The Man-Killing Clam Is Michigan's Best Tourist Trap

Cheboygan — There’s a point somewhere on your journey north where you start to feel a little drowsy. The black coffee has finally worn off, and the hum of the engine is lulling you to sleep. On I-75, in the middle nowhere, in that dead zone between Indian River and Mackinaw City, you start to drift in and out as you struggle to remain awake.

But then a giant clam appears in front of your bloodshot eyes. Somewhere in the distance a billboard reveals itself. Threatening and enticing, you are alert once again. The image of a crooked closed clamshell. “MAN KILLING 500 LB CLAM” is painted next to the giant beast. “EXIT NOW” is written below commanding you to pull off and witness this monstrous beast drawn from the watery netherworld.

You don’t know if it’s the weariness of the road, a temporary lapse in normally prudent judgement, or a base raw desire to witness the 500-pound monstrous sea creature, but whatever it is you turn on your blinker, bump over potholes, and park your car in the lot at Sea Shell City in hopes of seeing this fabled man-killing clam.

You’ve come this far, you ache to see this mollusk, and yet you aren’t there. Not yet. The journey continues. Passing through the front door you find yourself in a dizzying land of all things nautical. You wander past old fishing nets begging to be inspected, or at least grabbed for grabbing’s sake. The wheels of huge ships hang on the wall. Wooden model sailboats with white sails and little flags. Brass bells beckon the sailor. Huge boxes of shells of every shape, color, and size dance in front of your frantic eyes.

Where is the clam? Was it all a dream?

And then, finally, on the back wall, near a simple jewelry counter with a small fish tank on its end, next to a wooden parrot and a shark’s head, you see it. It’s the clam, the 500-pound man-killing clam. It’s set on a table with a beautifully ornate royal blue cover. There are lights emanating from within. Decorative seaweed and sea-flora hide inside. It’s real.

Above this now memorialized immobile beast hangs a plaque with all the necessary information to help you, weary traveler, understand what it was that brought you to this point.

The plaque tells us that the clam called by the scientific name Tridacna Gigas, is the “second largest member of the phylum Mulluska, is exceeded in size only by the giant squid, and is therefore the largest mollusk with another shell in all the world.” This clam came to Sea Shell City by way of the Philippines. The plaque further clarifies that while legend has it that this giant clam may possess the raw strength needed to crush a man’s skull with one single snap, it would “rather feast on a dinner of algae.”

No, this giant clam held kindly under the fluorescent lights at Sea Shell City was never a threat to you or your family. But it is pretty big, and it is pretty cool, and Sea Shell City is worth a stop on your way up north.

I visited Sea Shell City to examine the giant clam myself on a Sunday in early April. There was still snow on the ground, the wind was biting, but inside it looked like summer, kind of. There is so much nautical stuff. If you want to redecorate a bedroom or a bathroom or maybe even a whole house in a sea theme, you could probably get it all done at Sea Shell City.

I took my kids and they loved it. They freaked out at just about every other thing they saw. They were constantly calling to me, “Dad, look!” The alligator heads, the stuffed coyote, the pirate flags, the models, the bells, the shells, the huge clam and everything else I can’t remember.

Sea Shell City was originally opened in 1957 on Old 27 in Gaylord. It was conceived of as a tourist stop. Everyone on their way to Mackinac Island had to pass it and business was good. But when I-75 was built, the traffic disappeared and business slowed. So in 1963, Sea Shell City packed up their man killing clam and all their inventory with it and moved over to their present location on Levering Road, right off the interstate, and right on the way up north.

Sea Shell City is a tourist trap in the best way imaginable. It’s somehow kind of midcentury and oddly comforting in that way. The Soo is like that a little, so is Mackinaw City. The billboard with the fearful image of the clam. The command to “exit now.”The shelves filled with so much stuff you can’t help but find some knick knack you might want to take back home. That it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere, right in the spot where you just need some place to pull off, stretch your legs, and let the kids run around.

And so that’s what we did. We saw the clam up close and personal, I stretched my legs, the kids ran around, my son bought some shells, and I bought a 1,00-piece jigsaw puzzle of the infamous man killing clam and a Sea Shell City keychain for $1.95.

A nautical oasis off I-75 in the wooded metaphorical desert of the north, and a fun stop on your way to the bridge.