The Giant Petoskey Stone the DNR Stole
In September 2015, a man named Tim O’Brien waded out into shallow water near Northport in the Leelenau Peninsula and proceeded to dig a 93-pound Petoskey Stone with a trowel. It wasn’t polished up and easily identifiable as a Petoskey stone, but looking closely, the pattern of fossilized Hexagonaria coral was clear.
He set it in front of his home in the tiny village of Copemish and posted a photo of it on Facebook, where it went viral. The DNR scolds leapt into action and confiscated the small boulder, citing a state law that limits the collection of rocks or fossils from state land to 25 pounds per person each year.
After they took this rock out of its front-lawn display in December, the DNR promised that they would put it on display, as if it wasn’t already on display in his yard.
After hiding it away for two years, the DNR finally plunked it into a waterfall exhibit in the DNR’s Outdoor Adventure Center in Detroit. It’s now underwater, and you can hardly tell there is anything special about it. Classic government move.
One Petoskey Stone to Rule Them All
Alpena’s Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan has a boulder that weighs roughly 8,000 pounds sitting out front. Like the Northport stone, it’s unpolished, but the fossil imprint is easy to see.
The museum’s executive director, Christine Witulski, found it while fossil hunting at the Lafarge Quarry, and she needed a payloader to haul it out and plop it in front of the museum.
Visitors come from away as far as Indiana to see it.
Michigan’s Own Plymouth Rock
McGulpin Rock near Mackinaw City has been used for navigation and to gauge water depth by Native Americans for millennia. When French explorers, including Etienne Brule, arrived in 1615, they made note of this huge rock near the Straits of Mackinac.
The rock and point are named for Patrick McGulpin, a Scotsman who came to the area in 1761 with the British Army.
McGulpin Rock, at nine feet tall and more than 54 tons, is over 10 times larger than Plymouth Rock. It rests in the water down the hill from McGulpin Point Lighthouse.
Mark Naida is editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
