September 21, 2022 • 37 mins
Special LIVE Bonus Episode from Michigan Paracon. We take a step back in time to Mackinac Island, where automobiles are banned, but ghosts are a'plenty. Special Guest: Todd Clements
We will return with season four of Haunted Road Soon. In the meantime, don't miss Amy's fall speaking tour - details at amy-bruni.net.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to haunted road, the production of I heart radio
and grim and mild from Aaron minky listener. Discretion is advised.
Please welcome to the stage. Ready to bring you down
the haunted road, the one and the only Miss Amy Brunei.
(00:29):
Are you guys ready? All Right, here we go. Years
Ago I was prepping for a party. I know this
may come as a surprise to you me prepping for
a party, but this wasn't any party. This was a
Halloween Costume Party. I had a large group in a
hotel that would be attending, so I was in the
(00:51):
hotel ballroom getting set up for the festivities which would
be taking place the next night. Everyone who had assisted
me throughout the day had taken their leave and I
was just getting a few last minute things taken care
of before I was due to meet them for dinner.
As I was fiddling with some projectors, I suddenly heard
a door open and close, which I didn't think much
of until it was followed by the sound of footsteps
(01:13):
approaching behind me very quickly, quickily enough that it alarmed
me and I spun around to see if someone had
returned and needed something. Except when I spun around, no
one was there. Every hair on the back of my
neck set up and just moments later, the projectors I
had been trying to get to work all turned on
at once. It didn't help that they were projecting images
(01:34):
of zombies on the walls for the party. With that,
I snapped off the projectors, grabbed my belongings and made
a hasty retreat out of that room. If you know
me well, you know that if I get scared or nervous,
I whistle a happy song, because clearly nothing bad can
happen to you if you're whistling a happy tune. So
you better believe I was whistling away as I speed
(01:56):
walked my way down the halls of the hotel trying
to make my exit. But even when I reached the
safety of the outdoors, I didn't feel alone, and I
know now that's just how you feel all the time
when you're visiting the very beautiful and very haunted mackinaw island.
(02:19):
I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to haunted road in the
waters of Lake Huron, between Michigan's upper and lower peninsula's sit's,
a tiny island that is one of the most haunted
places in America. Just four point three five square miles,
(02:40):
macanna island is a place out of time, one where
life exists as it did hundreds of years ago, where
there are no cars, just horses and carts for transportation,
and where the ghosts are now as much a part
of day to day goings on as they were when
they were alive. But it's haunted history isn't the only
thing that makes macana island remarkable. The land itself might
(03:01):
be tiny, but it's stunning. High cliffs wore above the
ocean like lake, with geological formations like Sugarloaf, Skull Rock
and Arch Rock, a natural limestone arch nearly one fifty
feet above the ground. The island has been drawing vacationers
by the tens of thousands every year to experience what
a truly unique and extraordinary place it is. But make
(03:23):
no mistake, there are lots and lots of ghosts. The
Island is so haunted that, according to reporting from a
Michigan newspaper group, mackinaw island is by far the most
haunted town per capita in the United States, with sixteen
haunted locations for its population of only four hundred. Seventy
eight people. The native ojibway people's originally named mackinaw island Nichi.
(03:46):
Mackinac the O Ge way word for big turtle, because
they thought the islands shape mimicked the shape of a
turtle shell. The first French settlers kept the Ojibway name,
but once the English arrived in the area they shortened
the name to simply mackinaw. In the Lansing State Journal
Kathleen leavy wrote, most people associate macanna island with the
Victorian era vibe, the car free joy of horse drawn
(04:08):
wagons and Bicycles and shopping for candy and souvenirs along
Market Street, which neglects a few thousand years of the
island's history. In fact, native honest namic peoples from the Odawa,
Ojibway and Poetomi tribes lived undisturbed on Macana island for
what local tribal experts estimate could be as long as
three thousand years. According to the biddlehouse project, which developed
(04:32):
the Macana island native American Museum, Macanna Island has been
a sacred and historically significant place for Anishnak people for centuries,
for a very long time. According to an article in
spiritual travels. Macana island was the center of the NISHNA world.
Ceremonies were held on the island to celebrate the changing
seasons and to pay respect to the spirits who resided here.
(04:54):
These powerful beings controlled the lakes and appropriate actions needed
to be taken to ensure that the fishing remain plentiful
and that travelers could cross the water safely. Greg Newkirk,
who shout out Greg New Kirk, wrote per week and
weird that researchers believe that the island not only served
as a prime fishing location, but that the Annishnak tribes
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considered it a sacred place, believing it to be home
to the great spirit. The Great Lakes in general have
been a historically sacred native location, but mackinaw, along with
nearby round island and Boy Blanc Island in the Straits
of mackinac, were especially significant because they were used as
ancient anish burial browns. This is where a lot of
the stories about mackinaw islands ghost stories originate. The annishnabak
(05:39):
used the island to bury their debt, which meant that
their ancestors lived there, as well as spirits according to
spiritual travels, after a burial, the dead were honored with
ceremonies that were described as feasts of the dead by
the French explorers and Jesuit priests who came to the
region in the seventeenth century. This practice continues to this
day among native communities in North Their Michigan, in a
(06:00):
tradition known as ghost suppers. While some of the remains
have been removed and repatriated to tribal councils, many remains
are still buried on the island. Things began to change
on macanna island in the seventeenth century when the first
colonists began to arrive and disrupt the peaceful life on
the island. French Canadian explorers arrived in sixteen thirty four.
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In the decades that followed, the area became an important
fur trading site for French colonists. During the French and
Indian war, from seventeen fifty four to seventeen sixty three,
the French lost control of macanna island to the British,
who then built fort mcinnaw on the island's high bluffs
in seventeen eighty. The site was formerly a trading post
but served as a British fortification during the revolutionary war.
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Though the British lost control of the Ford after that war,
the fight for control of the island was far from over.
In fact, a British attempt to regain the island was
the first act of aggression in the war of eighteen twelve.
Before news had even reached the island that war had
been to laired. According to mackinaw dot com, in July
of eighteen twelve, a British force landed secretly on the
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far north end of mackinaw island and forced the United
States to surrender fort mcanaw in the first engagement of
that conflict. It's also believed that the British murdered more
than seventy native people during this war. Americans attempted to
retake the island in eighteen fourteen, but couldn't penetrate the
British defenses perched high on the cliffs. Macanaw island officially
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became United States territory by the treaty ending the war
in Eighteen fifteen, and fort mcannaw remained in use until
the end of the nineteenth century. According to macinaw Dot
Com's history of the island. In eighteen twenty two, fort
mckinnaw's post surgeon, William Beaumont, saved the life of Alexis
St Martin after an accidental shotgun blast tore a hole
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in the young voyager's stomach. When the whole never completely healed,
the physician observed firsthand what happens when food is digested
in the stomach. His published experiments made medical history. The
period it after the war of eighteen twelve was a
time of great change on the island. Macinaw became the
center of John Jacob Astor's American fur company and supplied
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beaver pelts to America and Europe's fashionable elite for more
than thirty years. It was also around this time that
Christian missionaries arrived on the island. In eighteen twenty three,
William Montague ferry and his wife Amanda founded a mission
on the southeasternmost part of the island, which has come
to be known as mission point. Two years later, missionaries
built the mission house, a spare two story building that
(08:30):
still stands today. The house was designed as a Boarding
School for native American children to learn manual crafts and
Liberal Arts and to adopt the standards and living panterns
characteristic of New England and the American East Coast. Throughout
this time, a nishnabek people still comprised the majority of
the island's population, but that wouldn't last much longer. One
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of the most important figures on macana island in the
nineteenth century was Agatha biddle. Eric Hemn Way, the archival
director for the old traverse bay bands of Odawa Indians,
said when Agatha was a child Michigan was almost exclusively
native American. By the time she was an elderly woman
in the late eighteen hundreds, natives were the vast minority
(09:13):
and had lost most of their land. Agatha saw firsthand
the complete transformation of aneshnabe life and culture. An honest
navik woman, Agatha married Philadelphia and Edward biddle, and the
couple ran a fur trading business on the island. As
Hem and way explained, she controlled the family business. She
set the prices, negotiated with fur traders and hosted functions
(09:35):
at her home. The two lived in the biddle house
built around seventeen eighty, which is the oldest standing structure
on the island today. It was a major center of
life on mackinaw. During the wars, Hem and way explained
Agatha was likely torn. Her business interests forced her to
remain neutral, but the Oji way and Odawa peoples were
adamantly against the Americans and supported the British in the war.
