This is funny, in a sad-funny-because-they’re-bigots kind of way: The Michigan GOP is attacking Abdul El-Sayed, whom they have come to call Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, because someone found a clip from an eight-year-old documentary in which he is heard to mutter that he “hates” Mackinac Island.** The nerve! They spread it to their hand-picked idiot media outlets, which is to say, Michigan Enjoyer and Facebook, and it spread from there.
No one seems to consider that others might feel the same way. I, too, am not fond of Mackinac. Let me sketch my experience with our famed resort island.
As a high-school sophomore, I and two girlfriends were visiting our friend Paul in the Les Cheneaux Islands, 11 miles away across the open water of Lake Huron. It was a three-week visit, and we were looking for things to do besides lounging on the lakeshore and smoking pot. Their boat was a 1941 wooden Chris Craft, roughly 20 feet or so, and it was stressed to us over and over that we could only take it out on “the big lake” if the weather conditions were perfect, flat calm. Plus we were all 16, 17 years old, not an age to make smart decisions. Paul’s mom vetoed the boat, so we drove to St. Ignace and took the ferry, aka the fudgie boat. I think we walked around downtown a little, then caught a departing ferry and returned to Cedarville. An unmemorable trip.
On subsequent trips, we arrived via private vessel. You can smell Mackinac’s distinctive odor, a mix of horse manure and fudge, before you get there. On these trips, we would go to the Pink Pony, one of a handful of infamous bars there. One thing about operating a boat drunk — while bad things can happen, and sometimes do, the fresh breeze in your face has a sobering, or at least awakening, effect. We never worried about Paul or his brother being drunk behind the wheel of that Chris Craft. Although on one trip, which I wasn’t on but heard about later, Paul was really overserved. He and our friend Jeff pulled out of the harbor and Paul drew a bead on some landmark in the far distance, then turned the wheel over to Jeff.
“Go straight to that mark, and do not deviate, no matter what,” he said, then went to the rear seat to lie down. Sometime later, Jeff called back, “Paul? I know you told me not to change course, but are we getting a little close to that freighter?” Ha ha ha. A 90-degree course change and another Mackinac story in the books.
Anyway, I’ve been to the island three times since then. Once to cover the end of the Port Huron-to-Mackinac sailing race for a book I was editing. Once to attend the Mackinac Policy Conference, the annual throwdown hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber. And once with Kate and Alan because visiting Mackinac as a family is something every Michigan resident is required to do. I stayed in St. Ignace for the first trip, at some other hotel for the conference, and at Mission Point resort with the family. My takeaway from all visits: The food is bad almost everywhere, and everything from lodging to cheeseburgers is insanely overpriced. The place extracts the lint from your pockets before you leave.
There were some charming moments. Alan bought a kite for Kate, and they flew it from the wide front lawn of Mission Point. Every time a freighter passed by, happy hour prices prevailed for drinks. The place is pretty; supposedly lilac season there is wonderful, and once you get out of the hot, smelly downtown, it has the northern-Michigan charms of blue water, blue skies and low humidity. You can rent a bicycle and ride the 8-mile perimeter road, which is very pleasant.
The Grand Hotel is the place everyone talks about as the ne plus ultra of Mackinac, and it’s where the policy conference is held. If you can afford a starting in-season rate of $700 a night for a room, and don’t mind the dress code to visit the restaurants, and think “Somewhere in Time” is the most romantic movie ever made, well: It’s for you. If you can’t afford to stay there, and just want to amble down the famous porch, it will cost you $14, or $8 for kids. A one-time NN.c correspondent, Dave Bell, has, or had, a house there, on the bluff beyond the Grand. He said to tell the snoots at the gate that I was visiting the Bells, and they’d let me pass by free of charge. So I did. He wasn’t there, but the caretaker allowed me to wander the area and the barn. He bought a house that came with a horse and several absolutely lovely horse-drawn conveyances, including one made entirely of wicker. I don’t know if he’s still there; he dropped out of sight a while back.
The island runs on seasonal immigrant labor, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn this means pretty white European boys and girls in the customer-facing jobs, and Jamaicans everywhere else.
So that’s my Mackinac experience. I have had my fill of it, and if I never see or smell it again, that’s fine. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that anyone who had the typical hoi-polloi Mackinac experience didn’t care for it. You come north to get away from it all, not to dodge manure shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of tourists from Lansing.
** Finally, I should note that the exact quote was “I hate Mackinac,” and given that’s what a lot of people call the policy conference — “Are you going to Mackinac this year?” — it may well have been what he was talking about. But this is a silly, silly charge to make, and having already given it this many words, why go on?
Here’s a picture of Paul at one of our parties in the Les Cheneaux. RIP, old friend:
Deborah said on August 9, 2026 at 10:52 am
The smell of a mix of horse manure and fudge is such a perfect description. Only been there once, between my junior and senior year of college. It was 32º at night in early June.
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alex said on August 9, 2026 at 11:59 am
When I used to visit, I was into rollerblading and spent most of my time skating around the perimeter of the island or looking at the old mansions and daydreaming about which one I’d want to live in if I were filthy rich.
