Summer Island is an island in

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

, 2.5 miles (4 km) miles off the southern tip of the Garden Peninsula in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. It can easily be seen from Fairport, on the southern end of Delta County Road 483, the locally maintained extension of M-183, but is not accessible to the public. The island is part of the

Niagara Escarpment The Niagara Escarpment is an approximately discontinuous, arc-shaped but generally northward-facing escarpment, or cuesta, in Canada and the United States. The escarpment begins south of Lake Ontario and circumscribes the top of the Great Lake ...

archipelago in northwestern Lake Michigan. Its highest point is 710 feet (217 m) above sea level, and 129 feet (40 m) above the level of the lake. One of its most prominent shoreline features is Gravel Point, a northern headland that stretches toward the Garden Peninsula mainland. More than half the island is owned by the state of Michigan and administered as part of Lake Superior State Forest.

Summer Island site

On the island's northeast side, two shallow points protect Summer Harbor, a small maritime shelter and site of a former settlement. Summer Harbor is adjacent to an archeological landmark listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

as the Summer Island site. Pottery recovered here indicates that the island may have been inhabited since the Middle Woodland period (circa 1 CE – 500 CE). During the 19th century, Summer Harbor was a fishing station for the harvesting of

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater Salvelinus, char living mainly in lakes in Northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, laker, and grey trout. In Lake Sup ...

and whitefish, and served as a place to live for a small corps of loggers who harvested the island's timber. In the early 20th century, Summer Harbor was again abandoned. Archeologists excavated the Native American/Euro-American settlement site in 1968–70."Summer Island Collection", Wayne State University Museum of Anthropology, accessed August 1, 200

/ref>

References

{{Authority control Islands of Delta County, Michigan Uninhabited islands of Michigan Niagara Escarpment Islands of Lake Michigan in Michigan