Speaker 1: Welcome to haunted road, the production of I heart radio
Speaker 1: and grim and mild from Aaron minky listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to the stage. Ready to bring you down
Speaker 1: the haunted road, the one and the only Miss Amy Brunei.
Speaker 1: Are you guys ready? All Right, here we go. Years
Speaker 1: Ago I was prepping for a party. I know this
Speaker 1: may come as a surprise to you me prepping for
Speaker 1: a party, but this wasn't any party. This was a
Speaker 1: Halloween Costume Party. I had a large group in a
Speaker 1: hotel that would be attending, so I was in the
Speaker 1: hotel ballroom getting set up for the festivities which would
Speaker 1: be taking place the next night. Everyone who had assisted
Speaker 1: me throughout the day had taken their leave and I
Speaker 1: was just getting a few last minute things taken care
Speaker 1: of before I was due to meet them for dinner.
Speaker 1: As I was fiddling with some projectors, I suddenly heard
Speaker 1: a door open and close, which I didn't think much
Speaker 1: of until it was followed by the sound of footsteps
Speaker 1: approaching behind me very quickly, quickily enough that it alarmed
Speaker 1: me and I spun around to see if someone had
Speaker 1: returned and needed something. Except when I spun around, no
Speaker 1: one was there. Every hair on the back of my
Speaker 1: neck set up and just moments later, the projectors I
Speaker 1: had been trying to get to work all turned on
Speaker 1: at once. It didn't help that they were projecting images
Speaker 1: of zombies on the walls for the party. With that,
Speaker 1: I snapped off the projectors, grabbed my belongings and made
Speaker 1: a hasty retreat out of that room. If you know
Speaker 1: me well, you know that if I get scared or nervous,
Speaker 1: I whistle a happy song, because clearly nothing bad can
Speaker 1: happen to you if you're whistling a happy tune. So
Speaker 1: you better believe I was whistling away as I speed
Speaker 1: walked my way down the halls of the hotel trying
Speaker 1: to make my exit. But even when I reached the
Speaker 1: safety of the outdoors, I didn't feel alone, and I
Speaker 1: know now that's just how you feel all the time
Speaker 1: when you're visiting the very beautiful and very haunted mackinaw island.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to haunted road in the
Speaker 1: waters of Lake Huron, between Michigan's upper and lower peninsula's sit's,
Speaker 1: a tiny island that is one of the most haunted
Speaker 1: places in America. Just four point three five square miles,
Speaker 1: macanna island is a place out of time, one where
Speaker 1: life exists as it did hundreds of years ago, where
Speaker 1: there are no cars, just horses and carts for transportation,
Speaker 1: and where the ghosts are now as much a part
Speaker 1: of day to day goings on as they were when
Speaker 1: they were alive. But it's haunted history isn't the only
Speaker 1: thing that makes macana island remarkable. The land itself might
Speaker 1: be tiny, but it's stunning. High cliffs wore above the
Speaker 1: ocean like lake, with geological formations like Sugarloaf, Skull Rock
Speaker 1: and Arch Rock, a natural limestone arch nearly one fifty
Speaker 1: feet above the ground. The island has been drawing vacationers
Speaker 1: by the tens of thousands every year to experience what
Speaker 1: a truly unique and extraordinary place it is. But make
Speaker 1: no mistake, there are lots and lots of ghosts. The
Speaker 1: Island is so haunted that, according to reporting from a
Speaker 1: Michigan newspaper group, mackinaw island is by far the most
Speaker 1: haunted town per capita in the United States, with sixteen
Speaker 1: haunted locations for its population of only four hundred. Seventy
Speaker 1: eight people. The native ojibway people's originally named mackinaw island Nichi.
Speaker 1: Mackinac the O Ge way word for big turtle, because
Speaker 1: they thought the islands shape mimicked the shape of a
Speaker 1: turtle shell. The first French settlers kept the Ojibway name,
Speaker 1: but once the English arrived in the area they shortened
Speaker 1: the name to simply mackinaw. In the Lansing State Journal
Speaker 1: Kathleen leavy wrote, most people associate macanna island with the
Speaker 1: Victorian era vibe, the car free joy of horse drawn
Speaker 1: wagons and Bicycles and shopping for candy and souvenirs along
Speaker 1: Market Street, which neglects a few thousand years of the
Speaker 1: island's history. In fact, native honest namic peoples from the Odawa,
Speaker 1: Ojibway and Poetomi tribes lived undisturbed on Macana island for
Speaker 1: what local tribal experts estimate could be as long as
Speaker 1: three thousand years. According to the biddlehouse project, which developed
Speaker 1: the Macana island native American Museum, Macanna Island has been
Speaker 1: a sacred and historically significant place for Anishnak people for centuries,
Speaker 1: for a very long time. According to an article in
Speaker 1: spiritual travels. Macana island was the center of the NISHNA world.