(09:58):
In eighteen thirty six U S government created the Treaty
of Washington. According to an article in Indian country today,
through this treaty, the Odawa and Chippewa of Northern Michigan
seeded about sixteen million acres to the U S government.
In return, the government allowed these tribes to stay in
Michigan on small reservations and access natural resources. However, when
(10:20):
the treaty was brought to the island to be signed,
with four thousand honest Nabe people gathered to witness the signing,
the document had been changed. Instead of granting the tribe's
access to the landgoing for, the government had added language
saying that they would only be granted access for five years,
after which the government could remove the native Americans at
the discretion of the president. Indian agent Henry schoolcraft promised
(10:44):
the tribes people that would never happen. which is two
years later, Hem and way explained, they were ordered off
the island. Frank Strauss, writing for the mackinaw island town crier,
suggested that it was Agatha and her family that might
have helped to keep the Annesh Nabe people in their
ancestral home. Her senior standing on the island helped to
forge relationships between native hunters and American capitalists. He wrote.
(11:07):
This may have helped ensure that the Odawa and the
Annesh Nabe were not forced to move westward in the
eighteen thirties and forties. Many of her kinfolk were too
valuable as participants in the Michigan Territory Economy. Eighteen fifty
five Treaty of Detroit further cemented the native Americans claims
to the land, though it was still the basis of
lawsuits to regain reservation land as recently as twenty nineteen.
(11:29):
As the nineteenth century progressed, the island shifted from being
a center of fur trading to focusing more on the
fishing industry. By the Victorian era, macanna island had become
one of the area's most fashionable and in demand summer
resorts in the country. According to Eugene t Peterson, writing
for macinaw Dot Com's history section. It was the Victorians
(11:50):
who made mackinaw island one of the nation's most favored
summer resorts. In the post civil war age and before automobiles,
vacationers traveled by large lake excursion boats from Buffalo, Cleveland,
Chicago and Detroit to the cooler climbs of macanaw island.
They danced to Strauss waltz's, listened to Sosa's stirring marches,
dined on whitefish and strolled along the broad decks. In
(12:12):
the eighteen nineties, the Wa Washkimo Golf Course was built
and around this time an automobile ban was implemented on
the island that remains in place now. In eighteen ninety five,
all the federal land on the island became macanaw island
state park, Michigan's first State Park. With that designation came
strict guidance that all private development and all these holders
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were required to maintain the distinctive Victorian architecture in place
on the island. To this day, historic preservation and restoration
are highly prioritized on the island. According to macinaw DOT COM.
In recent years the historical sites and Fort Buildings, such
as the officers stone quarters, have been restored to their
original condition and brought to life through Dioramas, period settings,
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guided tours and reenactments for the benefit of the thousands
of summer visitors. Those visitors can also explore the native
American cultural history trail, an eight mile road that runs
the perimeter of the island and details the history and
significance of the island. It's also famous for its many,
many hauntings. According to mysterious universe, mackinaw seems to be
(13:16):
as crowded with ghosts as it is with visitors, so
much so that it is often said that the dead
outnumber the living here. The most infamous of the island's
paranormal hot spots is the drowning pool, a perilously deep
lagoon full of seaweed, where a man became tangled in
the vegetation and drowned in the late nineteen seventies. But
(13:36):
that's not the worst story about the drowning pool. According
to a history book of macinaw's haunted legends by Ken Hadad,
in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, seven women
were accused of being witches back in those days, one
of the methods used for determining if someone was a
witch or not was to tie rocks to their feet
and throw them into the water to see if they
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would float or not. If they sank, they were deemed
in a scent. All of them sank and drowned. To
this day, visitors to the drowning pool report mysterious splashing,
shadows and dark figures rising above the surface and a
deep feeling of dread at the place. The Grand Hotel
is another of the island's most notoriously haunted places. Legend
(14:17):
says that construction workers uncovered extensive human remains while digging
the hotel's foundation. Greg newkirk's retelling says that they began
to find so many human skeletons that they lost track
of them all. To this day, rumors persist that the workers,
increasingly unsure of how to handle the situation, simply gave
up on collecting the bones and started building the hotel anyway.
(14:41):
In the hotel, people report seeing a man in a
top hat playing the piano in the bar and of
a woman in Victorian clothing who roams the hotel's employee housing.
People also report seeing an evil entity which presents as
a black mass with glowing red eyes. New Kirk wrote.
As two maintenance men performed a check of the hotel's
theater stage, one of them was struck with the overwhelming
(15:02):
feeling that something was watching them, something that he could
only describe as evil. As he looked out over the stage,
he noticed two glowing red eyes peering from a dark
shadow hovering above the theater floor. As he watched in horror,
the black form began to rush toward him, knocking him
off his feet. Two days later the man awoke in
a hospital and swore to never return to the grand
(15:24):
what was once a World Conference Center for an Evangelist
Group and then a college, is now the mission point resort.
As Greg New Kirk wrote, the resort's most popular ghost
is that of a student nicknamed Harvey, who died in
the late sixties. As the official story goes, Harvey, the
victim of a broken heart, made his way to the
bluffs behind the resort, pulled a gun and shot himself.
(15:45):
His body wasn't discovered for six months. When I was
researching Harvey on ghost hunters, I found Harvey's real identity,
but his family asked that we keep a private harvey
shows up in mission points, theater, where visitors report being
pinched and poked. Say He's a joker who likes to
play tricks on people, but given the mysterious circumstances around
his death, he could also be trying to communicate something.
(16:08):
You see, Harvey died from not one but two gunshots
to the head, and the gun was found nowhere near
his body. Many visitors to the island reports seeing the
apparition of a girl named Lucy, who has curly hair
and wears a sun dress. She's been spotted following people
on the staircase at the crow's nest trail, peeking out
of windows at the pine cottage and walking around the
(16:28):
island House hotel, where she's often spotted in the theater
and auditorium. Not Much is known about who Lucy could be,
but according to mysterious universe, Legend has it that Lucy
became sick on the island while her parents were in
Detroit on business and she died before they could return.
There are no official records of her passing, but record
keeping on the island wasn't consistent before nineteen hundred. But
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by far the most haunted location on mackinaw island is
Fort mckinnaugh. According to Brett Swansor, writing for a mysterious universe,
fort mckinnaugh Ist in death. The very wall seemed stained
by it, and that death has left its mark, as
Greg New Kirk wrote, for a planet weird. From apparitions
of soldiers glimpsed walking the rifle range trail to piles
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of Phantom limbs spotted in the hospital, to furniture that
moves on its own, tripping motion detectors and office or
hills apartment quarters, the fort has no shortage of paranormal activity.
