The End of Manitou Island Transit?

The impending closure of North Manitou Island for major infrastructure work could force the ferry service that’s taken people there for more than a century to close for good, its owners say.

As reported by Mlive earlier this week, Manitou Island Transit – already rocked by dock problems, water level changes, Covid and other issues in recent years – could go under entirely after 107 years in business if they lose access to the island and the money that comes from taking people there.

“We’re going to go out of business,” co-owner and captain Jimmy Munoz tells The Ticker. “We’re trying our best to pretend like we’re not, but it’s our only option.”

The National Park Service, which operates Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, has yet to formally announce what amounts to a functional closure of one island at a time over the next two years at a minimum. Though people won’t be officially barred from the islands, construction closures and dock replacements at both islands will remove all practical access.

Sleeping Bear Superintendent Scott Tucker says the tentative plan is to have North Manitou closed for 2025 and South closed for 2026 to complete more than $30 million in upgrades to electrical, drinking water and septic systems along with dock replacements. The islands will be worked on one at a time, however, meaning that delays on North could spill into 2026 and push the timeline out longer.

“Sleeping Bear has a maintenance backlog of approximately $80 million, and this is going to tackle almost all of the deferred maintenance on the islands, which are very difficult to work on,” Tucker tells The Ticker. “It’s economy of scale to put all of the projects into one so we mobilize one contractor at one time to do all the work.”

Tucker says he’s sympathetic to MIT’s concerns. But work of this nature is vital, he says, and problems with access are simply unavoidable in such projects.

“We’re talking about protecting and preserving our resources and providing access, and the intent of the park and our work out on the islands is to set the stage for the next 50 years,” he says. “And to set that stage, there are unfortunately going to be some impacts, including loss of access."

Tucker hopes that MIT will survive by providing service to whichever island is open during these infrastructure projects.

“Our goal is to ensure consistent visitor access,” he says. “We will provide every opportunity for MIT to run some sort of service to at least one island.”

The problem, says Munoz and his wife Megan (great-granddaughter of MIT founder George Tracy Grosvenor) is that losing access to even one island, especially over a period of 2-4 years, is not financially sustainable.

“It’s not lucrative enough to just do half,” Megan tells The Ticker. “We’ve got to have both islands to make it work.”

The Munozes are already angered about loss of access to North Manitou for all of the 2024 season. While they wanted the area around the dock there dredged, the park service instead built a temporary dock extension that the transit service feels is unusable due to its exposed position in the often rough Lake Michigan waters.

This means they’re planning to sue again, as they did successfully a few years back, alleging that the NPS’ failure to dredge the area amounted to a breach of their service contract with NPS. The park’s position this time around is that the temporary dock it built was both safe and adequate for use this year, Tucker says.

Years of substantial frustrations in dealing with the park service – the North dock was last adequately dredged in 2015, Jimmy Munoz contends – adds another existential threat to the future of the long-running transit company, both Jimmy and Megan say.

“How do you look at that as a business owner, and how do we look at our kids and expect them to buy into this?” he says. “All you have to do is beat your head against the wall for the next 30 years and have things blow up in your face.”

While the 12,000 or so visitors that go to the islands each year represent a mere fraction of the millions that visit Sleeping Bear Dunes, Tucker says the “life-changing” island experience is one of the most valuable and unique experiences offered at the park. As such, he says, park officials place great value on continued access there. MIT’s recurring 10-year contract is up in a few years, he says, and he hopes they’ll be around to re-up.

“No matter what the outcome of this is, in 2028 we will put a new prospectus out for the next 10 years of ferry service to the islands, and I hope that Manitou Island Transit makes it through the challenge of the next two years and that they are in a position to continue that service,” he says. “If they do not apply, we'll look at what other opportunities we have out there for other ferry operations.”

Manitou Island transit owns two buildings in Leland Harbor along with the docks it uses for ferry operations. After substantial bad blood, MIT owners are unlikely to sell that land to another ferry operator if they are forced out of business, Jimmy Munoz says.

“I can guarantee you the park will never touch that property, and neither will someone else that wants to run a ferry boat,” he says.