders of all ages final score for girls is 34 to 33 and guys 53 to 49 both wins for the Mackinac Island Lakers the victories are topped off with a homecoming dance and just the right size for the school library they do get some great experiences here I'm not sure they fully appreciate it and won't fully appreciate until they're there away from here for a while they do have some unique opportunities and and for the most part they take advantage of it educationally so it's all good reporting from Michigan this morning I'm Jenny Buchel

Channel: WWTV/WWUP Corey Adkins

Views: 400,145

Rating: 4.8795795 out of 5

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Id: tQnH-vdvU28

Length: 8min 33sec (513 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018