The fourth's hospital dates back to making it the oldest
hospital building in Michigan. There people died from battle injuries,
but also from illnesses that crude nineteenth century medical practice
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couldn't properly treat. At least thirteen children of soldiers stationed
that the fort died in the hospital from everything from
typhoid fever to tuberculosis. They were all buried in the
forts cemetery and Ken Haddad's haunted history of mckinna island,
he wrote in the hospital. Some have felt feelings of
sadness and have seen apparitions of Phantom limbs. The sound
of crying babies is often heard, along with mysteriously moved furniture,
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and motion detectors set off with no one or round.
People often report feeling sad in the hospital and say
they smell the stench of sickness and death. The fort
had a dungeon for prisoners called the black hole, or
at least one person died in captivity. A soldier stationed
at the fort committed suicide in eighty three people report
feeling cold spots there, even in summer, and people frequently
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photographed strange anomalies in the space. According to Tour Guide
Carl Simpson, it's believed that several ghosts haunt the fort,
including two children whose father was stationed there and the
Phantom Piper heard playing on misty mornings at the north
entryway and the officers quarters. Children are reportedly seen playing
with toys and people often experience furniture moving and hearing
babies cry. In the cemetery, Brett swansor wrote, the apparition
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of a woman can sometimes be seen weeping at the
grave of one of the children who died here, eternally
lamenting her loss. But here to talk more in depth
of the hauntings on mackinaw is my good friend Todd Clemens,
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paranormal author and owner of haunts of mackinaw tours. So
come on out, todd. Hello. Did I get it all right?
It correctly? All right, I met todd years ago when
we were filming ghost hunters on Macana Island. We decided
(19:29):
it would be a good idea to film on macinaw
island in January. Yeah, and uh, as todd informed me backstage,
I didn't realize this, but while we were there the
temperature got down to negative. It was. It actually is
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an experience to be out there in the middle of winter.
There's very few people. There's obviously residents and then, Um,
we met a few like writers and artists who kind
of hide away for the winter, or maybe someone running
from the law or two. I felt like it actually
has happened. Yeah, there was one night I remember distinctly.
We had a day off and I wanted to see
(20:11):
the Grand Hotel, but you can't get there, and so todd.
Actually it was like the middle of the night at
this point, because I think we were probably at the
bar and there was a full moon and we took
the snowmobile up to the Grand Hotel and I tell
you what, that hotel illuminated by the moon and all
that's like, the snow banks and stuff. It was one
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of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. So that's
nothing like it. So thank you for that. It was
a really good memory. All right. So you obviously are
very familiar with the Hans on mckinna. Tell me what
what has been your most kind of startling experience there?
(20:53):
I know it's hard to pick one. Probably I've had experiences.
I tried to be brave because usually I'm with of
guests or someone who's never done it before and I'm like,
I gotta be the tough guy here because they're freaking
out and I gotta be the sanity in the room. Um,
the one it was startling but I had to remain quiet,
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was in the mission point theater. We had one of
our ghost tours going and one of the stops was
in the theater and we had about thirty people sitting
towards the front. The tour guide was on the stage
telling the ghost stories of the theater and I snuck
in in the back. I'm dressed all in black. I
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was doing basically a tour check, see how the tour
guides are doing, make sure everything's accurate, they're presenting everything right,
and nobody knew I was coming. Nobody knew I was there.
I'm standing in the very far back of the theater,
your projection booth, and watching it fine. They were doing
great and all of a sudden, in my peripheral vision,
not more than a foot and a half next to me,
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there's a man standing there and I'm like, I started
looking over and as as I was looking towards him,
the more I look directly at him, he vanished. He
slowly just disappeared. But in my peripheral vision, not only
was he standing there, he was shifting his weight from
foot to foot, he crossed his arms, he's moving, he's
(22:20):
watching the tour guide on the stage, because I could
see his head was facing that way. He was wearing
a t shirt that had horizontal stripes on it. I
mean short buzz cut hair, which harvey had short buzz
cut hair, and I'm assuming it was him, was blonde,
blond hair. So I was like, I think this is
harvey standing next to me. Now I wanted to yell
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toront pictures, pictures to everybody was sitting in front, but
I knew we would wind up having a cleaning crew
coming through later because they're on a ghost tour. They're
hearing things that are petrifying some of them who've never
had experience with anything paranormal before, and I'm telling them,
yelling from the back of the room, turn around, take
a picture, turn around. So I just stood there and
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kind of experienced it. It felt like forever, probably thirty seconds,
but I'm just like, this is a ghost standing right
next to me, this is harvey. What do I do?
I can't do anything about it. That was one of
my experiences. I was just like this is it was.
So that's where I had. So mission point resort is
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where I had the experience I was talking about in
the beginning with the footsteps running up behind me, and
I think that was probably attributed to Harvey. It was
kind of like playful, but like I mean, I was
genuinely I thought someone either was playing a prank on
me when I turned around or someone like was gonna
get me, you know, and so um and I know
(23:46):
like we filmed there, obviously for ghosteners, like I was saying,
and there are rooms where the lights will come on
on and so there was one night where Jay had
a camera set up and the his light kept turning
on and off. This room the lamp and fun fact,
someone stole that lamp after the episode. Air Terrified. The
(24:08):
first week the resort was open, the lamp disappeared. Someone
grabbed it. Yep, so someone somewhere has a haunted lamp
that they should be returning or donated to Dana and Gregg.
It's actually Greg and Dana's museum. That's gree Um. Okay.
(24:29):
So that I think that mission point is maybe kind
of underrated as far as Hans go there, because people
do think of the Grand Hotel, which Adam and I,
whenever we go to mackinaw which strange escapes, will be
returning their next fall. Um, whenever we go there we
always make a point to have a cocktail in the
COOPOLA bar at the Grand Hotel. Yeah, I call it
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the rest stop because when I go home at night
that's halfway between home at work. So we'll go up
there a sunset when it's beautiful, but the staff has
gotten to know US enough because they have we haven't
been since pre covid but they always have. Um, most
of the staff, I believe they come in from Jamaica,
and so they come back every year and they recognize
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us and they told us they are terrified of the
employee housing. They're like they don't like to talk about it,
but and they're not supposed to talk about it, but
they talk about it to Adam and me and they
have something, some stories. All right. So if you're going
to visit macinaw and you want to experience a haunting,
where do you go? Hmm, the whole island. Stay overnight. Always.
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A lot of people come during the day. It's a
totally different places. At night it goes from more or
less Disney world crowds, like crowded, crowded, crowded people everywhere
and as soon as that last fairy leaves it thins out.
It's quiet. You can actually feel like the tranquility of
the island at night. And Uh, I know it's hard. No.
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So the drowning pool? Is that the urban legend, by
the way? Yeah, well, that's why I cited people who
said it. So that didn't come from me. So, but
that being said, the rumor drowning pool is that that's
on the grounds at mission point, isn't it? Or is
that a different place? It is at mission point. Technically
(26:24):
it's kind of just off the property, State Park property. Yeah,
so it's kind of just out front of it, but
you can see it and like, regardless of whether or
not that actually happened there. You know, I'm we're big
believers in in like intention and energy, and you think
of how many people over, you know, the last hundred
years or so or a few decades, have gone to
(26:45):
that spot thinking that that happened there like that energy.
We always investigate it when we go and get weird results.
Did do research. Um, we couldn't find anything. We couldn't
find anything about witches and witchcraft, but we did find
a store which was interesting, which kind of tied to it.
MAKES US wonder if it's the origins of the story.
There was. It's only one book, one historical, historical book, Uh,
(27:10):
and it's only about a paragraph long and it talks
about a native American woman who was a prostitute who
was tried and executed by French government law insane igness.
