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December 25, 2005
Island's isolation leads to an independent breed
"This is about as close to living in Alaska as you're going to get." -- Neal Boyle, Beaver Island resident. More photos of Beaver Island: For more photos from Beaver Island, see our photo gallery, "Emerald In White." More stories on Beaver Island: A recent morning haul to the mainland consisted of a few pallets of returnable bottles and cans and boxes of trash, not much when spread across the 130-foot ship's cavernous cargo bay. The return run to the island was a different story. Dockhands on forklifts loaded pallets of cedar siding, roofing shingles, lumber and fiberglass insulation. They packed skids of drywall, sets of new windows and several vehicles. And hundreds of cases of beer. Beaver Island's year-round residents know how to gear up for winter. Winter on the island Few people venture to Beaver Island. Peak summer weekends might lure 2,000 to 3,500 folks to the 15-mile-long by six-mile wide chunk of land in Lake Michigan. The island boasts one city; it sits 32 miles north and slightly west of Charlevoix. Fewer still know it in winter months, when an airplane is the only way to get to or from the island. The ferry stops running in late December, tourists and part-time visitors go home, but a tiny core community lives on, largely forgotten until the lake's ice recedes in spring. The school system's 80 students attend classes. The island's sole grocery store stocks up. The bank is open just two days a week, and the 500 or so residents who make Beaver Island their year-round home hunker down. "This is about as close to living in Alaska as you're going to get," said Neal Boyle, for the past 20 years a full-time island resident. The island has but one town, St. James, and only one room large enough to accommodate community functions - the Holy Cross Parish Hall, that for decades hosted countless reunions, wedding receptions and community theater plays. Islanders joke that when people dance, the hall's old hardwood floor moves with them. On Dec. 20, the Parish hall hosted the annual school Christmas concert. Most of the townsfolk turned out to watch the island's youngsters sing carols. Every student in kindergarten through the sixth grade lined up in three small rows. In the audience, it was standing room only. The McDonough clan, who runs the grocery store, showed up. Bill Cashman, guru of the historical society, was there. The island's only sheriff's deputy stopped by. Before the show, folks milled around under the arched ceiling and caught up with fellow islanders. Winter is about the only time they can do that, after the summer bluster ebbs, said Sheri Timsack, who manages the office of the Beaver Island Boat Company. "In the summer, everybody's always rushing around," she said. "What I like about the winter is the social aspect. We actually get together. We go to each other's house for dinner. We socialize." In summer, everyone works long hours, scraping together enough money to survive the winter. At peak tourist time, the ferry company's five captains work in shifts around the clock, hauling people and freight by day, propane by night. The three McDonough brothers who run the grocery store open the doors at 6:30 a.m. and work until 9 p.m., six days week. "On Sundays, we only have a nine-hour day," said Jim McDonough. "We get out of here, go across the street, get in our boat and go someplace for a few hours. That's the weekend." Life slows in the winter. The local history museum is just down the street from Parish Hall. Cashman keeps the museum open all summer, but in the winter, he doesn't heat the entire building, only his tiny office. Winter visitors who want to see displays can also see their breath. "It's non-stop all summer and then finally things drop off. There's no longer a crowd," he said. "I love the winter because I finally get to do the things that I came here to do." And that, Cashman acknowledged, is "nothing. And that's not a negative. It's a positive." Unique culture Two blue mail boxes stand sentry in front of the St. James post office. One is marked "local," the other "off island." "It ain't too many of us who are in a big hurry to get over to the mainland," said Glen Felixson, the harbormaster. Beaver Island always operates with its own unique culture and set of rules. But that sense is more acute in winter. Stop signs are more helpful suggestion than mandate. Downtown parking is casual. It's not uncommon for half the cars parked along St. James' snow-covered main drag to face the wrong direction. Waving to other drivers on the roads is mandatory, seatbelts aren't. "Seatbelts are optional," said Jim Campbell, the island's sole police