Michigan’s Darkest Skies Are Above Beaver Island
Recently designated an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, this remote island will even provide free telescopes.
If you’re hiking on Beaver Island, Michigan, and happen upon a telescope wrapped in a tarp, look around for a note. It’ll inform you that if you return to this very spot after the sun goes down, that telescope will be put to use in an organized stargazing event, that you’re free to join. It’s a decent advertising strategy—the telescope method, Bill Markey has found, has been one of the more efficient ways to get the word out.
“Nobody bothers it,” says Markey, astronomy enthusiast and volunteer administrator of the Beaver Island Dark Sky Project Facebook group, the driving force behind almost 80 percent of Beaver Island’s 55 square miles becoming Michigan’s first and the world’s 20th International Dark Sky Sanctuary this past April. “A number of people this year have seen the telescope and sign and have come back later. That's exactly what we want.”
On September 20th, to mark six months since Beaver Island received the coveted designation, the group will formally dedicate the site in a ceremony with snacks and a few speakers. It culminates a process that took five years and multiple reams of paper—even though certifying the island was a no-brainer, due to its remoteness and lack of light pollution. Dark Sky Sanctuaries are typically found in distant, hard-to-reach areas, with the goal being conservation (a goal shared by the Michigan State Wildlife Research Area, which is now within the confines of the sanctuary.) Beaver Island is the largest and most isolated of the islands in Lake Michigan, with just 600 year-round inhabitants in the low season (over 5,000 in the summer months).
Beaver Island’s remoteness is tangible, you can set your own personal episode of Alone here among its fields, forests, and dune-grass beaches. Residents are attracted to the solitude. There are three hotels and just a handful more stores, including one supermarket and another that pulls triple duty as a hardware store, gift shop, and veterinarian’s office. To get here in the summer high season, most visitors take a two-hour ferry from Charlevoix. Otherwise, there are two small airlines that service the airport which, surprisingly, has three runways (one asphalt and two turf).
The tourism tends to be of the historic, or nature-focused kind. Visitors come here to see the 19th-century lighthouse, or for camping, hiking the trails, spotting unusual plants, and water activities on Lake Michigan—kayaking, paddleboarding, jet skiing, snorkeling, scuba, and the like. Their visitor’s guide lists “hammocking” as an activity. If you’re bored, you can spot the cars that have been sunken around the perimeter of the harbor to create fish habitats. “You may have heard of Mackinac Island, which is super tourism,” says Markey. “Here, essentially, you entertain yourself.”
But now the dark sky certification may attract new visitors, whether or not the residents want it. “We're remote, that’s the way people like it,” says Markey. “Even though their livelihood depends on people coming here—construction, restaurants, bars, and services—they want to keep it low-key. They don't want a tourism influx, and they’re very resistant, because it is remote. We're not built up. It's tough.”
And more infrastructure isn’t coming any time soon. “The state doesn't have any money, except in small amounts, to contribute to whatever infrastructure that we want to build,” says Markey.
Nevertheless, astronomers have been making their way to the island for some time now, knowing that an island thriving with deer, migratory birds, wolf-sized coyotes, its own research area and, sure, beavers, must mean that the light is low and skies are inky black. In other words, there would be terrific stargazing. “There've been some people who moved here, who bought property and moved here, and they said [the skies] were part of the reason,” says Markey. “It's very natural, very wild, and part of that is the night sky.”
A state official who vacations on the island once told him that it’s not just the night skies, but the quiet. “And it's true. When you step outside, you hear the wind and the trees and the wildlife,” says Markey. “What you don't hear is an expressway.”
Beaver island itself dates back 11,000 years, but humans have been passing through for at least 2,200 years, when the indigenous tribes first used it as a thru-way, as recalled by the Odawas (Ottawas) tribes who migrated and settled on the island in the 1700s. White trappers and traders made their way there in the 1800s, fishing and cutting wood for passing steamers.
Though the island has had few residents throughout the years, it does have a famous one. In 1847 Jesse James Strang, a converted Mormon (after a fateful meeting with Joseph Smith), descended upon Beaver Island, accompanied by a band of religious followers. The island’s town of St. James was established in his name, and the group soon grew so large they elected him to the state legislature. Strang is also the most famous example of island possessiveness: After muscling out all the non-Mormons, he crowned himself King of the island, which makes him the only King ever crowned in the United States.
Strang was eventually assassinated by two disgruntled followers and, eight years later, the Mormons were run off the island. In a final wave of immigration to the island, Irish fishermen turned up to reap the underwater bounty. They nicknamed the place “America’s Emerald Isle,” and today their descendents still make up a majority of Beaver Island’s population.
Markey himself is a transplant, having moved to the island for work over four decades ago, undeterred by the fact that it is widely considered the most remote place to live in Michigan. “There was an uptick in the construction business, and my family came here,” he says. “We liked it, and stayed. Now the kids are gone but everybody comes back for vacation.”
He’s now retired, and days consist of hiking, bicycling, writing, organizing, and “dodging emails.” But also, increasingly, planning astronomy events. The dark skies are now built into the fabric of the island: It’s the first image you see on the website, and the community calendar helpfully lists the constellations that are visible that night, with illustrations. At stargazing events telescopes belonging to members of the Beaver Island Dark Sky Project are set up for public use, if you don’t have your own gear. Many favor binoculars. On Beaver Island, even the naked eye is good enough. The rift in the Milky Way here looks unreal; constellations feel close enough to touch. Meteor showers are out of this world. It’s not uncommon to see people pulled off to the side of the road gazing upward at astronomical phenomena.
Recently the auroras have been unusually active, especially through April, when the nights get longer. The next goal of the astronomers is to reduce what little light pollution that the island does have, to eventually be certified a Dark Sky Community—towns, cities, or otherwise organized neighborhoods that have committed to preserving the night sky, and educating its members.
It’s a lofty goal that will mean swapping out the bulbs they have for dark sky compliant light fixtures, and implementing downward-facing lights in new constructions to not disturb wildlife. “We're hoping to have a monetary fund, where, when somebody wants to change their lights, we can supply the fixtures and pay for the electrician,” says Markey. But most of all for Beaver Island, it will mean convincing the non-astronomers on the island that making the changes will be a worthwhile cause. “It will take some education. In the state of Michigan, you can't force somebody to change their lights,” says Markey. “The language right now is not as strong as we would like, so we're working on it.”