So we're like that could be where the story kind
of came from. Plus, the island, yes, did have a
(27:30):
lot of brothels. Fur Traders and soldiers. There were a
lot of brothels. So we think a bunch of pieces
of different stories came together and then you got which
is on macinab executed. Oh Jesus, I mean that's like
a we call it the historical game of telephone. Exactly right.
Where where do you stop on your tour? I mean,
obviously you can have experience. It's just about anywhere, but
(27:50):
it changes a little bit every year. Um, for it's
a big one. We stopped their mission points, a big one.
Senience Church, harbor view in Um, my favorite restaurant, sea biscuit.
Love for them. I love to hang out the sea biscuit.
Haunted to good haunted stories there and it's actually tied
to the Doherty Hotel. People from Michigan, Claire Michigan Doherty Hotel.
(28:14):
Their family was running it was mcniland State Bank, now
at Sea Biscuit restaurant, but that was their same family.
So it's kind of got a historical paranormal okay. Well,
so now what was the hotel? You said the harbor view.
Harbor view, so that's a place where people, if they
want to stay, they might have an excuse to stay
at harbor view. UH, mission points a great place. Try
(28:37):
and stay in the Straits Lodge when you stay at
mission point. That's got a lot more activity than the
main lodge. Um at the hotels have activity. Well, the
streets lodge is where we stayed right yere in the
Yes okay, and that is where the lamp was turning
on and off everything and it was very creepy because
when we stayed there for ghost hunters the hotel was
closed and so they just let us. We had the
(29:02):
whole hotel to ourselves, but they weren't heating the main part,
so it was freezing in there, but in our little
spot it was heated. And so every night Um Steve
and Dave and Adam and myself we would go meet
down that little lobby and bring a couple of bottles
of wine and play Liverpool Room. So no ghosts, but
wine spirits. There were spirits. M anyways, I digress. So
(29:29):
what other ghost stories do you think that these guys
need to hear? What was your favorite? Well, Harvey's my
favorite because actually I was actually brought me into paranormal
was Harvey, twelve years old and I saw him at
mission point resort and after that I was watching all
the TV shows, reading hots older books. I want to
know about everything. Thanks, Harvey. So Harvey was he's kind
(29:51):
of yeah, near and dear. Harvey's My guy. Have you
heard of any ghost ships being seen from Kana? There are.
There's one freighter. It's still there. The CEDARVILLE went down
in the nineteen sixties. Seven people died when the ship
went down and there have actually been more deaths since
it went down from scuba divers. And then we're on
(30:13):
the original one. It collided with another ship which I
cannot pronounce. Its Norwegian and I'm not going to try
and butcher it. They collided in the fog. The CEDARVILLE
was sounding its horns, they weren't getting a response and
boom it went down in lake minutes. Six FT freighter
and it's still sitting out in the streets. If you're
coming from mackinaw city, you take that ferry, you're within
(30:37):
a hundred yards of where it's sitting in nine water
below you. Uh, there's that one. There is the guilt er,
which is another shipwreck. There's a canoe, there's a ghost.
It's not the canoe. You'd go down the river. It
was a fur trading canoe, which they were huge, I
mean thirty, forty ft by five FT wide, stacked with
(31:00):
for Peter Belts and they used them as trade. But
there's a story that is tied to Detroit with a
canoe that comes through the Straits barreled down with furs
and the story goes he's going to his love who
is in new France. Detroit was known as New France. Interesting,
(31:21):
he was going to hurt. And then this is weird
because this is one of those times where you're doing
investigating in research and you come across you like they're connected.
There's a story of a woman in Detroit who it
sits by the banks of Lake St Clair waiting for
her love to come on a canoe loaded down with
furs to return to her. So that's, strangely, of the
(31:45):
connected ghost stories, connected ghost stories a few hundred miles apart,
and I was like this is awesome. Yeah, that's a
really cool one. So so we have haunted restaurants, haunted hostels.
Now I feel like sometimes with places like Mac I
feel like it's haunted because part of the reason why
it's haunted is because it just hasn't changed. Like it.
(32:05):
It looks familiar to those spirits. It looks like it
did when they were there. So are there ever reports of,
you know, people in like period dress or anything that
that people might think might be reenactors or something that
actually it could be? Uh, this one we were doing,
we were on a tour, just doing our thing, going
(32:27):
telling ghost stories and we're telling a completely different ghost
story and uh, tour guides facing down the street, the
guests are facing up the streets, up a hill is
a near mission point and everybody who's like, is that
part of the tour? Tour, I didn't see it. They
turned around. There's a fully uniformed armed soldier standing in
(32:48):
the middle of the street. Hit a rifle. He went,
put his heat together, his rifle to his shoulder, turned
to the whole thing, took a few steps. As soon
as he hit a shadow of a tree he was gone.
Oh my good, the entire tour saw that. I was like, Oh,
why couldn't? Right? Well, that's so interesting because I was
sometimes I wonder if you see an apparition when you're
(33:08):
by yourself. I think, is that something that my brain created?
So I I love stories of multiple people seeing the
same thing that you know, Adam, and I've had that
happen many times, where we both see the exact same thing,
which could be our brains melding together, because we're close
to that point. But that's really compelling it. So does
(33:31):
anybody ever just wanted to bolt from your tour and
had enough? Oh yeah, but they're like on the island,
they can't leave people. Yeah, they had accidents occasionally. It happens, occasionally, adults, adults. Um,
we do that anymore, but we used to do a
(33:53):
jump startle type thing and it was part of that.
It was a reenactment of a sighting of a ghost.
I'm on the parts of the tour, but it was
allowed paging a like. Yeah, some people can't handle that.
It just couldn't. Oh my good, it was. It was
a big room. It was in the sound stage. If
you remember the sound stage, it's pitch black. It's about
(34:14):
as big as this room, completely sound proof in pitch black. Yeah,
and you can't see the other wall, you don't know
what's in the room with you and you just make
the slightest noise or shift and people are like what
was that? So it's probably good you eliminated that from
your tour. It's probably good idea for sure. Wow. Okay. Well,
(34:36):
I'm sure everyone's really excited to go. Now we don't
do the jump scares anymore. If anything you're scared of
it's your own head. Now it's history, ghost stories and legends.
I love that. Well, I have to say thank you.
You have been lovely as always. We've known each other
for years. I could to see you want. I could
see all of my Michigan friends every year at Michigan Paragon.
(34:58):
Thank you, everybody for coming out to this so great. So,
how can people find you if they want to go
on the tour? Dot Com is the best. In macinaw
is spelled with the C because we are on the
upper peninsula side, not the lower peninsula side. That's the difference.
(35:19):
Bridge North, bridge south. It's w there's all these rules,
French versus British. You bers, trolls under the bridge, mcanac mcinom.
I can't keep up learning. It's taking me a decade
of coming here when I'm learning, and the bridge just
swing over at five pm every night and the five o'clock,
(35:45):
oh my goodness. Well, I want to thank all of
you for coming out is such a good start to
what's gonna be an amazing weekend, and thank you so
much for listening to haunted road and I will see
you guys all that for the next three days. I
hope we don't get sick of us. Thank you, everybody.
A great night. Let's keep it going. Amy Bruney, Tom Clements.
(36:16):
Haunted road is hosted and written by me, Amy Bruney,
with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra Day Alba.
This show is edited and produced by REMA L Kali,
with supervising producer Josh thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. Haunted road is a production
(36:36):
of I heart radio and grim and mild from Aaron Mankey.
Learn more about this show over at grim and mild
dot com, and for more podcasts from I heart radio,
visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to haunted road, the production of I heart radio
and grim and mild from Aaron minky listener. Discretion is advised.