Speaker 1: Ceremonies were held on the island to celebrate the changing
Speaker 1: seasons and to pay respect to the spirits who resided here.
Speaker 1: These powerful beings controlled the lakes and appropriate actions needed
Speaker 1: to be taken to ensure that the fishing remain plentiful
Speaker 1: and that travelers could cross the water safely. Greg Newkirk,
Speaker 1: who shout out Greg New Kirk, wrote per week and
Speaker 1: weird that researchers believe that the island not only served
Speaker 1: as a prime fishing location, but that the Annishnak tribes
Speaker 1: considered it a sacred place, believing it to be home
Speaker 1: to the great spirit. The Great Lakes in general have
Speaker 1: been a historically sacred native location, but mackinaw, along with
Speaker 1: nearby round island and Boy Blanc Island in the Straits
Speaker 1: of mackinac, were especially significant because they were used as
Speaker 1: ancient anish burial browns. This is where a lot of
Speaker 1: the stories about mackinaw islands ghost stories originate. The annishnabak
Speaker 1: used the island to bury their debt, which meant that
Speaker 1: their ancestors lived there, as well as spirits according to
Speaker 1: spiritual travels, after a burial, the dead were honored with
Speaker 1: ceremonies that were described as feasts of the dead by
Speaker 1: the French explorers and Jesuit priests who came to the
Speaker 1: region in the seventeenth century. This practice continues to this
Speaker 1: day among native communities in North Their Michigan, in a
Speaker 1: tradition known as ghost suppers. While some of the remains
Speaker 1: have been removed and repatriated to tribal councils, many remains
Speaker 1: are still buried on the island. Things began to change
Speaker 1: on macanna island in the seventeenth century when the first
Speaker 1: colonists began to arrive and disrupt the peaceful life on
Speaker 1: the island. French Canadian explorers arrived in sixteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: In the decades that followed, the area became an important
Speaker 1: fur trading site for French colonists. During the French and
Speaker 1: Indian war, from seventeen fifty four to seventeen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the French lost control of macanna island to the British,
Speaker 1: who then built fort mcinnaw on the island's high bluffs
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty. The site was formerly a trading post
Speaker 1: but served as a British fortification during the revolutionary war.
Speaker 1: Though the British lost control of the Ford after that war,
Speaker 1: the fight for control of the island was far from over.
Speaker 1: In fact, a British attempt to regain the island was
Speaker 1: the first act of aggression in the war of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 1: Before news had even reached the island that war had
Speaker 1: been to laired. According to mackinaw dot com, in July
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, a British force landed secretly on the
Speaker 1: far north end of mackinaw island and forced the United
Speaker 1: States to surrender fort mcanaw in the first engagement of
Speaker 1: that conflict. It's also believed that the British murdered more
Speaker 1: than seventy native people during this war. Americans attempted to
Speaker 1: retake the island in eighteen fourteen, but couldn't penetrate the
Speaker 1: British defenses perched high on the cliffs. Macanaw island officially
Speaker 1: became United States territory by the treaty ending the war
Speaker 1: in Eighteen fifteen, and fort mcannaw remained in use until
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century. According to macinaw Dot
Speaker 1: Com's history of the island. In eighteen twenty two, fort
Speaker 1: mckinnaw's post surgeon, William Beaumont, saved the life of Alexis
Speaker 1: St Martin after an accidental shotgun blast tore a hole
Speaker 1: in the young voyager's stomach. When the whole never completely healed,
Speaker 1: the physician observed firsthand what happens when food is digested
Speaker 1: in the stomach. His published experiments made medical history. The
Speaker 1: period it after the war of eighteen twelve was a
Speaker 1: time of great change on the island. Macinaw became the
Speaker 1: center of John Jacob Astor's American fur company and supplied
Speaker 1: beaver pelts to America and Europe's fashionable elite for more
Speaker 1: than thirty years. It was also around this time that
Speaker 1: Christian missionaries arrived on the island. In eighteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: William Montague ferry and his wife Amanda founded a mission
Speaker 1: on the southeasternmost part of the island, which has come
Speaker 1: to be known as mission point. Two years later, missionaries
Speaker 1: built the mission house, a spare two story building that
Speaker 1: still stands today. The house was designed as a Boarding
Speaker 1: School for native American children to learn manual crafts and
Speaker 1: Liberal Arts and to adopt the standards and living panterns
Speaker 1: characteristic of New England and the American East Coast. Throughout
Speaker 1: this time, a nishnabek people still comprised the majority of
Speaker 1: the island's population, but that wouldn't last much longer. One
Speaker 1: of the most important figures on macana island in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century was Agatha biddle. Eric Hemn Way, the archival
Speaker 1: director for the old traverse bay bands of Odawa Indians,
Speaker 1: said when Agatha was a child Michigan was almost exclusively
Speaker 1: native American. By the time she was an elderly woman
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds, natives were the vast minority
Speaker 1: and had lost most of their land. Agatha saw firsthand
Speaker 1: the complete transformation of aneshnabe life and culture. An honest
Speaker 1: navik woman, Agatha married Philadelphia and Edward biddle, and the
Speaker 1: couple ran a fur trading business on the island. As
Speaker 1: Hem and way explained, she controlled the family business. She
Speaker 1: set the prices, negotiated with fur traders and hosted functions
Speaker 1: at her home. The two lived in the biddle house
Speaker 1: built around seventeen eighty, which is the oldest standing structure
Speaker 1: on the island today. It was a major center of
Speaker 1: life on mackinaw. During the wars, Hem and way explained
Speaker 1: Agatha was likely torn. Her business interests forced her to
Speaker 1: remain neutral, but the Oji way and Odawa peoples were
Speaker 1: adamantly against the Americans and supported the British in the war.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty six U S government created the Treaty
Speaker 1: of Washington. According to an article in Indian country today,
Speaker 1: through this treaty, the Odawa and Chippewa of Northern Michigan
Speaker 1: seeded about sixteen million acres to the U S government.
