The Most Tropical Spot in Michigan Is a Barren 2-Acre Island

Shoe Island — There are certain photos you take that look like real quintessential Michigan. They are of Christmas tree farms, red leaves in October, horses on Mackinac, potholes in our collapsing roads, and cans of Faygo. You send them to friends and family who live in a land somewhere far far away, they take a look, and there is no confusion about where they may have been snapped.

Michigan.

But there are other photos we take and then send that look quite a bit less like what one may think Michigan looks like. They, more often than not, tend to come from the beaches Up North where the water is perfectly clear and the sand is nearly white. These feel far more tropical than they do Midwest.

Michigan is the northern Caribbean. Yes, I said it, and I’m not the only one to say it or something similar. There are places and scenes and photos that could easily be sent with captions that claim the photo was snapped somewhere near Saint Kitts and Nevis and no one would bat an eye.

While there are certainly quite a few places in the northwest corner that might easily read as somewhere more tropical, this summer I found the most extreme one, the most visually striking one, the most geologically peculiar one, the most incredible one, and without a doubt the most Caribbean one.

Shoe Island.

Shoe Island is far out in the middle of Lake Michigan. North of Beaver Island and east of Hog Island, Shoe Island is so far from the mainland and too far out from Beaver—the only inhabited island anywhere near—to ever really be visited by anyone in any meaningful way. It’s also so small, ranging somewhere between 0.5 acres and 2 acres depending on the water level of Lake Michigan that year, that you might just easily miss it if you ever happened to find yourself passing by. There are no trees, and no buildings. There is no silhouette on the horizon. Shoe Island is essentially a tiny little strip of stone, gravel, sand, and low brush out in the middle of the northern Caribbean.

It’s a deserted island in the most factual sense of the word, and the most literary or aesthetic sense too. Our concept of a deserted island tends to come from stories about shipwrecked pirates and comics or cartoons that plop one funny little guy on a little piece of sand in the middle of the blue ocean with nothing else near. That’s a deserted island; that’s shoe island.

The lack of pine trees or easily identifiable northern flora coupled with the most clear aquamarine water I’ve ever seen in Lake Michigan results in a scene that is truly that of a deserted island somewhere in the Caribbean. Of course, it wouldn’t feel like such a deserted island if it was easy to reach. My charter captain to the island told me he had only been out here one other time in the past 25 years. A deserted island has to be far away, doesn’t it?

You most likely have never been to an island of this tiny size this far out in a body of water as large as Lake Michigan, but something incredible happens on the very tip and it’s something I’ve never seen anywhere else. As the thin eastern tip of the island sinks down into the water the waves stop breaking on the shore and start to break against one another instead. And it goes on like this for maybe 200 feet until the direction of the waves fade into the water bobbling and tossing around without any clear direction. I haven’t been everywhere on earth but I’ve never seen waves from the south and the north breaking against one another quite like this anywhere else. It was surreal and beautiful.

I suppose it’s worthwhile to ask the question of just how long one might last if found shipwrecked on Shoe Island. Well, if one ran aground on the little strip of gravel, there’s enough room for a few tents. That’s good. There’s room for a fire pit too though there are no trees and thusly no wood. Sadly, no fire would be had during one’s stay. There are plenty of fish in Lake Michigan, but without a fire they might not go down so easy. Shoe Island Sushi Bar might not be five-star. There is, thankfully, fresh water as this is the northern Caribbean and not the southern one. You could wait it out and see if someone passes by on their way to Beaver or the mainland, though it might be a while as there’s no reason for people to come out this way or the near.

Though sustenance isn’t readily available and survival isn’t so possible on Shoe Island I could have stayed quite a bit longer. Sometimes it’s hard to put feelings into words. Magical? Dreamy? Beautiful? Incredible? These words are fine, but they are only that. They don’t really convey how Shoe Island is or how badly I wanted not to leave, realizing that I probably will never make it back again. I guess this is where photos take over where words fail.

Michigan—Northern Michigan—is the northern Caribbean, and the image of little Shoe Island covered in white gravel and sand surrounded by clear aquamarine water under a bright yellow sun is the greatest testament to that fact.