Please welcome to the stage. Ready to bring you down
the haunted road, the one and the only Miss Amy Brunei.
(00:29):
Are you guys ready? All Right, here we go. Years
Ago I was prepping for a party. I know this
may come as a surprise to you me prepping for
a party, but this wasn't any party. This was a
Halloween Costume Party. I had a large group in a
hotel that would be attending, so I was in the
(00:51):
hotel ballroom getting set up for the festivities which would
be taking place the next night. Everyone who had assisted
me throughout the day had taken their leave and I
was just getting a few last minute things taken care
of before I was due to meet them for dinner.
As I was fiddling with some projectors, I suddenly heard
a door open and close, which I didn't think much
of until it was followed by the sound of footsteps
(01:13):
approaching behind me very quickly, quickily enough that it alarmed
me and I spun around to see if someone had
returned and needed something. Except when I spun around, no
one was there. Every hair on the back of my
neck set up and just moments later, the projectors I
had been trying to get to work all turned on
at once. It didn't help that they were projecting images
(01:34):
of zombies on the walls for the party. With that,
I snapped off the projectors, grabbed my belongings and made
a hasty retreat out of that room. If you know
me well, you know that if I get scared or nervous,
I whistle a happy song, because clearly nothing bad can
happen to you if you're whistling a happy tune. So
you better believe I was whistling away as I speed
(01:56):
walked my way down the halls of the hotel trying
to make my exit. But even when I reached the
safety of the outdoors, I didn't feel alone, and I
know now that's just how you feel all the time
when you're visiting the very beautiful and very haunted mackinaw island.
(02:19):
I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to haunted road in the
waters of Lake Huron, between Michigan's upper and lower peninsula's sit's,
a tiny island that is one of the most haunted
places in America. Just four point three five square miles,
(02:40):
macanna island is a place out of time, one where
life exists as it did hundreds of years ago, where
there are no cars, just horses and carts for transportation,
and where the ghosts are now as much a part
of day to day goings on as they were when
they were alive. But it's haunted history isn't the only
thing that makes macana island remarkable. The land itself might
(03:01):
be tiny, but it's stunning. High cliffs wore above the
ocean like lake, with geological formations like Sugarloaf, Skull Rock
and Arch Rock, a natural limestone arch nearly one fifty
feet above the ground. The island has been drawing vacationers
by the tens of thousands every year to experience what
a truly unique and extraordinary place it is. But make
(03:23):
no mistake, there are lots and lots of ghosts. The
Island is so haunted that, according to reporting from a
Michigan newspaper group, mackinaw island is by far the most
haunted town per capita in the United States, with sixteen
haunted locations for its population of only four hundred. Seventy
eight people. The native ojibway people's originally named mackinaw island Nichi.
(03:46):
Mackinac the O Ge way word for big turtle, because
they thought the islands shape mimicked the shape of a
turtle shell. The first French settlers kept the Ojibway name,
but once the English arrived in the area they shortened
the name to simply mackinaw. In the Lansing State Journal
Kathleen leavy wrote, most people associate macanna island with the
Victorian era vibe, the car free joy of horse drawn
(04:08):
wagons and Bicycles and shopping for candy and souvenirs along
Market Street, which neglects a few thousand years of the
island's history. In fact, native honest namic peoples from the Odawa,
Ojibway and Poetomi tribes lived undisturbed on Macana island for
what local tribal experts estimate could be as long as
three thousand years. According to the biddlehouse project, which developed
(04:32):
the Macana island native American Museum, Macanna Island has been
a sacred and historically significant place for Anishnak people for centuries,
for a very long time. According to an article in
spiritual travels. Macana island was the center of the NISHNA world.
Ceremonies were held on the island to celebrate the changing
seasons and to pay respect to the spirits who resided here.
(04:54):
These powerful beings controlled the lakes and appropriate actions needed
to be taken to ensure that the fishing remain plentiful
and that travelers could cross the water safely. Greg Newkirk,
who shout out Greg New Kirk, wrote per week and
weird that researchers believe that the island not only served
as a prime fishing location, but that the Annishnak tribes
(05:15):
considered it a sacred place, believing it to be home
to the great spirit. The Great Lakes in general have
been a historically sacred native location, but mackinaw, along with
nearby round island and Boy Blanc Island in the Straits
of mackinac, were especially significant because they were used as
ancient anish burial browns. This is where a lot of
the stories about mackinaw islands ghost stories originate. The annishnabak
(05:39):
used the island to bury their debt, which meant that
their ancestors lived there, as well as spirits according to
spiritual travels, after a burial, the dead were honored with
ceremonies that were described as feasts of the dead by
the French explorers and Jesuit priests who came to the
region in the seventeenth century. This practice continues to this
day among native communities in North Their Michigan, in a
(06:00):
tradition known as ghost suppers. While some of the remains
have been removed and repatriated to tribal councils, many remains
are still buried on the island. Things began to change
on macanna island in the seventeenth century when the first
colonists began to arrive and disrupt the peaceful life on
the island. French Canadian explorers arrived in sixteen thirty four.
(06:22):
In the decades that followed, the area became an important
fur trading site for French colonists. During the French and
Indian war, from seventeen fifty four to seventeen sixty three,
the French lost control of macanna island to the British,
who then built fort mcinnaw on the island's high bluffs
in seventeen eighty. The site was formerly a trading post
but served as a British fortification during the revolutionary war.
(06:45):
Though the British lost control of the Ford after that war,
the fight for control of the island was far from over.
In fact, a British attempt to regain the island was
the first act of aggression in the war of eighteen twelve.
Before news had even reached the island that war had
been to laired. According to mackinaw dot com, in July
of eighteen twelve, a British force landed secretly on the
(07:05):
far north end of mackinaw island and forced the United
States to surrender fort mcanaw in the first engagement of
that conflict. It's also believed that the British murdered more
than seventy native people during this war. Americans attempted to
retake the island in eighteen fourteen, but couldn't penetrate the
British defenses perched high on the cliffs. Macanaw island officially
(07:26):
became United States territory by the treaty ending the war
in Eighteen fifteen, and fort mcannaw remained in use until
the end of the nineteenth century. According to macinaw Dot
Com's history of the island. In eighteen twenty two, fort
mckinnaw's post surgeon, William Beaumont, saved the life of Alexis
St Martin after an accidental shotgun blast tore a hole
(07:46):
in the young voyager's stomach. When the whole never completely healed,
the physician observed firsthand what happens when food is digested
in the stomach. His published experiments made medical history. The
period it after the war of eighteen twelve was a
time of great change on the island. Macinaw became the
center of John Jacob Astor's American fur company and supplied
(08:08):
beaver pelts to America and Europe's fashionable elite for more
than thirty years. It was also around this time that
Christian missionaries arrived on the island. In eighteen twenty three,
William Montague ferry and his wife Amanda founded a mission
on the southeasternmost part of the island, which has come
to be known as mission point. Two years later, missionaries
built the mission house, a spare two story building that
(08:30):
still stands today. The house was designed as a Boarding
School for native American children to learn manual crafts and
Liberal Arts and to adopt the standards and living panterns
characteristic of New England and the American East Coast. Throughout
this time, a nishnabek people still comprised the majority of
the island's population, but that wouldn't last much longer. One
(08:52):
of the most important figures on macana island in the
nineteenth century was Agatha biddle. Eric Hemn Way, the archival
director for the old traverse bay bands of Odawa Indians,
said when Agatha was a child Michigan was almost exclusively
native American. By the time she was an elderly woman
in the late eighteen hundreds, natives were the vast minority
(09:13):
and had lost most of their land. Agatha saw firsthand
the complete transformation of aneshnabe life and culture. An honest
navik woman, Agatha married Philadelphia and Edward biddle, and the
couple ran a fur trading business on the island. As
Hem and way explained, she controlled the family business. She
set the prices, negotiated with fur traders and hosted functions
(09:35):
at her home. The two lived in the biddle house
built around seventeen eighty, which is the oldest standing structure
on the island today. It was a major center of
life on mackinaw. During the wars, Hem and way explained
Agatha was likely torn. Her business interests forced her to
remain neutral, but the Oji way and Odawa peoples were
adamantly against the Americans and supported the British in the war.
