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Michigan/Ontario

The Best of Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island: A Trans-Border Discovery

Program No. 21920RJ

Embark on an adventure between two countries, discovering timeless traditions, natural wonders, historical landmarks and cultural heritage with friendly locals and experts.

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8 days

7 nights

18 meals

7B 6L 5D

Check-in, Registration, Orientation, Welcome Dinner

Traverse City, MI

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Village, Mission Point Lighthouse

Traverse City, MI

Mushroom Houses, Fish Hatchery, Ermatinger Clearge Home

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Bushplane Museum, Metis Interpretive Canoe Experience

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie Canal, St Mary’s Rapids, Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island, MI

Horse-Drawn Carriage, Grand Hotel Lunch, Free Time

Mackinac Island, MI

Morning Lecture, Fort Mackinac

Mackinac Island, MI

Ferry & Transfer to Traverse City Airport, Program Concludes

Traverse City, MI

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At a Glance

Join us for a cross-border learning adventure that takes you from one of the oldest continuous settlements in North America to an island suspended in time. Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada, has been inhabited for thousands of years. Equally ancient Mackinac Island became popular as a vacation destination in the late 19th century. Accessible only by boat and plane, the island maintains its Victorian ambiance with a focus on simple pleasures and a ban on cars. Learn from experts about history, culture, people and achievements through the ages.

Activity Level

Keep the Pace

Walking up to two miles per day, including two nature trail walks. Transportation on Mackinac Island by horse-drawn carriage, walking.

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Recall earlier eras as you explore Mackinac Island by horse-drawn carriage to study its architecture and history with lunch at the Grand Hotel.
Travel to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to view the dunes above Lake Michigan and learn about the geology and ecology of the dune plateau area.
Learn about the importance of the fur trade during a field trip to Ermatinger-Clergue National Historic Site.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Chip Reeves

A Michigander, Chip Reeves is excited to share his local expertise with you in one of the most beautiful parts of the U.S. Chip is a marketing director with 30 years of experience in innovation and international strategy. He is a lifelong student of language and culture that grew from his high school exchange student experience to Japan. He is a guest lecturer and professional facilitator for business and cross-cultural topics. This year, he's celebrating 25 years of marriage with Mamiko and their two boys.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Chip Reeves View biography

Candice Dunnigan View biography

Candi Dunnigan is a longtime resident and equestrian on Mackinac Island. She resides at Easterly Cottage with her family, and an assorted menagerie of horses, dogs, and cats. She has been the weekly equine columnist for The Mackinac Island Town Crier for fifteen years, and served as the first president of the Mackinac Island Horsemen’s Association. A former fox hunter, she enjoys cross country and trail riding more than anything. As an international rider she has ridden in across Europe and in Costa Rica.

Joanie and Gary McGuffin View biography

Joanie and Gary are experienced Canadian guides, explorers and photographers whose epic canoe journeys have spanned the continent. Conservation and adventure photography is their passion.

Kim Johnson View biography

Kim Johnson is a lifelong Michigander. A graduate of Michigan State University, she spent over 30 years as a commercial banker. When she discovered group leading by happenstance, this allowed her to retire early from her banking career, a change that perfectly coincided with her grown sons venturing out on their own career paths. Today, Kim and her husband Greg are both enjoying life as group leaders with both students and adults. Her hobbies include hiking, reading, cycling, pet-sitting, and researching new places to visit.

Tari Intardonato View biography

Tari Intardonato, a born traveler, was a teacher for many years before taking her skills to the road. She enjoys leading field trips with Road Scholar, during which she shares her knowledge and love of presidential libraries, history, textiles, and little out-of-the-way gems. Tari is an avid reader and loves sewing, watching British TV shows, and spending time with her family.

Greg Johnson View biography

Greg Johnson is a native Michigander and a lifelong resident of the Great Lakes region. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and spent 30 years working with people in the retail industry. Always an avid traveler, he changed careers and now pursues his passion for a living. Greg and his wife Kim both enjoy life as group leaders for adult and student travel. His hobbies include sports travel, yard work, family, and pets.