Speaker 1: In return, the government allowed these tribes to stay in
Speaker 1: Michigan on small reservations and access natural resources. However, when
Speaker 1: the treaty was brought to the island to be signed,
Speaker 1: with four thousand honest Nabe people gathered to witness the signing,
Speaker 1: the document had been changed. Instead of granting the tribe's
Speaker 1: access to the landgoing for, the government had added language
Speaker 1: saying that they would only be granted access for five years,
Speaker 1: after which the government could remove the native Americans at
Speaker 1: the discretion of the president. Indian agent Henry schoolcraft promised
Speaker 1: the tribes people that would never happen. which is two
Speaker 1: years later, Hem and way explained, they were ordered off
Speaker 1: the island. Frank Strauss, writing for the mackinaw island town crier,
Speaker 1: suggested that it was Agatha and her family that might
Speaker 1: have helped to keep the Annesh Nabe people in their
Speaker 1: ancestral home. Her senior standing on the island helped to
Speaker 1: forge relationships between native hunters and American capitalists. He wrote.
Speaker 1: This may have helped ensure that the Odawa and the
Speaker 1: Annesh Nabe were not forced to move westward in the
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties and forties. Many of her kinfolk were too
Speaker 1: valuable as participants in the Michigan Territory Economy. Eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: five Treaty of Detroit further cemented the native Americans claims
Speaker 1: to the land, though it was still the basis of
Speaker 1: lawsuits to regain reservation land as recently as twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: As the nineteenth century progressed, the island shifted from being
Speaker 1: a center of fur trading to focusing more on the
Speaker 1: fishing industry. By the Victorian era, macanna island had become
Speaker 1: one of the area's most fashionable and in demand summer
Speaker 1: resorts in the country. According to Eugene t Peterson, writing
Speaker 1: for macinaw Dot Com's history section. It was the Victorians
Speaker 1: who made mackinaw island one of the nation's most favored
Speaker 1: summer resorts. In the post civil war age and before automobiles,
Speaker 1: vacationers traveled by large lake excursion boats from Buffalo, Cleveland,
Speaker 1: Chicago and Detroit to the cooler climbs of macanaw island.
Speaker 1: They danced to Strauss waltz's, listened to Sosa's stirring marches,
Speaker 1: dined on whitefish and strolled along the broad decks. In
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties, the Wa Washkimo Golf Course was built
Speaker 1: and around this time an automobile ban was implemented on
Speaker 1: the island that remains in place now. In eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: all the federal land on the island became macanaw island
Speaker 1: state park, Michigan's first State Park. With that designation came
Speaker 1: strict guidance that all private development and all these holders
Speaker 1: were required to maintain the distinctive Victorian architecture in place
Speaker 1: on the island. To this day, historic preservation and restoration
Speaker 1: are highly prioritized on the island. According to macinaw DOT COM.
