Welcome to mcina Island Moments, hosted by lifelong islander Jason Saint Doje. Through
conversations and interviews with fellow island locals and residents, Jason will bring you the
real stories and characters that define life on the island. Whether you're a seasoned
visitor, new to MCN Island, or even an islander yourself, you'll be
sure to learn firsthand about the island with Jason on Macan Island Moments. And
Welcome to another edition of the Mcaniland Moments podcast, the only podcast brought to
you from MCN Island by a life long islander. I'm Jason saint On.
Folks, have to apologize. I was pretty tied up for a bit.
We had spring break and then we had the big Easter egg hunt to put
on, and you know, time just kind of slipped away and we weren't
able to get down and get some recordings done. So I do apologize and
we'll try to get back on track now. The reason I'm coming to you
today is we're going to dispel a couple myths, and you know, we
always like doing that here on the podcast, talking about things that are often
brought up and thought but aren't necessarily the try. And one of the ones
I wanted to dispel, which has brought up to me a couple of weeks
ago, is the notion that everybody on Maca Island is rich, and that
couldn't be further from the truth. And you know, although we do have
a number of wealth to do and we even have a few ultra wealthy folks
on the island, the majority of the year round population is is just blue
collar, you know, working class folks. You know, there is a
lot of generational wealth, of course, but there's plenty of us who just
make a living on a day to day operations. And you know, my
dad drove the snowplow, and there's plenty of guys who still drive the snowplow
and work at the state park and work in construction, and work at the
school and the very fabric of the island in fact, So no I will
say this we're all ultra wealthy and that we get to live on Macin Island.
And I don't mean that lightly. I think that we're all very lucky,
and you know, we get to live where everybody else vacation. But
there's many of us who can't afford to vacation the places of the people who
like to come here. I don't know if I said that right, but
you get what I'm saying. So to answer a lot of that, yes
you can see some great, big, majestic cottages that adorn the East and
West Bluff. But believe you me, there's plenty of us who make a
living. But again, we're very lucky. The other myth, this is
a great, big one, and there's been a lot of television shows and
websites and everything else directed towards this is the island haunted. I guess it
depends what your definition of haunted is. A couple things I'm going to say,
and you know, there's even a tour that takes folks around. And
I'm not trying to hurt anyone's business or beliefs, but listen the drowning Pond.
I've seen that one on the internet. Supposedly they used to drown witches
and the seventeen hundreds down by the mission end of town. No, never
happened, And that one was so preposterous. I actually reached out to the
the web creator of that and I said, you know, this didn't go
on, and he said, well, I know, but you know,
it could have. I thought that was the craziest comeback I've ever heard.
I know it didn't go on, but it could have. So, No,
there was no drowning pond. Grand Hotel is built on Indian burial ground.
Also not really true potentially, but not really true at least. That's
a one that started to circulate more recently, the ghosts of Mission Point Resort.
I think they gave him a name, even Harvey or something like that.
I mean, most of this is for entertainment's sake, and by god,
we've had the ghost hunters here. And then you know, a few
weeks ago they had that show on Discovery and they came to I believe,
Small Point, and you know, they presented it as the island was totally
abandoned in October and they were able to finagle a ride here, even though
the fairies were still running five trips a day. But anyway, I had
to remind myself as I listened and watched while rolling my eyes, this is
Hollywood. This isn't a documentary. It's Hollywood. It's meant to entertain.
Now that said, will you find some locals that will say certain things?
Maybe a bit feeling different. Maybe I can tell you this much my whole
life. First of all, I don't really believe in ghosts. I believe
in feelings, I believe in energy. How can you not. But I
don't really believe in ghost And I don't know of anybody who has said something
jumped out behind him and yelled boo or anything like that. But on one
occasion, when I was still working at Grand Hotel, I was walking down
the fourth floor in the West End, towards the center of the hotel,
and I felt something behind me. I could just feel something was right behind
me, and I started walking faster, and the feeling went faster. And
the hotel at the time, the walls were adorned with mirrors, and I
even looked in the mirror to see if somebody was behind me, and there
wasn't. And then I remembered, you know, my training from Scooby Doo
that ghosts don't appear in mirrors, you remember, And I walked really fast,
and the faster I walked, a feeling stayed right behind me. And
I got to the center of the hotel and just kind of dissipated, and
I didn't think about it the rest of the day. I mean, I
just kind of thought it was weird. And you know, I'll tell you
in the winter, all the lights are not in the hotel. You travel
throughout the corridors by flashlight often and I just don't really I didn't say anything
anybody. And at three o'clock break, we're having coffee in the cafeteria and
I said, you know, guys, I don't really believe in this stuff,
but for the first time in my life today I felt something, a
presence near me. And Al Rose, who still works at the hotel,
he was a couple tables over and he said, were you on the fourth
floor in the West End And I said yeah. He said I had it
too. It was wow, And that was it. I never felt it
again and didn't see anything, and I didn't avoid the fourth floor, but
so that was it. So I mean, but that stuff goes on anywhere.
