Leland’s New Harbor The waves lately have been crashing over the harbor wall. Imagine how the open waters of Lake Michigan battered Fishtown and its commercial fishermen for more than one-hundred years before the Harbor of Refuge was built in the late 1960s. The Carlson Family had just acquired the white shanty and moved and […]
Having Fun in Fishtown The young girl pictured aboard the Helen S (built in Fishtown in 1927) is Patty (Dunshee) Shea. Patty brought the photo to our office in 2007. The Helen S was built in Fishtown in 1927 by John Johnson for commercial fisherman Hank Steffens, Sr. The fishing tug was named after Hank […]
It was late November 2015, and Joy was heading inland for the latest round of maintenance and improvements Fishtown Preservation has undertaken over the past ten years
My name is Grace. This blog will provide a perspective of Fishtown you might not have encountered: the perspective of an outsider.
As visitors, we don’t often notice the finer details of a working community. We see painters, boaters, fishermen and shop owners, day after day, but we assume they’re here because the place is beautiful and one of a kind. We forget that they’re also working. Whether they’re selling paintings, smoking whitefish sausage or scooping ice cream, many of them have five months to earn enough money to support their families for an entire year. In the summer Fishtown swells with families and friends on vacation, but it is also full of families and friends working to preserve Fishtown for visitors, year after year.
It has been white, windy, and colder than cold. But nothing has stopped the Easling Construction crew from making progress on Fishtown’s rehabilitation every day.
Long awaited, much anticipated, urgently needed: That’s the best way to describe the rehabilitation project that’s been going on in Fishtown throughout this punishing winter.
“Fishtown: Leland, Michigan’s Historic Fishery” published by the Fishtown Preservation Society (FPS) has just been named a 2013 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.
Don’t change anything. Many people—maybe most—thought that was our mission when the Fishtown Preservation Society (FPS) purchased the core historic part of Fishtown in February 2007.
Painting Fishtown has long been a Leland tradition, thanks to the long history of the Old Art Building.
