Previous Post About Bois Blanc Island: Getting to the Island
There are four ways to get to Bois Blanc Island, ferry, boat, plane, or snowmobile.
The ferry is the most common and cheapest.
Taking you own boat requires having your own boat. My family has a small dinghy, but its not nearly big enough to transport people, groceries, and luggage to the Island.
Chartering a private plane to get to the Island is expensive and gives people the heebie-jeebies because, “Does the pilot really know how to fly this thing?”
Snowmobiles are only used by the Island’s year-round residents to go over the Lake when it freezes.
All the Summer vacationers like me take the ferry.
The ferry is named the Kristen D. When I was a kid I thought it was named after Kirsten Dunst, the female lead in the first series of Spiderman movies.
The family that runs the ferry are called the Plaunts. They’ve been carrying people back and forth to Bois Blanc since 1932.
The Kristen D. holds 15 cars and dozens of people.
The Plaunts also deliver the weekly mail to everyone’s mailboxes.
The Plaunts will deliver almost anything to the Island. Packages, groceries, lumber, construction equipment, gasoline, etc. All you have to do is call them up and they’ll charge a fee for bringing it over.
Since the Plaunts control almost all transit to and from the Island they act as an unofficial governing body.
They’re also a form of law enforcement. If someone steals a TV from another person there’s only one way to get the TV off the Island. All the victim has to do is tell the Plaunts what type of TV is missing. If they see it on the ferry, they call the police.
The Plaunts provide a little bit of order in the wilds of Lake Huron.
-Mister Ed
Next Post About Bois Blanc Island: The Three Cottages
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