Speaker 1: In recent years the historical sites and Fort Buildings, such
Speaker 1: as the officers stone quarters, have been restored to their
Speaker 1: original condition and brought to life through Dioramas, period settings,
Speaker 1: guided tours and reenactments for the benefit of the thousands
Speaker 1: of summer visitors. Those visitors can also explore the native
Speaker 1: American cultural history trail, an eight mile road that runs
Speaker 1: the perimeter of the island and details the history and
Speaker 1: significance of the island. It's also famous for its many,
Speaker 1: many hauntings. According to mysterious universe, mackinaw seems to be
Speaker 1: as crowded with ghosts as it is with visitors, so
Speaker 1: much so that it is often said that the dead
Speaker 1: outnumber the living here. The most infamous of the island's
Speaker 1: paranormal hot spots is the drowning pool, a perilously deep
Speaker 1: lagoon full of seaweed, where a man became tangled in
Speaker 1: the vegetation and drowned in the late nineteen seventies. But
Speaker 1: that's not the worst story about the drowning pool. According
Speaker 1: to a history book of macinaw's haunted legends by Ken Hadad,
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, seven women
Speaker 1: were accused of being witches back in those days, one
Speaker 1: of the methods used for determining if someone was a
Speaker 1: witch or not was to tie rocks to their feet
Speaker 1: and throw them into the water to see if they
Speaker 1: would float or not. If they sank, they were deemed
Speaker 1: in a scent. All of them sank and drowned. To
Speaker 1: this day, visitors to the drowning pool report mysterious splashing,
Speaker 1: shadows and dark figures rising above the surface and a
Speaker 1: deep feeling of dread at the place. The Grand Hotel
Speaker 1: is another of the island's most notoriously haunted places. Legend
Speaker 1: says that construction workers uncovered extensive human remains while digging
Speaker 1: the hotel's foundation. Greg newkirk's retelling says that they began
Speaker 1: to find so many human skeletons that they lost track
Speaker 1: of them all. To this day, rumors persist that the workers,
Speaker 1: increasingly unsure of how to handle the situation, simply gave
Speaker 1: up on collecting the bones and started building the hotel anyway.
Speaker 1: In the hotel, people report seeing a man in a
Speaker 1: top hat playing the piano in the bar and of
Speaker 1: a woman in Victorian clothing who roams the hotel's employee housing.
Speaker 1: People also report seeing an evil entity which presents as
Speaker 1: a black mass with glowing red eyes. New Kirk wrote.
Speaker 1: As two maintenance men performed a check of the hotel's
Speaker 1: theater stage, one of them was struck with the overwhelming
Speaker 1: feeling that something was watching them, something that he could
Speaker 1: only describe as evil. As he looked out over the stage,
Speaker 1: he noticed two glowing red eyes peering from a dark
Speaker 1: shadow hovering above the theater floor. As he watched in horror,
Speaker 1: the black form began to rush toward him, knocking him
Speaker 1: off his feet. Two days later the man awoke in
Speaker 1: a hospital and swore to never return to the grand
Speaker 1: what was once a World Conference Center for an Evangelist
Speaker 1: Group and then a college, is now the mission point resort.
Speaker 1: As Greg New Kirk wrote, the resort's most popular ghost
Speaker 1: is that of a student nicknamed Harvey, who died in
Speaker 1: the late sixties. As the official story goes, Harvey, the
Speaker 1: victim of a broken heart, made his way to the
Speaker 1: bluffs behind the resort, pulled a gun and shot himself.
Speaker 1: His body wasn't discovered for six months. When I was
Speaker 1: researching Harvey on ghost hunters, I found Harvey's real identity,
Speaker 1: but his family asked that we keep a private harvey
Speaker 1: shows up in mission points, theater, where visitors report being
Speaker 1: pinched and poked. Say He's a joker who likes to
Speaker 1: play tricks on people, but given the mysterious circumstances around
Speaker 1: his death, he could also be trying to communicate something.
Speaker 1: You see, Harvey died from not one but two gunshots
Speaker 1: to the head, and the gun was found nowhere near
Speaker 1: his body. Many visitors to the island reports seeing the
Speaker 1: apparition of a girl named Lucy, who has curly hair
Speaker 1: and wears a sun dress. She's been spotted following people
Speaker 1: on the staircase at the crow's nest trail, peeking out
Speaker 1: of windows at the pine cottage and walking around the
Speaker 1: island House hotel, where she's often spotted in the theater
Speaker 1: and auditorium. Not Much is known about who Lucy could be,
Speaker 1: but according to mysterious universe, Legend has it that Lucy
Speaker 1: became sick on the island while her parents were in
Speaker 1: Detroit on business and she died before they could return.
Speaker 1: There are no official records of her passing, but record
Speaker 1: keeping on the island wasn't consistent before nineteen hundred. But
Speaker 1: by far the most haunted location on mackinaw island is
Speaker 1: Fort mckinnaugh. According to Brett Swansor, writing for a mysterious universe,
Speaker 1: fort mckinnaugh Ist in death. The very wall seemed stained
Speaker 1: by it, and that death has left its mark, as
Speaker 1: Greg New Kirk wrote, for a planet weird. From apparitions
Speaker 1: of soldiers glimpsed walking the rifle range trail to piles
Speaker 1: of Phantom limbs spotted in the hospital, to furniture that
Speaker 1: moves on its own, tripping motion detectors and office or
Speaker 1: hills apartment quarters, the fort has no shortage of paranormal activity.