You know, it's an old building and you know Mcan Island's an old
town. But you know, back to the haunting thing, I guess there's
a big difference between haunted and spiritual. And I mean it is factual that
literally thousands of Indians have been buried here in the lower levels. You know,
between where the school yard is all the way to Mission Point. You
know, hundreds of years ago, it was a complete burial ground. And
in fact, almost every building that was built dug up some bones when they
were digging the foundation. It's it's pretty commonly known. And the reason that
is is, you know, the the Chipewan Ottawa Indians believe that, you
know, God, their God lived on Macina Island, so to be buried
there was quite the honor. And so there is that strong I don't know
if I want to use the word in energy, but there's a strong energy.
But the good thing is, I think, is you know, they
weren't murdered here, they weren't held captive here. They were buried here because
they thought this was heaven. And so if there's such a thing as happy
energy, I think that's what's all over the island and that is what has
perhaps been part of the draw I mean, people have just been drawn to
this place for hundreds of years. There's literally three dozen islands within fifty miles
of mack And Island, but this is the one. This is the magical
place. This is the one that people say when I'm there, I feel
at home. I feel at peace. And is that due to all the
nice flowers downtown. That's some of it, I'm sure, and the horses
and the cottages. But this feeling of peace, it's kind of difficult to
kind of difficult to explain, I guess, And maybe that's what it is.
Maybe it's a good haunting. Maybe it's a good energy, and maybe
that calling comes from all these happy souls that were buried here for hundreds of
years. And I think there's a difference there. And you know, I
very well could be full of crap and I'll probably get some some hate email
over this one that I don't know what I'm talking about, But excuse me,
you wouldn't be the first to ever email me that. But so that's
that's what I think about the hauntings. Is there any scary hauntings? Has
anyone ever, like I said, ran into anything like Ghostbusters where there was
an old woman hovering in the library and then a little green goblin slimed anybody?
No, I don't know if any stories like that are there. Feelings,
Is there energy? I think it'd be hard pressed to believe there isn't
something that makes the draw the magic of Macana if you will, something something
just brings folks here and people fall in love at the place. And again
I could be wrong, but hopefully that sums up some of the great ghost
hunts and ghost haunts of mac and Island. I think a lot of Islanders,
you know, when shows come on about the haunts of Mackinaw and all
that Discovery Channel and all those websites, I think we kind of laugh because
there are some things but they never touch on it. They always miss it,
or they do dramatizations or the stuff. I guess that sells TV shows.
So that's where we're at with that. And again I expect I'll be
told I don't know what I'm talking about, but hey, this is what
the podcast is for. We're going to talk about perspective about the island,
on the island from an islander, and so that's where that is. So
today we're bringing in the city foreman, Mike Ruttle. The city format.
What is the city foreman? Well, most you know, cities, municipalities,
they have a crew that kind of takes care of the streets and the
sidewalks and that sort of thing. And right here in MCA Island, we
have the same thing. So welcome to the show, Mike Ruttle. Oh,
thanks Jason for having me on. Hey, I glad you're here.
Mike is he's a hybrid Islander. His grandmother as one of the old Islanders
from the Island family and dress and on the other side of the family,
his grandparents used to own a cottage on the East Bluff called the Wet not
the wedding cake House, called the Mini the Baby Grand, the Baby Grand
the big white Pillars on the East Bluff. So I'm sure Mike has a
lot of great memories of hanging out up at that cottage. To be honest,
Jason, as a kid, I was terrified of that house as it
was an old kind of spooky house. Half of the house was all Victorian
and carpeted and nice and heated, and we stayed on that side. The
other side of the house was all bear wood, creaky, spooky, you
know, And as a little kid up there in the summer, when we
would open up, there'd be bats everywhere, and it was, Yeah,
it was terrifying. I had no idea. I didn't. I mean,
I know, the house to this day kind of has two parts, but
I didn't know, and I can certainly see how that'd be terrifying. So
so Mike, you run the city crew, you're the city foreman. Give
me a day of light for the city crew throughout the seasons. Right now
we're in we're in our third month of spring, I think because winter,
although it never showed its ugly face, now it won't move on to warmer
weather. So what are you guys up to right now? So right now
we are working on the spring clean up, clean the streets. There's some
grounds and you know that kind of stuff that needs to be picked up before
the tourist season kicks in. And the maintenance apartment has vehicles subcompact tractors that
we use pull trailers around to get everything cleaned up, opened up and you
know, ready for the tourists right on. Now, do you guys pretty
much have this down to a science? At what day need to have this
done by? What day they have to have that done by? Or is
a weather constantly messing with you? Well, this year the weather seems to
be well, since we didn't have winter, the weather is good, so
we're getting a lot done earlier. Generally when we have winter, there's right
now usually about eight to ten inches of ice on the road right, So
it's just about impossible. And we're always under the gun trying to get things
finished before May one, when we kind of have to disappear, and you
know, the trash cans all need to be out and the town needs to
be ready to go. Yeah, that's something probably a lot of our our
tourism friends don't know that. You go around, you take all the garbage
cans in for the season and kind of clean them up, do some maintenance
on them. I guess that said, why don't you give us kind of
like a day and life of the maintenance crew, spring, winter, you
know, fall, every tell us what you do seasonally each day. Okay,
we'll start with the with a spring day. The crew comes in,
you know, we get together, I give them their marching orders for what
needs to be done. They head out work all day on various projects from
just cleaning the grounds to I mean there's brush trimming, there's you name it.
