While the official designation on the map is Bellow Island, Northport residents appropriately refer to it as Gull Island, as it is home to a massive sea gull population. In 1910, a prominent St. Louis businessman, Edward Ustick, purchased the island and promptly built a summer vacation home. While building the house, Edward stated, “the gulls have to go”. For 30 years, the gulls never left and pretty much “ruled the roost”. The family, with no choice in the matter, tolerated the arrangement. The house eventually was inherited by Edward’s son, Lee Ustick, a Harvard professor, who summered there regularly until 1945. With the war waging, and rations in place, traveling became hard. The summer cottage, while not abandoned, was temporarily unused. In 1948, Lee received a call from the Michigan Police. Six juvenile Northport residents, who happened to be the sons of Lee Ustick’s friends, went to Gull Island and proceeded to axe the entire place, destroying everything. The entire interior was axed, including the windows, staircases, paneling, woodwork, a cast iron tub, ice box, and all the furniture. Due to the extreme vandalism, the entire cottage was written off as a total loss. The 6 teenage boys accomplished in one day what the gulls have tried to do for 38 years… drive the inhabitants out. Lee must have been quite shocked as he was an English professor with a passion for the genre of the 17th century conduct book that gave fatherly advice to sons on “Rules of Civility”. Obviously he and his friends were not on the same page, or even in the same book! 🤔The ruins and the gulls are all that remain from the Ustick era. Today, the island is owned by the Leelanau Conservancy. There is absolutely no trespassing allowed as the island is a gull sanctuary protecting the colony of birds, especially their young.
We arrive to the Suttons Bay Marina which is located in the heart of the downtown area.
Suttons Bay is a small resort town, midway up the eastern shore of the Leelanau Peninsula. It is named for an European settler, Harry Sutton, who arrived in 1854 with a crew of woodsmen to supply fuel for passing steamboats. Sutton’s Bay is now home to 696 people.
From 2019 to 2020 they saw a 27% jump in population. There’ s no mystery why. With its sandy beach, beautiful water, miles of bike trails, and beautiful scenery, it definitely became a great haven during the pandemic!
Now that businesses are open, the offerings are even greater. Sutton’s Bay has a thriving small downtown with boutiques, restaurants, galleries and breweries. There is something for everyone in this small resort town.
As the days are getting shorter, the temperatures crispier, and Lake Michigan rougher, we feel the breath of fall blowing away the number of nice weather days left on the water. We have a few more stops before we call it a season and hope the weather allows us to end our time in sunshine and warmth. The next stop: Traverse City. We will need to stay several days as Captain Tom boards a different vehicle, a plane.