Speaker 1: The fourth's hospital dates back to making it the oldest
Speaker 1: hospital building in Michigan. There people died from battle injuries,
Speaker 1: but also from illnesses that crude nineteenth century medical practice
Speaker 1: couldn't properly treat. At least thirteen children of soldiers stationed
Speaker 1: that the fort died in the hospital from everything from
Speaker 1: typhoid fever to tuberculosis. They were all buried in the
Speaker 1: forts cemetery and Ken Haddad's haunted history of mckinna island,
Speaker 1: he wrote in the hospital. Some have felt feelings of
Speaker 1: sadness and have seen apparitions of Phantom limbs. The sound
Speaker 1: of crying babies is often heard, along with mysteriously moved furniture,
Speaker 1: and motion detectors set off with no one or round.
Speaker 1: People often report feeling sad in the hospital and say
Speaker 1: they smell the stench of sickness and death. The fort
Speaker 1: had a dungeon for prisoners called the black hole, or
Speaker 1: at least one person died in captivity. A soldier stationed
Speaker 1: at the fort committed suicide in eighty three people report
Speaker 1: feeling cold spots there, even in summer, and people frequently
Speaker 1: photographed strange anomalies in the space. According to Tour Guide
Speaker 1: Carl Simpson, it's believed that several ghosts haunt the fort,
Speaker 1: including two children whose father was stationed there and the
Speaker 1: Phantom Piper heard playing on misty mornings at the north
Speaker 1: entryway and the officers quarters. Children are reportedly seen playing
Speaker 1: with toys and people often experience furniture moving and hearing
Speaker 1: babies cry. In the cemetery, Brett swansor wrote, the apparition
Speaker 1: of a woman can sometimes be seen weeping at the
Speaker 1: grave of one of the children who died here, eternally
Speaker 1: lamenting her loss. But here to talk more in depth
Speaker 1: of the hauntings on mackinaw is my good friend Todd Clemens,
Speaker 1: paranormal author and owner of haunts of mackinaw tours. So
Speaker 1: come on out, todd. Hello. Did I get it all right?
Speaker 1: It correctly? All right, I met todd years ago when
Speaker 1: we were filming ghost hunters on Macana Island. We decided
Speaker 1: it would be a good idea to film on macinaw
Speaker 1: island in January. Yeah, and uh, as todd informed me backstage,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this, but while we were there the
Speaker 1: temperature got down to negative. It was. It actually is
Speaker 1: an experience to be out there in the middle of winter.
Speaker 1: There's very few people. There's obviously residents and then, Um,
Speaker 1: we met a few like writers and artists who kind
Speaker 1: of hide away for the winter, or maybe someone running
Speaker 1: from the law or two. I felt like it actually
Speaker 1: has happened. Yeah, there was one night I remember distinctly.
Speaker 1: We had a day off and I wanted to see
Speaker 1: the Grand Hotel, but you can't get there, and so todd.
Speaker 1: Actually it was like the middle of the night at
Speaker 1: this point, because I think we were probably at the
Speaker 1: bar and there was a full moon and we took
Speaker 1: the snowmobile up to the Grand Hotel and I tell
Speaker 1: you what, that hotel illuminated by the moon and all
Speaker 1: that's like, the snow banks and stuff. It was one
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. So that's
Speaker 1: nothing like it. So thank you for that. It was
Speaker 1: a really good memory. All right. So you obviously are
Speaker 1: very familiar with the Hans on mckinna. Tell me what
Speaker 1: what has been your most kind of startling experience there?
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to pick one. Probably I've had experiences.
Speaker 1: I tried to be brave because usually I'm with of
Speaker 1: guests or someone who's never done it before and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I gotta be the tough guy here because they're freaking
Speaker 1: out and I gotta be the sanity in the room. Um,
Speaker 1: the one it was startling but I had to remain quiet,
Speaker 1: was in the mission point theater. We had one of
Speaker 1: our ghost tours going and one of the stops was
Speaker 1: in the theater and we had about thirty people sitting
Speaker 1: towards the front. The tour guide was on the stage
Speaker 1: telling the ghost stories of the theater and I snuck
Speaker 1: in in the back. I'm dressed all in black. I
Speaker 1: was doing basically a tour check, see how the tour
Speaker 1: guides are doing, make sure everything's accurate, they're presenting everything right,
Speaker 1: and nobody knew I was coming. Nobody knew I was there.