We're doing it in the wintertime. Well, we come in in the
morning. If we have winter, I start the day by plowing. No,
we have plows and snowblowers that hook up to our tractors and we go
around and clear the city sidewalks for everyone and spread sand and sand. No
salt though, no, no salt, only sand, which you know in
the spring we have to clean up. We put out about twenty yards of
sand throughout the winter season and in the spring, well it's got to get
picked up and that's pretty much by push, broom and shovel. Oh wow,
how many Let me interrupt real quick? How many crew do you have
in the winter versus the summer. If you're fully staffed in the winter,
there's two of us, myself and my assistant. In the summer, I
have anywhere from six to eight employees, depending on budget. And you know,
if I can find people. Sure. Now, in the summer,
you guys you take care of the grass at Turtle Park. And then I
think you have one person just dedicated to the cemeteries. Is that correct?
So I have one and a half really dedicated to Turtle Park and the cemeteries
because the cemeteries are a bear to get cut and you know, to maintain
them. Well, everyone's dying to get in there. Well, of course
they're And I never get tired of that joke. I'm sure you've heard of
speaking to that. Let me interrupt your your seasonal progression. Here, you
are, You're the You're the You're the digger. You're the last guy someone
sees heading out of this world at the cemetery. Is that correct? You
kind of head up putting the hole in the ground to get someone six feet
under. Yeah, I am the sexton for the cemeteries. The fancy word
for digger. Okay, well I didn't know that word, but I guess
everyone gets to say goodbye at some point. To you, huh, I'm
usually the last one to let them down. There's probably too many jokes about
that, but use anyway, Let's get back to seasonality. What what you
folks do? Sure, plowing snow, working with the state park to keep
everything, you know, the roads everything groomed, remove the excess, and
then and you know, spread sand, plants, icy and take care of
the various We have indoor projects in the winter, mostly woodworking, and you
know, building railings and redoing you know, whatever's rotted, which is usually
everything around here. So you actually you're kind of the circle of life guy,
because not only you the digger at the cemetery, you put the Christmas
tree up on Main Street too. Is that isn't that correct? I knew
that was gonna come up. Yeah, every year we set up the Christmas
tree on Main Street. It is a labor of love to get that tree
up every year, thirty to forty strands of LED lights. Now we use
LED lights. We got to hang the rope across the center of the street
to get powered down to the tree. And despite what Amazon will tell you,
our lights didn't come from Amazon, but came from Ace Hardware, oh
right there in right from local town st Ignes. So let me ask you
this question, because we get this a lot at News and Views. Where
does the tree come from? It does not come from the island generally,
where where does it come from? So in the past we did get We
did harvest trees from the island with the help of Edison Seoue now Cloverland.
They have a digger truck and had the equipment to do it. But now
for the last i'd say probably seven or eight years, we've been getting trees
from the Dombrowski family by Sheboygan. By Sheboygan right, They pick a nice
tree for us, send it over and then I figure out how to set
it up. Is there a lot of tree criticism. Do you hear much
like, oh, they didn't get a very good tree, or that's a
Charlie Browner or as generally everybody just go with the flow on that one.
Everyone seems to love the trees that we're getting. Now. It used to
be kinda we get we get a little complaint here and there when we used
to harvest them from the island, you know, because they came out of
people's yards. And you get what you get, right yea. Anyway back
to seasonality. In the summer, what are you folks up to besides cutting
grass? So in the summer, when the crew gets in in the morning,
you know, same thing, give them their orders for the day.