officer. "Required, but optional." Monday nights in the winter, Campbell doesn't cruise for speeders. Instead, he patrols the Stoney Acre Grill, clad in apron rather than badge and uniform, and cooks pizzas for customers. He makes his own dough and sauce. Campbell retired several years ago from a downstate police department and heard about the job as a sheriff's deputy on Beaver Island. It's an extension of the Charlevoix County Sheriffs Office, but none of the mainland deputies cared to sign on, Campbell said. "It's so isolated. Nobody was interested in coming over here," he said as he strained a can of mushrooms and spread them over a rectangle of his homemade dough. "It's a unique place to live," he said. Stocking up The ferry ended service for the season on Dec. 23. Until April, everyone and everything bound for Beaver Island must be flown in. Mail arrives daily on the first flight from Charlevoix. But it's impossible to get large items, like a car or a major appliance, on or off the island after Christmas. Smaller items are possible, but expensive, so the island's businesses stock up for the winter. Jeff Powers owns the island hardware store and recently awaited a final delivery due on the season's next-to-last ferry run: drywall, lumber, shingles - goods to keep island contractors busy all winter. "The biggest challenge is trying to anticipate all of the things the builders and (homeowners) will need for the winter," he said. It costs 18 cents a pound to have goods flown over; a gallon of milk at McDonough's Grocery costs $4.25 a gallon, thanks in part to the freight cost. Dated or perishable items must be flown in regularly, typically two or three times a week. Other items are stockpiled for the winter. Cases of toilet paper, soda pop and other items crammed a storage room at Jim McDonough's market last week. A walk-in freezer, normally near-empty most of the summer, was tightly packed with 450 cases of frozen foods. McDonough could barely edge around them, yet he expected two more deliveries on the last ferry trips. "I had 29,000 pounds of stuff on the last shipment, and that was the third order like that in the last three weeks," he said. Privacy and independence Those who ride out the winter take pride in their resourcefulness, on living in a place where the only things more highly valued than independence is peace and quiet and privacy. As harbormaster Felixson put it: "Nobody's going to hold your hand, and nobody's going to entertain you out here." Some of those who move to the island in search of a quiet paradise inevitably retreat to the mainland, defeated. "A certain percentage wind up spending a year and then selling everything and moving off lock, stock and barrel. It isn't for everyone," Cashman said. Teenagers often can't wait to leave. "There's not much to do," said David Bougquet, a high school junior who's lived on Beaver Island since the third grade. "Everybody else can do snowmobiles, but I don't have a snowmobile." With 80 students, Beaver Island Community Schools is the state's smallest public school system, said Superintendent Kathleen McNamara. Their largest class was the '03 bunch. They boasted 11 graduates. Ryan McDonald came up last summer from the Lowell school district downstate, where he was one of 350 faces in his class. He's one of 10 students in Beaver Island's class of 2008. "Everybody has known each other for 10 years," he said. "Even when I graduate, I won't be as good a friends with everyone as they are now" with each other. Younger students can adopt music as a pastime. A violin instructor from Petoskey flies in once a week to teach an orchestral strings program. Older kids mainly turn to sports. There's a coed soccer team, basketball for boys and volleyball for the girls. The Beaver Islanders compete in the Northern Lights League that includes several rural, Upper Peninsula schools and the Mackinac Island Lakers, the Islanders' biggest rival. Volleyball and basketball teams from Mackinac Island flew to Beaver Island Dec. 13 for games. The events began in the afternoon, and school was dismissed early so students could attend. The Islanders' volleyball team won, but the basketball team dropped a 62-60 heartbreaker. Away from school, youngsters hike their snowboards up an island hill or tie a rope to the back of truck or snowmobile and drag one another around snow-covered roads on sleds, said senior Brett Maudrie. Maudrie grew up on Beaver Island and said he wants to attend the Great Lake Maritime Academy in Traverse City after high school, then return to the island. "You don't hear gunshots or sirens everyday," he said. "Everybody knows each other." "I'm going to die here. I'll tell you that much."
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