(09:58):
In eighteen thirty six U S government created the Treaty
of Washington. According to an article in Indian country today,
through this treaty, the Odawa and Chippewa of Northern Michigan
seeded about sixteen million acres to the U S government.
In return, the government allowed these tribes to stay in
Michigan on small reservations and access natural resources. However, when
(10:20):
the treaty was brought to the island to be signed,
with four thousand honest Nabe people gathered to witness the signing,
the document had been changed. Instead of granting the tribe's
access to the landgoing for, the government had added language
saying that they would only be granted access for five years,
after which the government could remove the native Americans at
the discretion of the president. Indian agent Henry schoolcraft promised
(10:44):
the tribes people that would never happen. which is two
years later, Hem and way explained, they were ordered off
the island. Frank Strauss, writing for the mackinaw island town crier,
suggested that it was Agatha and her family that might
have helped to keep the Annesh Nabe people in their
ancestral home. Her senior standing on the island helped to
forge relationships between native hunters and American capitalists. He wrote.
(11:07):
This may have helped ensure that the Odawa and the
Annesh Nabe were not forced to move westward in the
eighteen thirties and forties. Many of her kinfolk were too
valuable as participants in the Michigan Territory Economy. Eighteen fifty
five Treaty of Detroit further cemented the native Americans claims
to the land, though it was still the basis of
lawsuits to regain reservation land as recently as twenty nineteen.
(11:29):
As the nineteenth century progressed, the island shifted from being
a center of fur trading to focusing more on the
fishing industry. By the Victorian era, macanna island had become
one of the area's most fashionable and in demand summer
resorts in the country. According to Eugene t Peterson, writing
for macinaw Dot Com's history section. It was the Victorians
(11:50):
who made mackinaw island one of the nation's most favored
summer resorts. In the post civil war age and before automobiles,
vacationers traveled by large lake excursion boats from Buffalo, Cleveland,
Chicago and Detroit to the cooler climbs of macanaw island.
They danced to Strauss waltz's, listened to Sosa's stirring marches,
dined on whitefish and strolled along the broad decks. In
(12:12):
the eighteen nineties, the Wa Washkimo Golf Course was built
and around this time an automobile ban was implemented on
the island that remains in place now. In eighteen ninety five,
all the federal land on the island became macanaw island
state park, Michigan's first State Park. With that designation came
strict guidance that all private development and all these holders
(12:32):
were required to maintain the distinctive Victorian architecture in place
on the island. To this day, historic preservation and restoration
are highly prioritized on the island. According to macinaw DOT COM.
In recent years the historical sites and Fort Buildings, such
as the officers stone quarters, have been restored to their
original condition and brought to life through Dioramas, period settings,
(12:54):
guided tours and reenactments for the benefit of the thousands
of summer visitors. Those visitors can also explore the native
American cultural history trail, an eight mile road that runs
the perimeter of the island and details the history and
significance of the island. It's also famous for its many,
many hauntings. According to mysterious universe, mackinaw seems to be
(13:16):
as crowded with ghosts as it is with visitors, so
much so that it is often said that the dead
outnumber the living here. The most infamous of the island's
paranormal hot spots is the drowning pool, a perilously deep
lagoon full of seaweed, where a man became tangled in
the vegetation and drowned in the late nineteen seventies. But
(13:36):
that's not the worst story about the drowning pool. According
to a history book of macinaw's haunted legends by Ken Hadad,
in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, seven women
were accused of being witches back in those days, one
of the methods used for determining if someone was a
witch or not was to tie rocks to their feet
and throw them into the water to see if they
(13:56):
would float or not. If they sank, they were deemed
in a scent. All of them sank and drowned. To
this day, visitors to the drowning pool report mysterious splashing,
shadows and dark figures rising above the surface and a
deep feeling of dread at the place. The Grand Hotel
is another of the island's most notoriously haunted places. Legend
(14:17):
says that construction workers uncovered extensive human remains while digging
the hotel's foundation. Greg newkirk's retelling says that they began
to find so many human skeletons that they lost track
of them all. To this day, rumors persist that the workers,
increasingly unsure of how to handle the situation, simply gave
up on collecting the bones and started building the hotel anyway.
(14:41):
In the hotel, people report seeing a man in a
top hat playing the piano in the bar and of
a woman in Victorian clothing who roams the hotel's employee housing.
People also report seeing an evil entity which presents as
a black mass with glowing red eyes. New Kirk wrote.
As two maintenance men performed a check of the hotel's
theater stage, one of them was struck with the overwhelming
(15:02):
feeling that something was watching them, something that he could
only describe as evil. As he looked out over the stage,
he noticed two glowing red eyes peering from a dark
shadow hovering above the theater floor. As he watched in horror,
the black form began to rush toward him, knocking him
off his feet. Two days later the man awoke in
a hospital and swore to never return to the grand
(15:24):
what was once a World Conference Center for an Evangelist
Group and then a college, is now the mission point resort.
As Greg New Kirk wrote, the resort's most popular ghost
is that of a student nicknamed Harvey, who died in
the late sixties. As the official story goes, Harvey, the
victim of a broken heart, made his way to the
bluffs behind the resort, pulled a gun and shot himself.
(15:45):
His body wasn't discovered for six months. When I was
researching Harvey on ghost hunters, I found Harvey's real identity,
but his family asked that we keep a private harvey
shows up in mission points, theater, where visitors report being
pinched and poked. Say He's a joker who likes to
play tricks on people, but given the mysterious circumstances around
his death, he could also be trying to communicate something.
(16:08):
You see, Harvey died from not one but two gunshots
to the head, and the gun was found nowhere near
his body. Many visitors to the island reports seeing the
apparition of a girl named Lucy, who has curly hair
and wears a sun dress. She's been spotted following people
on the staircase at the crow's nest trail, peeking out
of windows at the pine cottage and walking around the
(16:28):
island House hotel, where she's often spotted in the theater
and auditorium. Not Much is known about who Lucy could be,
but according to mysterious universe, Legend has it that Lucy
became sick on the island while her parents were in
Detroit on business and she died before they could return.
There are no official records of her passing, but record
keeping on the island wasn't consistent before nineteen hundred. But
(16:50):
by far the most haunted location on mackinaw island is
Fort mckinnaugh. According to Brett Swansor, writing for a mysterious universe,
fort mckinnaugh Ist in death. The very wall seemed stained
by it, and that death has left its mark, as
Greg New Kirk wrote, for a planet weird. From apparitions
of soldiers glimpsed walking the rifle range trail to piles
(17:12):
of Phantom limbs spotted in the hospital, to furniture that
moves on its own, tripping motion detectors and office or
hills apartment quarters, the fort has no shortage of paranormal activity.