Speaker 1: I'm standing in the very far back of the theater,
Speaker 1: your projection booth, and watching it fine. They were doing
Speaker 1: great and all of a sudden, in my peripheral vision,
Speaker 1: not more than a foot and a half next to me,
Speaker 1: there's a man standing there and I'm like, I started
Speaker 1: looking over and as as I was looking towards him,
Speaker 1: the more I look directly at him, he vanished. He
Speaker 1: slowly just disappeared. But in my peripheral vision, not only
Speaker 1: was he standing there, he was shifting his weight from
Speaker 1: foot to foot, he crossed his arms, he's moving, he's
Speaker 1: watching the tour guide on the stage, because I could
Speaker 1: see his head was facing that way. He was wearing
Speaker 1: a t shirt that had horizontal stripes on it. I
Speaker 1: mean short buzz cut hair, which harvey had short buzz
Speaker 1: cut hair, and I'm assuming it was him, was blonde,
Speaker 1: blond hair. So I was like, I think this is
Speaker 1: harvey standing next to me. Now I wanted to yell
Speaker 1: toront pictures, pictures to everybody was sitting in front, but
Speaker 1: I knew we would wind up having a cleaning crew
Speaker 1: coming through later because they're on a ghost tour. They're
Speaker 1: hearing things that are petrifying some of them who've never
Speaker 1: had experience with anything paranormal before, and I'm telling them,
Speaker 1: yelling from the back of the room, turn around, take
Speaker 1: a picture, turn around. So I just stood there and
Speaker 1: kind of experienced it. It felt like forever, probably thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: but I'm just like, this is a ghost standing right
Speaker 1: next to me, this is harvey. What do I do?
Speaker 1: I can't do anything about it. That was one of
Speaker 1: my experiences. I was just like this is it was.
Speaker 1: So that's where I had. So mission point resort is
Speaker 1: where I had the experience I was talking about in
Speaker 1: the beginning with the footsteps running up behind me, and
Speaker 1: I think that was probably attributed to Harvey. It was
Speaker 1: kind of like playful, but like I mean, I was
Speaker 1: genuinely I thought someone either was playing a prank on
Speaker 1: me when I turned around or someone like was gonna
Speaker 1: get me, you know, and so um and I know
Speaker 1: like we filmed there, obviously for ghosteners, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: and there are rooms where the lights will come on
Speaker 1: on and so there was one night where Jay had
Speaker 1: a camera set up and the his light kept turning
Speaker 1: on and off. This room the lamp and fun fact,
Speaker 1: someone stole that lamp after the episode. Air Terrified. The
Speaker 1: first week the resort was open, the lamp disappeared. Someone
Speaker 1: grabbed it. Yep, so someone somewhere has a haunted lamp
Speaker 1: that they should be returning or donated to Dana and Gregg.
Speaker 1: It's actually Greg and Dana's museum. That's gree Um. Okay.
Speaker 1: So that I think that mission point is maybe kind
Speaker 1: of underrated as far as Hans go there, because people
Speaker 1: do think of the Grand Hotel, which Adam and I,
Speaker 1: whenever we go to mackinaw which strange escapes, will be
Speaker 1: returning their next fall. Um, whenever we go there we
Speaker 1: always make a point to have a cocktail in the
Speaker 1: COOPOLA bar at the Grand Hotel. Yeah, I call it
Speaker 1: the rest stop because when I go home at night
Speaker 1: that's halfway between home at work. So we'll go up
Speaker 1: there a sunset when it's beautiful, but the staff has
Speaker 1: gotten to know US enough because they have we haven't
Speaker 1: been since pre covid but they always have. Um, most
Speaker 1: of the staff, I believe they come in from Jamaica,
Speaker 1: and so they come back every year and they recognize
Speaker 1: us and they told us they are terrified of the
Speaker 1: employee housing. They're like they don't like to talk about it,
Speaker 1: but and they're not supposed to talk about it, but
Speaker 1: they talk about it to Adam and me and they
Speaker 1: have something, some stories. All right. So if you're going
Speaker 1: to visit macinaw and you want to experience a haunting,
Speaker 1: where do you go? Hmm, the whole island. Stay overnight. Always.
Speaker 1: A lot of people come during the day. It's a
Speaker 1: totally different places. At night it goes from more or
Speaker 1: less Disney world crowds, like crowded, crowded, crowded people everywhere
Speaker 1: and as soon as that last fairy leaves it thins out.
Speaker 1: It's quiet. You can actually feel like the tranquility of
Speaker 1: the island at night. And Uh, I know it's hard. No.
Speaker 1: So the drowning pool? Is that the urban legend, by
Speaker 1: the way? Yeah, well, that's why I cited people who
Speaker 1: said it. So that didn't come from me. So, but
Speaker 1: that being said, the rumor drowning pool is that that's
Speaker 1: on the grounds at mission point, isn't it? Or is
Speaker 1: that a different place? It is at mission point. Technically
Speaker 1: it's kind of just off the property, State Park property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of just out front of it, but
Speaker 1: you can see it and like, regardless of whether or
Speaker 1: not that actually happened there. You know, I'm we're big
Speaker 1: believers in in like intention and energy, and you think
Speaker 1: of how many people over, you know, the last hundred
Speaker 1: years or so or a few decades, have gone to
Speaker 1: that spot thinking that that happened there like that energy.
Speaker 1: We always investigate it when we go and get weird results.
Speaker 1: Did do research. Um, we couldn't find anything. We couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything about witches and witchcraft, but we did find
Speaker 1: a store which was interesting, which kind of tied to it.
Speaker 1: MAKES US wonder if it's the origins of the story.
