You can watch real fishermen haul real fish in this overlooked corner of Michigan’s wine country

Leland’s Fishtown still hauls fish from the Great Lakes

Leland sits on a narrow strip of land where the Leelanau Peninsula meets the water, pinched between Lake Michigan on the west and Lake Leelanau on the east.

The Leland River runs right through the middle, connecting both lakes in about 300 yards. Most people drive past it without stopping.

The ones who do walk down to the docks and find weathered shanties, creaking docks, and fishing boats that actually work. It’s one of the last places on the Great Lakes where that’s still true.

Ottawa people lived here long before the fishing boats came

Long before the shanties, the site was one of the oldest and largest Ottawa villages on the Leelanau Peninsula. European settlers began arriving in the early 1850s.

The Antoine Manseau family crossed over from North Manitou Island in 1853 and put up a dam and water-powered sawmill near the river outlet. By 1867, about 200 people called Leland home.

The name Fishtown didn’t come until the 1940s, shaped by the work of the Carlson family, who had already been pulling fish from these waters for decades.

Shanties built before 1930 still line both sides of the river

Every structure in Fishtown went up before 1930. Net sheds, ice houses, smokehouses, storage shacks, all of them still standing, still in use.

The Fishtown Preservation Society now owns the site and keeps it running.

It landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and became a Michigan State Historic Site two years before that. Some shanties now hold small shops and food counters.

But walk down to the docks and you can still watch commercial fishing boats move in and out of the harbor on a working day.

Five generations of Carlsons have smoked fish in the same shanty

Carlson’s Fishery opened inside one of the shanties in 1904 and hasn’t left since.

Five generations of the same family have run it through a century of changing fish quotas, shrinking populations, and tightening regulations.

The heavy doors of the old smokers creak open daily during the season, and trays of whitefish, trout, and salmon come out warm.

The whitefish dip has become the thing people drive up from Traverse City specifically to buy. Hours run 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days, with extended hours on Fridays and Saturdays to 6 p.m.

The Joy and Janice Sue still tie up at the Fishtown docks

Two historic fish tugs still call Fishtown home. Joy and Janice Sue both sit at the docks, now owned by the Fishtown Preservation Society.

At the peak of the fishing era, up to eight powered tugs sailed out of Leland. Today, the Joy still works in the harbor on many days.

Watching a tug leave the dock in the early morning, low in the water, engine running, heading out into Lake Michigan, gives you a sense of what this village looked like a hundred years ago, when the whole waterfront ran on fish.

Those blue-green stones on the beach aren’t from nature

Leland Blue looks like sea glass, but it’s not. It’s slag, waste material from a 19th-century iron smelter, tumbled and polished by decades in the lake.

The Leland Lake Superior Iron Company ran the furnace from 1870 to 1884, producing up to 40 tons of iron a day at its peak. Workers dumped the slag into the water, and Lake Michigan has been handing it back ever since.

The pieces wash up blue, green, sometimes purple. Collectors polish them into jewelry.

Walk the shoreline long enough and you’ll find them.

Van’s Beach sits a short walk from the fishing docks

Van’s Beach is public and close, a short walk down Cedar Street from Fishtown.

Hall Beach runs alongside it at the base of the harbor break wall, protected by the Leelanau Conservancy since 1996.

Together, they give you soft sand, an unbroken view across Lake Michigan, and the kind of sunsets that face you straight on. Rock hunters work the waterline here for Leland Blue and Petoskey stones.

You don’t need a permit or a parking pass, just a walk down from the docks and a place to put your shoes.

In fall, salmon leap the dam right in the heart of town

A small dam sits where the Leland River meets Lake Michigan, built in 1854 and raising the river level by 12 feet. The bridge over the dam is the most photographed spot in the village, and in the fall, you’ll understand why.

Salmon push upstream against the current and launch themselves at the dam in full view of anyone standing on the bridge. Otters show up in the river too, not every day, but often enough that people wait.

The small waterfall effect at the base of the dam runs year-round and frames the whole scene.

A glacial bluff 300 feet up overlooks the Manitou Islands

Whaleback Natural Area sits just south of Leland, a wooded bluff formed by glaciers about 11,000 years ago.

It rises 300 feet above Lake Michigan, and sailors used its whale-like silhouette as a navigation landmark for generations. A 1.6-mile trail climbs through the trees to an overlook platform.

On a clear day, you can see Pyramid Point and both Manitou Islands sitting in the water.

The hike isn’t technical, but the elevation gain is real, and the view at the top covers more water than most people expect.

The museum on Cedar Street holds the Manitou Passage shipwrecks

The Leelanau Historical Society Museum sits at 203 East Cedar Street on the banks of the Leland River, open Wednesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The collection goes back to 1957.

Permanent exhibits cover the shipwrecks of the Manitou Passage, the stretch of open water between the mainland and the islands that claimed dozens of vessels over the years.

You’ll also find traditional Anishinaabe black ash baskets and quillwork, exhibits on fur trading, and an archive holding thousands of photographs and documents that don’t exist anywhere else.

A 1922 clapboard building survived developers and became a gathering spot

The Old Art Building is a white clapboard structure near the river, finished in 1922 by a local woman named Allie Mae Best. It ran as a Michigan State summer art school from 1939 to 1989.

When developers eyed the property in the early 1990s, a small group of residents stepped in and saved it. The building was added to the State Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Today, it runs art shows, music nights, classes, and community events throughout the year. It’s the kind of place that exists in almost every small town but rarely survives this long.

Sleeping Bear Dunes is a short drive south of the village

Leland sits just north of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the park that ABC’s Good Morning America viewers once voted the most beautiful place in America.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive runs along bluffs above Lake Michigan and you can stop at overlooks that drop straight to the water below. Good Harbor Beach is a short drive south.

Empire Bluffs and several short trail options are easy to reach from Leland. You’ll need a park pass, available locally, before you enter.

Give yourself at least half a day if you plan to do more than drive through.

Walk Historic Fishtown in Leland, Michigan

Historic Fishtown sits at 203 West River Street along the Leland River in downtown Leland, about 25 miles northwest of Traverse City on the Leelanau Peninsula.

The grounds are open year-round, 24 hours a day, with no admission charge to walk the docks. Individual shops and food counters set their own hours, mostly seasonal from late spring through fall.

Park on the street or in the nearby lots and walk in. Carlson’s Fishery is at 205 River Street, a few steps from the main dock.

Check the official website for seasonal hours before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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