The fourth's hospital dates back to making it the oldest
hospital building in Michigan. There people died from battle injuries,
but also from illnesses that crude nineteenth century medical practice
(17:34):
couldn't properly treat. At least thirteen children of soldiers stationed
that the fort died in the hospital from everything from
typhoid fever to tuberculosis. They were all buried in the
forts cemetery and Ken Haddad's haunted history of mckinna island,
he wrote in the hospital. Some have felt feelings of
sadness and have seen apparitions of Phantom limbs. The sound
of crying babies is often heard, along with mysteriously moved furniture,
(17:58):
and motion detectors set off with no one or round.
People often report feeling sad in the hospital and say
they smell the stench of sickness and death. The fort
had a dungeon for prisoners called the black hole, or
at least one person died in captivity. A soldier stationed
at the fort committed suicide in eighty three people report
feeling cold spots there, even in summer, and people frequently
(18:20):
photographed strange anomalies in the space. According to Tour Guide
Carl Simpson, it's believed that several ghosts haunt the fort,
including two children whose father was stationed there and the
Phantom Piper heard playing on misty mornings at the north
entryway and the officers quarters. Children are reportedly seen playing
with toys and people often experience furniture moving and hearing
babies cry. In the cemetery, Brett swansor wrote, the apparition
(18:44):
of a woman can sometimes be seen weeping at the
grave of one of the children who died here, eternally
lamenting her loss. But here to talk more in depth
of the hauntings on mackinaw is my good friend Todd Clemens,
(19:07):
paranormal author and owner of haunts of mackinaw tours. So
come on out, todd. Hello. Did I get it all right?
It correctly? All right, I met todd years ago when
we were filming ghost hunters on Macana Island. We decided
(19:29):
it would be a good idea to film on macinaw
island in January. Yeah, and uh, as todd informed me backstage,
I didn't realize this, but while we were there the
temperature got down to negative. It was. It actually is
(19:50):
an experience to be out there in the middle of winter.
There's very few people. There's obviously residents and then, Um,
we met a few like writers and artists who kind
of hide away for the winter, or maybe someone running
from the law or two. I felt like it actually
has happened. Yeah, there was one night I remember distinctly.
We had a day off and I wanted to see
(20:11):
the Grand Hotel, but you can't get there, and so todd.
Actually it was like the middle of the night at
this point, because I think we were probably at the
bar and there was a full moon and we took
the snowmobile up to the Grand Hotel and I tell
you what, that hotel illuminated by the moon and all
that's like, the snow banks and stuff. It was one
(20:32):
of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. So that's
nothing like it. So thank you for that. It was
a really good memory. All right. So you obviously are
very familiar with the Hans on mckinna. Tell me what
what has been your most kind of startling experience there?
(20:53):
I know it's hard to pick one. Probably I've had experiences.
I tried to be brave because usually I'm with of
guests or someone who's never done it before and I'm like,
I gotta be the tough guy here because they're freaking
out and I gotta be the sanity in the room. Um,
the one it was startling but I had to remain quiet,
(21:14):
was in the mission point theater. We had one of
our ghost tours going and one of the stops was
in the theater and we had about thirty people sitting
towards the front. The tour guide was on the stage
telling the ghost stories of the theater and I snuck
in in the back. I'm dressed all in black. I
(21:35):
was doing basically a tour check, see how the tour
guides are doing, make sure everything's accurate, they're presenting everything right,
and nobody knew I was coming. Nobody knew I was there.
I'm standing in the very far back of the theater,
your projection booth, and watching it fine. They were doing
great and all of a sudden, in my peripheral vision,
not more than a foot and a half next to me,
(21:57):
there's a man standing there and I'm like, I started
looking over and as as I was looking towards him,
the more I look directly at him, he vanished. He
slowly just disappeared. But in my peripheral vision, not only
was he standing there, he was shifting his weight from
foot to foot, he crossed his arms, he's moving, he's
(22:20):
watching the tour guide on the stage, because I could
see his head was facing that way. He was wearing
a t shirt that had horizontal stripes on it. I
mean short buzz cut hair, which harvey had short buzz
cut hair, and I'm assuming it was him, was blonde,
blond hair. So I was like, I think this is
harvey standing next to me. Now I wanted to yell
(22:43):
toront pictures, pictures to everybody was sitting in front, but
I knew we would wind up having a cleaning crew
coming through later because they're on a ghost tour. They're
hearing things that are petrifying some of them who've never
had experience with anything paranormal before, and I'm telling them,
yelling from the back of the room, turn around, take
a picture, turn around. So I just stood there and
(23:04):
kind of experienced it. It felt like forever, probably thirty seconds,
but I'm just like, this is a ghost standing right
next to me, this is harvey. What do I do?
I can't do anything about it. That was one of
my experiences. I was just like this is it was.
So that's where I had. So mission point resort is
(23:25):
where I had the experience I was talking about in
the beginning with the footsteps running up behind me, and
I think that was probably attributed to Harvey. It was
kind of like playful, but like I mean, I was
genuinely I thought someone either was playing a prank on
me when I turned around or someone like was gonna
get me, you know, and so um and I know
(23:46):
like we filmed there, obviously for ghosteners, like I was saying,
and there are rooms where the lights will come on
on and so there was one night where Jay had
a camera set up and the his light kept turning
on and off. This room the lamp and fun fact,
someone stole that lamp after the episode. Air Terrified. The
(24:08):
first week the resort was open, the lamp disappeared. Someone
grabbed it. Yep, so someone somewhere has a haunted lamp
that they should be returning or donated to Dana and Gregg.
It's actually Greg and Dana's museum. That's gree Um. Okay.
(24:29):
So that I think that mission point is maybe kind
of underrated as far as Hans go there, because people
do think of the Grand Hotel, which Adam and I,
whenever we go to mackinaw which strange escapes, will be
returning their next fall. Um, whenever we go there we
always make a point to have a cocktail in the
COOPOLA bar at the Grand Hotel. Yeah, I call it
(24:51):
the rest stop because when I go home at night
that's halfway between home at work. So we'll go up
there a sunset when it's beautiful, but the staff has
gotten to know US enough because they have we haven't
been since pre covid but they always have. Um, most
of the staff, I believe they come in from Jamaica,
and so they come back every year and they recognize
(25:14):
us and they told us they are terrified of the
employee housing. They're like they don't like to talk about it,
but and they're not supposed to talk about it, but
they talk about it to Adam and me and they
have something, some stories. All right. So if you're going
to visit macinaw and you want to experience a haunting,
where do you go? Hmm, the whole island. Stay overnight. Always.
(25:40):
A lot of people come during the day. It's a
totally different places. At night it goes from more or
less Disney world crowds, like crowded, crowded, crowded people everywhere
and as soon as that last fairy leaves it thins out.
It's quiet. You can actually feel like the tranquility of
the island at night. And Uh, I know it's hard. No.
(26:04):
So the drowning pool? Is that the urban legend, by
the way? Yeah, well, that's why I cited people who
said it. So that didn't come from me. So, but
that being said, the rumor drowning pool is that that's
on the grounds at mission point, isn't it? Or is
that a different place? It is at mission point. Technically
(26:24):
it's kind of just off the property, State Park property. Yeah,
so it's kind of just out front of it, but
you can see it and like, regardless of whether or
not that actually happened there. You know, I'm we're big
believers in in like intention and energy, and you think
of how many people over, you know, the last hundred
years or so or a few decades, have gone to
(26:45):
that spot thinking that that happened there like that energy.
We always investigate it when we go and get weird results.
Did do research. Um, we couldn't find anything. We couldn't
find anything about witches and witchcraft, but we did find
a store which was interesting, which kind of tied to it.
MAKES US wonder if it's the origins of the story.
There was. It's only one book, one historical, historical book, Uh,
(27:10):
and it's only about a paragraph long and it talks
about a native American woman who was a prostitute who
was tried and executed by French government law insane igness.