Once a week they go around and cut the grass and you know, fix
up the fix up the grounds. But every morning, first thing they do
is they go around and they check the trash cans. Downtown. There's thirty
eight odd trash cans from Saint Anne's Church clear down to the windowmere. Oh
no, actually they go clear to the school now school now, yeah,
and on Market Street. So they go around to make sure that they're not
overflowing and change what needs to be changed until the service company carriage tours can
come around and pick up the bags and you know, try to keep trash
from spewing out all over the street. Sure, I'm guessing when there's an
overflowing can, your phone is blowing up first thing in the morning on that
one. Well, as you know, my boss will call me if there
is a can that's overflowing and give me the you know, kid, we
got a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, unfortunately, some
folks just can't send an email to the big boss. They have to call
her and and sure be a lot easier if they would just call the shop,
I guess, but that's the way we do it in this town,
folks. So, Mike, is every day different pretty much with your crew?
Or does it get pretty monotonous seasonally? You know, every day there's
something different. If it's not just the humdrum doing the grounds and you know,
plowing snow, you know, a light fixture breaks, a toilet plug
somewhere. There's always something that we have to deal with, and you know,
right this minute, sure get taken care of. I can't take the
amount of times we've had problems at the fire department, roll up doors,
et cetera, and we call the city crew, and those guys jump right
on it and get us back in business. So that's certainly appreciated. Let
me switch gears a little bit, and I don't mean to put you on
the spot, but you may have heard of my opening monologue. Let me
talk about the ghost and the spiritualness of the island. Do you have any
thoughts on that or any positions on the haunts of mcinas per se? So
I will agree that there is definitely some sort of energy that's here, right.
I mean, since I was a kid spending my summers here and sometimes
in the winter I would come up. There is definitely a feeling of being
on mcin Island that does feel to me anyway. And I'm sure to you
that this is home, right. It's always felt like home, you know.
To expand on that a bit, some people ask me, do you
ever do you ever feel isolated on that island? And I always think to
myself, you know, when the gangplank gets pulled on that last ferry leaving
the island at the end of the day, at that point, I don't
feel isolated. I feel relief that last boat leaves down and I kind of
go ah safe for another night. And and I've never never felt the isolation.
I want to speak for yourself, but no, I can't say I've
ever felt that isolation either. It is a relief, you know. Sure,
Well when the boat does stop, it's one of my favorite times.
Oh. Absolutely. There's just a peaceful there's a peacefulness to this place that
it's hard to express some words. Yeah, No, I can't imagine being
anywhere else. No, it is hard to express in words. And that's
why we're doing this podcast. And for those who have been following along,
they'll probably start to notice it's going to take hours and hours and many many
conversations and interviews to try to pull out exactly what is this magic of mackinaw.
And then for our listeners who aren't quite familiar, when Mike says,
you know, they take care of the buildings and grounds. You have the
city hall building, the police department, which is in the old city hall
building that used to be the city hall, and that building was built in
the eighteen thirties I think, wasn't it, Mike. And then they have
two fire stations they have to look after, the public library, the little
city park. There's there's a lot more to it. Than a lot of
folks might know. And these guys, I think do a great job.
Mike, I've been I've been asking some folks kind of along. Do you
have any favorite celebrity sightings here in the island? Is there one you said
I got to see so and so. Did anybody jump out it to you?
Well, I did get to see Kid Rock at the Pink Pony and
that was pretty neat before the brew haha happened, but allegedly allegedly I recall
that day. I was not there, but I recall, uh. And
I also always ask folks that we talked to, what is your your favorite
season? I think you kind of touched that you really like after the boats
quit, but touch on that little bility. It's definitely winter late January,
you know, February when we get that kind of bitter cold, but there's
that stillness in the morning. Yeah. Oh, you can't beat that.
Yeah, it's tough to be kind of miss it, miss it this year
and most last year, and certainly everybody has heard me complain in the last
six or seven episodes that we just didn't have winter this year, and sure
looking forward to next year. Oh, I am too. I hope it
hits us. Yeah, the more snow the better, and the colder it
gets the better. Not many people probably say that, but that's that's my
feelings. But well, anyway, Mike, I'm glad you're able to carve
out five minutes to sit down with us and kind of update our listeners what
the city crew has been up to, because we're getting close opening day is
well, there's such a thing as opening day. I mean, the island
is open or year round. This isn't the theme park, but I think
that everyone kind of agrees the opening day is the day of the Grand Hotel
drops the rope, and I think that is Friday, May third, if
I'm correct, I believe so. Yeah, and so we're bearing down on
that, folks. Three weeks and change and everything will be opened back up,
and if the weather doesn't change, it'll be trying to enjoy an ice
cream cone. Well, it's thirty eight degrees outside, so let's hope for
better days. Mike, thanks a lot for being here. Oh thank you,
Jason, And this is once again the Mackinaw Island Moments Podcast with lifelong
islander Jason Saint. On Good Day