St. Ignace, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is on Lake Huron at the north end of the Mackinaw Bridge. St. Ignace and Mackinaw City at the south end of the Bridge both provide ferry service to Mackinac Island, which is about 5 miles away from both ports.
French Jesuit priests founded the St. Ignace Mission in 1671, making the city the oldest European settlement in the state after Sault Ste. Marie. St. Ignace soon became the center of French – Native American fur trading, and St. Ignace still has many Native American residents.
St. Ignace Harbor, our home for a few days, is behind a big boulder breakwall, but still is affected by wakes of the many ferries running between the city and Mackinac Island.
We have been here a few days waiting for our Mackinac Island marina slip to open up, and have invested this time seeing the walkable sights/shops/restaurants and catching up on work, record-keeping, and boat projects (like cleaning and waxing R&R’s transom).
It has been fun to listen for the upper peninsula (“Yooper”) dialect, that includes words like “yous” instead of “y’all” and “dis” instead of “this”, “eh” or “hey”, and “you betcha!” The cultural and historical roots of Yoopertalk even led to university studies, eh?
Enjoying God’s creation up here in da UP!
