Could this be the end of Fishtown’s Manitou Island Transit?

Mishe Mokwa at South Manitou Dock by Manitou Island Transit

mLive shares that planned NPS closures of the Manitou Islands could drive Leland’s 107 year old Manitou Island Transit out of business:

North Manitou is scheduled to close for 2025 and possibly longer while a new dock is built, and island village water and electric systems are upgraded. South Manitou is scheduled to close for 2026 and possibly longer for the same reason. The National Park Service has not yet announced the closures.

The ferry service, which has struggled financially in recent years due to access problems caused by unsafe dockages, will likely be forced to shut down, its owners say. They are considering filing another lawsuit against the Park Service, which they successfully sued for breach of contract in 2021 over dredging delays.

“If they shut us down — which they’re doing right now — there will never be a ferry boat back there again out of Leland,” said Jimmy Munoz, captain of the Mishe-Mowka ferry. “They can say all they want to after putting us through this, but it isn’t happening. If they go through with this, that part of history is over.”

According to the Park Service, island closures are an unfortunate necessity in order to build new docks as part of a $32 million project funded in its fiscal 2024 budget using money appropriated by Congress under the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act.

You can read on for more at mLive, visit Manitou Transit’s website, and also check out this morning’s Leelanau Ticker article for some additional quotes from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.