North Manitou Island appears headed toward a second straight year of very limited visitation, with access to South Manitou curtailed in 2026.
And the future for island visitation doesn’t look bright, either, with the owners of Manitou Island Transit (MIT) railing over year-long shutdowns of their business. The Grosvenor and Munoz families have little faith that their ferry service will survive upcoming drought years for island visitation.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Megan Munoz, a fourth-generation owner of MIT whose great-grandfather started the company as a mail service plying the Manitou Passage in 1917. “(Her son) Jack is up at Northern Michigan University learning how to captain the boat in the summer. All us kids grew up knowing the island. I can’t imagine how this is going to work out.”
It’s been a difficult time in the relationship between MIT and the National Park Service, something that spilled into a letter written by an U.S. Department of Interior attorney to attorney Bailor Bell, who represents MIT. The ferry service successfully sued the Interior Department for lost revenue in 2020 when docks at North and South islands were deemed unsafe. MIT is suing over lost business in 2023 and this summer that was again caused by docking controversy; Bell’s letter was sent following a recent meeting of litigants.
“It is my hope that the owners have ‘said their peace’ and will not engage in further personal attacks,” Bell wrote.
While much of the letter represented attorney negotiation tactics — with phrases such as “even if the NPS was inclined to compensate your client for 2024, the damages calculation provided does not accurately reflect the claimed losses” — the document also put the company on notice that its source of revenue is in jeopardy.
The NPS has let a $27 million contract to rebuild island docks at new locations and undertake a large-scale infrastructure project to provide solar-generated water and sewer to the small, once-abandoned villages on both island. Following negotiations with the winning contractor, the Park Service has decided to close both village areas during construction — North Manitou in 2025, and South Manitou in 2026.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Scott Tucker said visitors will be allowed to access the islands through private transportation during construction, but ferry service will not be allowed to run because passengers disembark near the villages. No mention was made of canceling ferry service in previous releases about the project.
Tucker said that deep trenches dug to bury utilities will be part of construction zones. Because the villages will be unsafe for the public, they will be closed to the public, he said.
“It’s no secret that large construction projects impact visitation. It’s been a discussion point right along … and now that we have a construction schedule, it’s evident that the two (construction zones and visitors) can’t meet,” Tucker said.
However, he added, visitors could access the island through privately owned boats. And the Park Service has contracted two landing crafts owned by a company named Manitou Passage, LLC, to beach and unload passengers and gear.
••• The letter sent to MIT seems in conflict with Tucker’s vision of limited visitation. One part reads, “The NPS is now certain that all visitor activity at North Manitou Island will be closed for the year 2025 for work that will take at least one year to complete.” Another part states that “there will be no visitors allowed on an island while work is being performed on that island.”
Those mixed messages are part of an uncertain future for MIT, which owns its own docking frontage, a ticket booth and a gift shop along the Leland River in Fishtown. Unless another company can secure safe docking space in the already-cramped Leland Harbor, other ferry service bidders likely would travel from Frankfort or Northport to South Manitou (25 miles or 26 miles) and North Manitou (34 miles or 20 miles). The distances to North and South Manitou islands are 16 and 12 miles from Leland, respectively.
Detracting from a chance for compromise are differing opinions on the safety of the proposed North Manitou dock. Munoz won’t tie the ferry Mishe Mokwa to a dock extension built for $1 million at the end of the existing North Manitou dock because water flows freely under the platform, causing rocking that could snap ropes. The same open-flow design is proposed for the new dock.
Sand has also built up under the temporary dock, leaving about 3 feet of draft — not enough for the Mishe Mokwa, Munoz continued.
He maintains that dredging the existing full-walled dock, which has a “T” design that provides wave protection from most winds, is the cheapest alternative. The proposed flow-through dock deemed safe by NPS engineers provides little protection from waves, which means that ferry service would be unpredictable to the point of discouraging island use, he maintains.
The temporary dock is scheduled to be pulled after island deer hunters return over the weekend to the mainland; it was envisioned as having a two -year lifespan, in use until the new dock was finished.
“With MIT not using it, we are going to pull it,” Tucker said. “It was always going to be temporary. The permit we secured from (the state of Michigan) had it coming out by Nov. 15, 2025.”
The main mode of transportation for end-of-year deer hunters had been the Mishe Mokwa. Instead, most of the 146 hunters attained transportation aboard the Manitou, a V-hulled landing boat recently purchased by Manitou Passage, LLC. The company, which is owned by Munoz and Geoff Niessink — a Grosvenor family member who has been a MIT captain since 1990 — was formed to provide boat service to the Fox islands, North Manitou Shoal Light and other Manitou Passage destinations. The firm also has a smaller landing craft named the Bear.
The 34-foot Manitou was never meant to replace the more efficient and calendar-driven Mishe Mokwa, although for awhile it might serve as the only alternative for North Manitou travel. With retractable outboard motors it’s able to push its hull aground on a sandy beach, drop a ramp to unload passengers and gear, and then pull away.
Munoz said a larger version could eliminate the need for a North Manitou dock. But given MIT’s rocky relationship with the Lakeshore, he wouldn’t risk the investment.
“We’re not getting into more debt that is dependent on the Park Service. This year, we invested in another boat — but not for the islands,” he said.
Added Megan, his wife: “Buying a $5 million boat for essentially a three-month season and charging the fares the Park Service allows us doesn’t make sense. We can’t charge $100 a ticket, nor would we want to. That’s why we have the Mishe Mokwa.”
Actually, none of the figures involved with North Manitou Island transportation make sense. On a typical year — and they have been rare of late — the islands attract 10,000 visitors, with 4,000 camping at North Manitou. Given the present ferry service fee of $45 per person, the revenue potential with no expenses comes to $180,000 less a 4 percent commission collected by the federal government — not enough to justify a one-year dock at $1 million, and not enough to offset the cost of a new, multi-million dollar dock. Munoz said the cost to build a new North Manitou dock, then dredge and remove the existing dock comes to $24 million. Tucker said he did not have a breakdown of the cost of individual projects under the federal grant funding all work on the islands.
The attorney letter offered contract options including suspending services in exchange for extending its contract two years to 2030 or terminating the North Manitou portion of the contract.
It stated, “Unfortunately, there is no path to continue (ferry) operations while this work is being performed. I want to make it clear that this is not only affecting your client’s contract but will impact the entire park and its visitors — as there will be no visitors allowed on an island while work is being performed on that island.”
That points to a difficult future for the owners of MIT to face.
“We don’t want it to end with us,” Megan Munoz said. “That was never our plan. But it has become increasingly difficult to work with them. You have to jump through all these hoops. There was so much we had to consider when we signed the contract, and then they just decide you aren’t going out there any more. Sorry, we don’t have a dock for you on our end. But (MIT has) to maintain perfection on our end.
“We were hoping to work something out that would work for them and us over the next few years.”