Suggested Reading List (9 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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The Best of Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island: A Trans-Border Discovery

Program Number: 21920

Mackinac Island: Up Close, and Personal

by Dennis O. Cawthorne

This entertaining account of Mackinac Island is equal parts memoir and history as Cawthorne sets his experiences (as a carriage driver, chamber of commerce manager, state legislator, restaurateur and attorney) within the island’s last 50 years.

Moon Michigan (Travel Guide)

by Paul Vachon

Moon Michigan reveals the best of the Great Lakes States’ charming small towns, vibrant urban hubs, and vast, untouched wilderness. Inside this guide you’ll find full coverage of Michigan, from Detroit and Ann Arbor to Mackinac Island and the Upper Peninsula.

My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island: Maude’s Mooring

by Carrie Fancett Pagels

Although the Winds of Mackinac Inn has been in her mother’s family for generations, Maude Welling’s father refuses to let her run it without the guidance of a husband. So she seeks to prove her worth and independence by working incognito as a maid at the Grand Hotel. Undercover journalist Ben Steffans, posing as a wealthy industrialist, pursues a story about impoverished men chasing heiresses at the famed hotel. While undercover, he becomes attracted to an intriguing maid. By an act of heroism Ben endears himself to the closed-mouthed islanders—including Maude—and he digs deep for his story. But when scandal threatens, will the growing love between Maude and Ben be scuttled when truths are revealed?

Traverse City, Michigan: A Historical Narrative, 1850 – 2013

by Richard Fidler

One hundred-sixty-five years ago the Boardman River emptied its waters into the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay amid a vast forest of white pines, red pines, and oak trees. But for occasional villages of Odawa Indians, the area was largely uninhabited, the currents of history taking white settlers to places south and west of this isolated place at the end of a long peninsula. Sixty years later, the forests had disappeared, replaced by factories, vast retail stores made of brick, an Asylum, churches, schools, and residences as a primitive settlement grew into a small town. In time, the community shrank as residents moved away in search of better lives elsewhere in Michigan, many of them moving to the more prosperous southern part of the state. Still, change was not done: people began to return, seeking the grace the land and water offered them as they reinvented the basis upon which their lives were built. is is the story of Traverse City, Michigan and it is the story of this book.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

by Dan Egan

Egan explores the past, present, and future of the Great Lakes and their ecologies using insightful research and political commentary.

Sault Saint Marie (Images of America: Michigan)

by Deidre Stevens

Sault Ste. Marie was destined to be a gathering place. Native Americans relied on the rapids of the St. Mary’s River, which links two Great Lakes, Superior and Huron, for a year-round supply of fish. Its population swelled in the summer—a tradition that continued as French traders came to turn in their pelts and celebrate the end of another long, hard winter. After the Revolutionary War, the Sault, as it is called, became a community divided on national lines, with the United States holding one shore and Canada the other. Eventually man conquered the rapids, and today the Soo Locks transport millions of tons of freight annually to ports all over the world. Tourists are drawn by the cool breezes off the lake and the sight of steel behemoths passing almost close enough to touch.

Mackinac Island (Images of America)

by Tom North

From historical richness to unparalleled natural beauty, Michigan's Mackinac Island is the crown jewel of the Great Lakes, unique in America. Native American visitors preceded French explorers and missionaries of the 17th century. Forts were established and battles fought between American and British soldiers. Commerce, including fur trading and fishing, later surpassed military importance, in turn yielding to the tourism industry that has dominated the past 150 years. Includes black-and-white photos.

Masters of Empire, Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America

by Michael McDonnell

In his well-received history, McDonnell explores the Great Lakes region from the perspective of the Anishinaabeg tribe that controlled Mackinac Island, an essential hub between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. His study discusses rivalries, trade networks, kinship and the effects of the American Revolution.

Perimeter, A Contemporary Portrait of Lake Michigan

by Kevin J. Miyazaki

An insightful series from photographer Kevin Miyazaki’s 1,800-mile journey around Lake Michigan. The work gives much to peruse and ponder from faces and outfits to tools and toys, but mostly the lake itself.

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The Best of Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island: A Trans-Border Discovery

Enroll with Confidence

Protecting the Environment

At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

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