Why Michigan's Best Beach Is Always Empty

Beaver Island – We went to Beaver Island looking for a shipwreck and ended up finding its most beautiful beach.

The beach is called Iron Ore Bay, and it’s on the southern tip of Beaver Island, the unspoiled piece of paradise that sits about 30 miles northwest of Charlevoix. As you see from the photos, the beach is stunningly beautiful, with crystal-clear water and gorgeous views of Lake Michigan. It doesn’t even look like Michigan; it looks like something you’d find on a remote Caribbean island.

There’s also this: Somewhere out there in the water is a 153-year-old shipwreck that you can swim out to and explore.

Iron Ore Bay has it all: beautiful views, sandy shores, historical shipwrecks, and the clearest water you’ve ever seen.

And almost nobody knows it’s here.

Everybody knows about Grand Haven and St. Joseph and Ludington and all the other marquee beaches in Michigan. And on a sunny day in July, there are bound to be zillions of other people there with you; everybody crowded together with their beach chairs and coolers and blankets.

At Iron Ore Bay, you’ll have the place almost all to yourself. Guaranteed. We went there recently on a picture-perfect day in July, and there were only two other small groups on the mile-long stretch of beach.

Here’s how to get there, what you’ll find, and why this needs to be your next trip. It’s a little bit of an ordeal to get there, but that ends up being part of the fun.

First, a little bit about Beaver Island. It’s the third-biggest island in Michigan (behind Isle Royale and Drummond Island), and it easily ranks as one of our state’s true hidden gems. Only about 15,000 people visit Beaver Island every year, compared to the million or so who go to Mackinac Island.

Beaver Island is nothing like Mackinac Island. Beaver Island is much bigger, much more remote, and much less touristy. Cars are not only allowed on Beaver Island, they’re practically a necessity. You can walk around the little town of St. James or take a bike ride to some of the spots, but if you really want to explore the island (and get to Iron Ore Bay), you need a car.

You can either bring your own (it’s $220 round trip on the ferry) or rent a car, like we did. That costs about $100 for the day. Considering that most of the roads on the island are dirt tracks that’ll beat the hell out of your car, I’d strongly recommend renting one.

For that reason, almost all the cars on Beaver Island are piece-of-crap beaters from another era. The only nice cars you’ll see are the ones that people bring over themselves. All the rentals and most of the locals’ cars are relics. It’s kind of like being in Cuba.

You can take a short plane ride to Beaver Island (about $150 round trip) or take the Emerald Isle ferry from Charlevoix. That’s just $67 round trip, and it’s a wonderfully relaxing two-hour trip. You land in St. James, the only town on the island, located on the northern tip. It’s about a 35-minute drive down to Iron Ore Bay.

Before you go, you’ll want to visit the Beaver Island Print Shop Museum in St. James and learn about the nut job named James Strang who took over the island in the late 1840s and established a Mormon kingdom there. It all came crashing down in 1856 when he was assassinated by two of his disgruntled followers. Beaver Island takes a backseat to no one when it comes to having some history.

The roads are mostly paved in St. James, but as soon as you start heading south, you’ll hit the dirt road. It’s bumpy. You’ll pass a few cabins and some year-round houses, but not many. About 10 miles later, you’ll come to a small dirt parking lot with an outhouse across the street. You’ve made it to Iron Ore Bay.

The beach is sandy but it’s rocky in the water, so if you want to go swimming, you’ll want to bring some beach shoes. You can also bring your kayaks, kites, inner tubes, or whatever else you want. You’ll pretty much have the place to yourself.

Off in the distance, about 10 miles away, you’ll see the Fox Islands, North Fox and South Fox. They’re uninhabited, but those places have some wild history, too. In 1976, a child pornography ring was discovered on North Fox Island, run by a creep from Ann Arbor named Francis Shelden and his cronies. We’ll save that story for another day.

Now, about the shipwreck. Back in 1873, a 200-foot-long wooden schooner named the Bessie Smith was carrying some iron ore when it split into two pieces and sank at Iron Ore Bay. It wasn’t far from shore, so I’m assuming the crew swam to safety.

There have been attempts through the decades to salvage some of the boards, but the bulk of the ship is still out there somewhere, supposedly just a hundred feet or so off the shore. The information I could find online was a little sketchy as to exactly where she’s located, but most people say you can pretty easily swim out and see it.

So that’s what my wife and I did. We spent a few hours swimming around and exploring all the places where old Bessie was supposedly resting, but we couldn’t find her. I found a couple boards resting in about six feet of water that were obviously from some old shipwreck, but I don’t know if they belonged to Bessie.

There were only two other families at Iron Ore Bay the day we were there, and one of them was also looking for the shipwreck. They couldn’t find it either. I know she’s out there somewhere, so that’ll be our mission when we come back.

As we swam around in that crystal-clear water and took in all the scenery, though, I came to the conclusion that we were spending the day at the Most Beautiful Beach in Michigan.

It’s worth noting that Beaver Island has other spectacular beaches (Donegal Bay on the west side of the island is beautiful, too), but it’s hard to top Iron Ore Bay.

There are some hotels and vacation rentals on Beaver Island, but whether you come for a week or a day, you need to make the trek to Iron Ore Bay. And if you find old Bessie Smith, let me know.