So we're like that could be where the story kind
of came from. Plus, the island, yes, did have a
(27:30):
lot of brothels. Fur Traders and soldiers. There were a
lot of brothels. So we think a bunch of pieces
of different stories came together and then you got which
is on macinab executed. Oh Jesus, I mean that's like
a we call it the historical game of telephone. Exactly right.
Where where do you stop on your tour? I mean,
obviously you can have experience. It's just about anywhere, but
(27:50):
it changes a little bit every year. Um, for it's
a big one. We stopped their mission points, a big one.
Senience Church, harbor view in Um, my favorite restaurant, sea biscuit.
Love for them. I love to hang out the sea biscuit.
Haunted to good haunted stories there and it's actually tied
to the Doherty Hotel. People from Michigan, Claire Michigan Doherty Hotel.
(28:14):
Their family was running it was mcniland State Bank, now
at Sea Biscuit restaurant, but that was their same family.
So it's kind of got a historical paranormal okay. Well,
so now what was the hotel? You said the harbor view.
Harbor view, so that's a place where people, if they
want to stay, they might have an excuse to stay
at harbor view. UH, mission points a great place. Try
(28:37):
and stay in the Straits Lodge when you stay at
mission point. That's got a lot more activity than the
main lodge. Um at the hotels have activity. Well, the
streets lodge is where we stayed right yere in the
Yes okay, and that is where the lamp was turning
on and off everything and it was very creepy because
when we stayed there for ghost hunters the hotel was
closed and so they just let us. We had the
(29:02):
whole hotel to ourselves, but they weren't heating the main part,
so it was freezing in there, but in our little
spot it was heated. And so every night Um Steve
and Dave and Adam and myself we would go meet
down that little lobby and bring a couple of bottles
of wine and play Liverpool Room. So no ghosts, but
wine spirits. There were spirits. M anyways, I digress. So
(29:29):
what other ghost stories do you think that these guys
need to hear? What was your favorite? Well, Harvey's my
favorite because actually I was actually brought me into paranormal
was Harvey, twelve years old and I saw him at
mission point resort and after that I was watching all
the TV shows, reading hots older books. I want to
know about everything. Thanks, Harvey. So Harvey was he's kind
(29:51):
of yeah, near and dear. Harvey's My guy. Have you
heard of any ghost ships being seen from Kana? There are.
There's one freighter. It's still there. The CEDARVILLE went down
in the nineteen sixties. Seven people died when the ship
went down and there have actually been more deaths since
it went down from scuba divers. And then we're on
(30:13):
the original one. It collided with another ship which I
cannot pronounce. Its Norwegian and I'm not going to try
and butcher it. They collided in the fog. The CEDARVILLE
was sounding its horns, they weren't getting a response and
boom it went down in lake minutes. Six FT freighter
and it's still sitting out in the streets. If you're
coming from mackinaw city, you take that ferry, you're within
(30:37):
a hundred yards of where it's sitting in nine water
below you. Uh, there's that one. There is the guilt er,
which is another shipwreck. There's a canoe, there's a ghost.
It's not the canoe. You'd go down the river. It
was a fur trading canoe, which they were huge, I
mean thirty, forty ft by five FT wide, stacked with
(31:00):
for Peter Belts and they used them as trade. But
there's a story that is tied to Detroit with a
canoe that comes through the Straits barreled down with furs
and the story goes he's going to his love who
is in new France. Detroit was known as New France. Interesting,
(31:21):
he was going to hurt. And then this is weird
because this is one of those times where you're doing
investigating in research and you come across you like they're connected.
There's a story of a woman in Detroit who it
sits by the banks of Lake St Clair waiting for
her love to come on a canoe loaded down with
furs to return to her. So that's, strangely, of the
(31:45):
connected ghost stories, connected ghost stories a few hundred miles apart,
and I was like this is awesome. Yeah, that's a
really cool one. So so we have haunted restaurants, haunted hostels.
Now I feel like sometimes with places like Mac I
feel like it's haunted because part of the reason why
it's haunted is because it just hasn't changed. Like it.
(32:05):
It looks familiar to those spirits. It looks like it
did when they were there. So are there ever reports of,
you know, people in like period dress or anything that
that people might think might be reenactors or something that
actually it could be? Uh, this one we were doing,
we were on a tour, just doing our thing, going
(32:27):
telling ghost stories and we're telling a completely different ghost
story and uh, tour guides facing down the street, the
guests are facing up the streets, up a hill is
a near mission point and everybody who's like, is that
part of the tour? Tour, I didn't see it. They
turned around. There's a fully uniformed armed soldier standing in
(32:48):
the middle of the street. Hit a rifle. He went,
put his heat together, his rifle to his shoulder, turned
to the whole thing, took a few steps. As soon
as he hit a shadow of a tree he was gone.
Oh my good, the entire tour saw that. I was like, Oh,
why couldn't? Right? Well, that's so interesting because I was
sometimes I wonder if you see an apparition when you're
(33:08):
by yourself. I think, is that something that my brain created?
So I I love stories of multiple people seeing the
same thing that you know, Adam, and I've had that
happen many times, where we both see the exact same thing,
which could be our brains melding together, because we're close
to that point. But that's really compelling it. So does
(33:31):
anybody ever just wanted to bolt from your tour and
had enough? Oh yeah, but they're like on the island,
they can't leave people. Yeah, they had accidents occasionally. It happens, occasionally, adults, adults. Um,
we do that anymore, but we used to do a
(33:53):
jump startle type thing and it was part of that.
It was a reenactment of a sighting of a ghost.
I'm on the parts of the tour, but it was
allowed paging a like. Yeah, some people can't handle that.
It just couldn't. Oh my good, it was. It was
a big room. It was in the sound stage. If
you remember the sound stage, it's pitch black. It's about
(34:14):
as big as this room, completely sound proof in pitch black. Yeah,
and you can't see the other wall, you don't know
what's in the room with you and you just make
the slightest noise or shift and people are like what
was that? So it's probably good you eliminated that from
your tour. It's probably good idea for sure. Wow. Okay. Well,
(34:36):
I'm sure everyone's really excited to go. Now we don't
do the jump scares anymore. If anything you're scared of
it's your own head. Now it's history, ghost stories and legends.
I love that. Well, I have to say thank you.
You have been lovely as always. We've known each other
for years. I could to see you want. I could
see all of my Michigan friends every year at Michigan Paragon.
(34:58):
Thank you, everybody for coming out to this so great. So,
how can people find you if they want to go
on the tour? Dot Com is the best. In macinaw
is spelled with the C because we are on the
upper peninsula side, not the lower peninsula side. That's the difference.
(35:19):
Bridge North, bridge south. It's w there's all these rules,
French versus British. You bers, trolls under the bridge, mcanac mcinom.
I can't keep up learning. It's taking me a decade
of coming here when I'm learning, and the bridge just
swing over at five pm every night and the five o'clock,
(35:45):
oh my goodness. Well, I want to thank all of
you for coming out is such a good start to
what's gonna be an amazing weekend, and thank you so
much for listening to haunted road and I will see
you guys all that for the next three days. I
hope we don't get sick of us. Thank you, everybody.
A great night. Let's keep it going. Amy Bruney, Tom Clements.
(36:16):
Haunted road is hosted and written by me, Amy Bruney,
with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra Day Alba.
This show is edited and produced by REMA L Kali,
with supervising producer Josh thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. Haunted road is a production
(36:36):
of I heart radio and grim and mild from Aaron Mankey.
Learn more about this show over at grim and mild
dot com, and for more podcasts from I heart radio,
visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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