Speaker 1: There was. It's only one book, one historical, historical book, Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's only about a paragraph long and it talks
Speaker 1: about a native American woman who was a prostitute who
Speaker 1: was tried and executed by French government law insane igness.
Speaker 1: So we're like that could be where the story kind
Speaker 1: of came from. Plus, the island, yes, did have a
Speaker 1: lot of brothels. Fur Traders and soldiers. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of brothels. So we think a bunch of pieces
Speaker 1: of different stories came together and then you got which
Speaker 1: is on macinab executed. Oh Jesus, I mean that's like
Speaker 1: a we call it the historical game of telephone. Exactly right.
Speaker 1: Where where do you stop on your tour? I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you can have experience. It's just about anywhere, but
Speaker 1: it changes a little bit every year. Um, for it's
Speaker 1: a big one. We stopped their mission points, a big one.
Speaker 1: Senience Church, harbor view in Um, my favorite restaurant, sea biscuit.
Speaker 1: Love for them. I love to hang out the sea biscuit.
Speaker 1: Haunted to good haunted stories there and it's actually tied
Speaker 1: to the Doherty Hotel. People from Michigan, Claire Michigan Doherty Hotel.
Speaker 1: Their family was running it was mcniland State Bank, now
Speaker 1: at Sea Biscuit restaurant, but that was their same family.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of got a historical paranormal okay. Well,
Speaker 1: so now what was the hotel? You said the harbor view.
Speaker 1: Harbor view, so that's a place where people, if they
Speaker 1: want to stay, they might have an excuse to stay
Speaker 1: at harbor view. UH, mission points a great place. Try
Speaker 1: and stay in the Straits Lodge when you stay at
Speaker 1: mission point. That's got a lot more activity than the
Speaker 1: main lodge. Um at the hotels have activity. Well, the
Speaker 1: streets lodge is where we stayed right yere in the
Speaker 1: Yes okay, and that is where the lamp was turning
Speaker 1: on and off everything and it was very creepy because
Speaker 1: when we stayed there for ghost hunters the hotel was
Speaker 1: closed and so they just let us. We had the
Speaker 1: whole hotel to ourselves, but they weren't heating the main part,
Speaker 1: so it was freezing in there, but in our little
Speaker 1: spot it was heated. And so every night Um Steve
Speaker 1: and Dave and Adam and myself we would go meet
Speaker 1: down that little lobby and bring a couple of bottles
Speaker 1: of wine and play Liverpool Room. So no ghosts, but
Speaker 1: wine spirits. There were spirits. M anyways, I digress. So
Speaker 1: what other ghost stories do you think that these guys
Speaker 1: need to hear? What was your favorite? Well, Harvey's my
Speaker 1: favorite because actually I was actually brought me into paranormal
Speaker 1: was Harvey, twelve years old and I saw him at
Speaker 1: mission point resort and after that I was watching all
Speaker 1: the TV shows, reading hots older books. I want to
Speaker 1: know about everything. Thanks, Harvey. So Harvey was he's kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, near and dear. Harvey's My guy. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of any ghost ships being seen from Kana? There are.
Speaker 1: There's one freighter. It's still there. The CEDARVILLE went down
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. Seven people died when the ship
Speaker 1: went down and there have actually been more deaths since
Speaker 1: it went down from scuba divers. And then we're on
Speaker 1: the original one. It collided with another ship which I
Speaker 1: cannot pronounce. Its Norwegian and I'm not going to try
Speaker 1: and butcher it. They collided in the fog. The CEDARVILLE
Speaker 1: was sounding its horns, they weren't getting a response and
Speaker 1: boom it went down in lake minutes. Six FT freighter
Speaker 1: and it's still sitting out in the streets. If you're
Speaker 1: coming from mackinaw city, you take that ferry, you're within
Speaker 1: a hundred yards of where it's sitting in nine water
Speaker 1: below you. Uh, there's that one. There is the guilt er,
Speaker 1: which is another shipwreck. There's a canoe, there's a ghost.
Speaker 1: It's not the canoe. You'd go down the river. It
Speaker 1: was a fur trading canoe, which they were huge, I
Speaker 1: mean thirty, forty ft by five FT wide, stacked with
Speaker 1: for Peter Belts and they used them as trade. But
Speaker 1: there's a story that is tied to Detroit with a
Speaker 1: canoe that comes through the Straits barreled down with furs
Speaker 1: and the story goes he's going to his love who
Speaker 1: is in new France. Detroit was known as New France. Interesting,
Speaker 1: he was going to hurt. And then this is weird
Speaker 1: because this is one of those times where you're doing
Speaker 1: investigating in research and you come across you like they're connected.
