• Richard Browne
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South Manitou Island

To the Native Americans of the Great Lakes, a Manitou is a spirit. A traditional story says the spirit of one of two black bear cubs, that drown trying to escape a forest fire in Wisconsin by swimming across Lake Michigan, is manifest in the form of South Manitou Island. Between the Island and the great sand dune of Sleeping Bear Point, where the mother bear lies mourning the loss of her cubs, is the heavily traveled and often dangerous Manitou Passage. South Manitou Lighthouse was built on the island as an aid to navigation through this important shipping route. The station was abandoned in 1958. Today both the lighthouse and the island are part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.