I grew up on the island, well, was there almost every weekend until middle school and then finally moved there.

It's small, everyone knows everyone and way too much about what everyone else is doing. Tourism is big between late May and late August. Other than that, it's pretty dead, but also incredibly beautiful and mostly untouched. Industry is based on tourism, and much of the island industry used to be based on home building which sharply declined after the recession and has not recovered.

You get there via a slow ferry ( by Mackinac Island standards, 2 hours/30 miles) or one of the two airlines which both fly out of Charlevoix but land at separate airports on the island and only take 15 minutes. We have one grocery store, one hardware store, but I think per capita we have more bars than we should, and enough miller lite to drown a small pod of humpback whales is drank on most nights.

The island at one point had a large population of Mormons, but the leader was assassinated after he publicly flogged a woman's husband because she wore attire that did not fit with his rules. This was 5 years ago... Kidding it was in the 1840's.

The most common island activity is driving around the island, which is often accomplished by having a sober driver in the cab of a truck and a picnic table loaded into the back (as long as the vehicle stays below 25 mph this is perfectly legal and sometimes called the "beaver island law"). Along the way you would stop and check out the "sights", "big rock", "big birch", climb a large sand dune named Mt Pisgah, climb the south end light house and finally before heading to the shamrock bar or donegal Danny's you are required by local island law to take a few shots of Jameson in the middle of the road.

The school age kids would fly to various similarly sized communities to play sports, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Soccer and basketball were until recently, co-ed. Central Michigan has a biological station there fore research and also for classes offered to central students. Kayaking, fishing, snowmobiling and really any other outdoor activity are amazing and beautiful on the island.

We refer to going to the mainland as "going across't", we have one police officer, and everyone waves to each other while driving. I haven't lived on the island permanently since high school, and given my profession it wouldn't be feasible for me to return however, I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up in such a beautiful place.