One day I decided to stop at an ice cream stand and get a treat. Then I went and sat down on a nearby bench. A seagull came up to me squawking, as if to demand food, and when food wasn’t forthcoming it rose up and took a huge shit on my head.
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alex said on August 9, 2026 at 12:37 pm
Another Mackinac memory…
There was a well-to-do Arab gent dressed exquisitely in white linen casual wear and sandals. He had six women in tow, all of them covered from head to toe in black robes, including their faces. No cutouts for their eyes, just heavy veils. This visit coincided with some of the hottest weather I’ve ever experienced in northern Michigan and I imagined it must have been excruciating underneath all of that black fabric. He was carting them around in a chauffeured open carriage and stopping at all of the tourist sites and dragging his ladies around in the full sun. It was most unpleasant to witness.
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David C said on August 9, 2026 at 2:56 pm
One thing I found out about Mackinac Island is they get really testy if you call the Grand Hotel the Grand Motel. The last time I was there, I was 19 or 20 years old. My cousin was 9 or 10. He’s the the one who called it Grand Motel. Some guy, I think he was just another Fudgie, snapped at him “That’s Grand HOTEL, young man. Be more respectful.” So it’s been the Grand Motel in my family ever since.
I walked on their porch when I was a kid and it was free. It’s not that great or eve but grand.
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Jeff Borden said on August 9, 2026 at 4:42 pm
I imagine the Michigan senate race will be wall-to-wall racism and Islamaphobia. What else do the Republikkkans have to offer? Not a thing. My sympathies lie with al-Sayed’s wife, who is going to be dragged horribly by the creeps. Presumably, she is made of stern stuff.
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Ann said on August 9, 2026 at 6:10 pm
I suppose people in St. Ignace care about Mackinac Island because a lot of their economy depends on it, but otherwise I don’t think yoopers ever give it a thought. We certainly don’t claim it as ours; people who think they’ve been to the U.P. because they’ve been to Mackinac Island are just wrong. It’s a crowded overpriced tourist trap for trolls (Michigan word for people who live below the bridge–I know Nancy knows that but others may not) and they can have it. We feel the same way about Door County, Wisconsin. I’ve been once or twice, but not in at least 50 years and have not the slightest urge to go back.
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Jeff Gill said on August 9, 2026 at 7:14 pm
Try Grand Marais, the east end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. And I really enjoyed the Whitefish Point area, with the Shipwreck Museum & Lighthouse there.
Grand Marais has a peculiar attraction which is as unique as you could hope for as a tourist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickle_Barrel_House
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Brandon said on August 9, 2026 at 9:10 pm
My cousin was 9 or 10. He’s the the one who called it Grand Motel. Some guy, I think he was just another Fudgie, snapped at him “That’s Grand HOTEL, young man. Be more respectful.”
That guy sounds constipated. Calling it the Grand Motel (motor hotel) must be ironic because cars are banned on the island.
Are the part-time workers among them? https://enjoyer.com/the-european-hotties-on-mackinac-island-never-forgot-how-to-party/
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kayak woman said on August 9, 2026 at 9:57 pm
Not a Mackinac Island fan. I grew up in Sault Ste. Siberia. We lived in a shabby little bungalow in town except in the summer when we decamped to our seasonal cabin on the Upper St. Marys (no apostrophe) River for the summer. My granddaddy bought a beach there 100 years ago and, amazingly, we (all of my cousins and me) still own it. Back in the day, we (mom and aunts and all of my cousins and me) would do a day trip to Mackinac Island every summer, ride bikes around the island, eat sack lunches, pay 10 cents to use a toilet, etc. It was soooo exciting. But I’ve been over it for years. When I go north, I prefer to sit on the beach or entertain friends and relatives on the deck at my seasonal cabin or go on slow drives along the back roads with my husband and his lawn mowers and chainsaws, maintaining the North Country Trail.
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Gretchen said on August 10, 2026 at 1:36 am
Supposedly he was talking about the policy conference, not the island itself.
Jake Tapper asked him about Trumps’s saying he and Melania were more American than Al-Sayed, and he countered that the difference is the Trumps are out for themselves and don’t like each other, while he and his wife like each other and enjoy spending time together, and want to bring healthcare to everyone.
The couple also made a cute video of themselves cooking together for family and friends, seeming very relatable. And the food looked good.
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David C said on August 10, 2026 at 5:54 am
I wasn’t too fond of either Stevens or al-Sayed, but he’s growing on me. I watched his interview with Tapper, who was being a total asshole, and he handled it with more grace than I could have mustered.
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Dave said on August 10, 2026 at 8:28 am
All this discussion of Mackinac Island, our son and his family are going there later this week with his mother-in-law and her husband. I believe the mother-in-law’s new husband has rented an Air BnB.
We were there once, over thirty years ago now, rented bicycles and rode around the island, which was the highlight. We ate some overpriced food and I remember a family at the next table who looked even more shocked than us when they read the menu. Overpriced indeed.
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