Tour the Crib! North Manitou Lightkeepers offering tours

The Betsie Current has a solid feature on tours being offered to the North Manitou Shoal Lighthouse aka The Crib:

On June 19, 2021, two team members led four tourists on the first official tour of the crib. A larger group will visit on July 3 and on most Saturdays through the summer. Trips leave from Leland harbor on a charter fishing boat, captained by Jim Muñoz. At this point, tours are open to members who have signed up to support the North Manitou Light Keepers’ restoration effort.

The North Manitou Shoal Light Station is an offshore lighthouse in Lake Michigan that was completed in 1935. It marks a shallow shoal in the Manitou Passage, an important maritime channel. First operated by the United States Lighthouse Service and later by the United States Coast Guard, which manned it until 1980, the light station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. However, the structure stood vacant and relatively uncared for until 2016, when it was purchased at auction by North Manitou Light Keepers, a nonprofit organization, after being deemed surplus by the Federal Government. It remains an active aid to navigation with automated solar-powered equipment, maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“Tours this year are pretty well filled up,” says Dan Oginsky, Light Keepers board president. “We’re offering them to existing members: the tours are what people have been waiting for.”

The Light Keepers will offer a special tour to the crib aboard the Mishe-Mokwa—the ferry which transports travelers to the Manitou islands—on Friday, July 23, at 6:30 p.m., following the group’s annual rally and information session at 4 p.m. at Leland’s Main Street Gallery. That cruise costs $25 per person.

Lots more about the Crib & renovation efforts in the Current & learn about the North Manitou Lightkeepers on their website.