Speaker 1: There's a story of a woman in Detroit who it
Speaker 1: sits by the banks of Lake St Clair waiting for
Speaker 1: her love to come on a canoe loaded down with
Speaker 1: furs to return to her. So that's, strangely, of the
Speaker 1: connected ghost stories, connected ghost stories a few hundred miles apart,
Speaker 1: and I was like this is awesome. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: really cool one. So so we have haunted restaurants, haunted hostels.
Speaker 1: Now I feel like sometimes with places like Mac I
Speaker 1: feel like it's haunted because part of the reason why
Speaker 1: it's haunted is because it just hasn't changed. Like it.
Speaker 1: It looks familiar to those spirits. It looks like it
Speaker 1: did when they were there. So are there ever reports of,
Speaker 1: you know, people in like period dress or anything that
Speaker 1: that people might think might be reenactors or something that
Speaker 1: actually it could be? Uh, this one we were doing,
Speaker 1: we were on a tour, just doing our thing, going
Speaker 1: telling ghost stories and we're telling a completely different ghost
Speaker 1: story and uh, tour guides facing down the street, the
Speaker 1: guests are facing up the streets, up a hill is
Speaker 1: a near mission point and everybody who's like, is that
Speaker 1: part of the tour? Tour, I didn't see it. They
Speaker 1: turned around. There's a fully uniformed armed soldier standing in
Speaker 1: the middle of the street. Hit a rifle. He went,
Speaker 1: put his heat together, his rifle to his shoulder, turned
Speaker 1: to the whole thing, took a few steps. As soon
Speaker 1: as he hit a shadow of a tree he was gone.
Speaker 1: Oh my good, the entire tour saw that. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: why couldn't? Right? Well, that's so interesting because I was
Speaker 1: sometimes I wonder if you see an apparition when you're
Speaker 1: by yourself. I think, is that something that my brain created?
Speaker 1: So I I love stories of multiple people seeing the
Speaker 1: same thing that you know, Adam, and I've had that
Speaker 1: happen many times, where we both see the exact same thing,
Speaker 1: which could be our brains melding together, because we're close
Speaker 1: to that point. But that's really compelling it. So does
Speaker 1: anybody ever just wanted to bolt from your tour and
Speaker 1: had enough? Oh yeah, but they're like on the island,
Speaker 1: they can't leave people. Yeah, they had accidents occasionally. It happens, occasionally, adults, adults. Um,
Speaker 1: we do that anymore, but we used to do a
Speaker 1: jump startle type thing and it was part of that.
Speaker 1: It was a reenactment of a sighting of a ghost.
Speaker 1: I'm on the parts of the tour, but it was
Speaker 1: allowed paging a like. Yeah, some people can't handle that.
Speaker 1: It just couldn't. Oh my good, it was. It was
Speaker 1: a big room. It was in the sound stage. If
Speaker 1: you remember the sound stage, it's pitch black. It's about
Speaker 1: as big as this room, completely sound proof in pitch black. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can't see the other wall, you don't know
Speaker 1: what's in the room with you and you just make
Speaker 1: the slightest noise or shift and people are like what
Speaker 1: was that? So it's probably good you eliminated that from
Speaker 1: your tour. It's probably good idea for sure. Wow. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone's really excited to go. Now we don't
Speaker 1: do the jump scares anymore. If anything you're scared of
Speaker 1: it's your own head. Now it's history, ghost stories and legends.
Speaker 1: I love that. Well, I have to say thank you.
Speaker 1: You have been lovely as always. We've known each other
Speaker 1: for years. I could to see you want. I could
Speaker 1: see all of my Michigan friends every year at Michigan Paragon.
Speaker 1: Thank you, everybody for coming out to this so great. So,
Speaker 1: how can people find you if they want to go
Speaker 1: on the tour? Dot Com is the best. In macinaw
Speaker 1: is spelled with the C because we are on the
Speaker 1: upper peninsula side, not the lower peninsula side. That's the difference.
Speaker 1: Bridge North, bridge south. It's w there's all these rules,
Speaker 1: French versus British. You bers, trolls under the bridge, mcanac mcinom.
Speaker 1: I can't keep up learning. It's taking me a decade
Speaker 1: of coming here when I'm learning, and the bridge just
Speaker 1: swing over at five pm every night and the five o'clock,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. Well, I want to thank all of
Speaker 1: you for coming out is such a good start to
Speaker 1: what's gonna be an amazing weekend, and thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to haunted road and I will see
Speaker 1: you guys all that for the next three days. I
Speaker 1: hope we don't get sick of us. Thank you, everybody.
Speaker 1: A great night. Let's keep it going. Amy Bruney, Tom Clements.
Speaker 1: Haunted road is hosted and written by me, Amy Bruney,
Speaker 1: with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra Day Alba.
Speaker 1: This show is edited and produced by REMA L Kali,
Speaker 1: with supervising producer Josh thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. Haunted road is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart radio and grim and mild from Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: Learn more about this show over at grim and mild
Speaker 1: dot com, and for more podcasts from I heart radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.