S2 E4 Between Two Lighthouses

In this episode of The Tides That Tie, Ron Gregg brings us into a time when life on Beaver Island was shaped entirely by Lake Michigan—its rhythms, its risks, and its rewards.

From the height of the 19th-century fishing era to the quiet work of winter, this story captures what it meant to live in constant relationship with the water. Guided by the distant lights of Whiskey Point and Skillagalee, we follow the early crossings between Beaver Island and the mainland—journeys made by sail, skill, and experience alone.

More than a story of travel, this is a portrait of island life—of resilience, adaptation, and the enduring connection between people and the water that defined their world.

Links:

Skillagalee Lighthouse and Chart: Skillagalee Island

Woods Hole Historical Museum: Tools for Harvesting the Ice

Great Lakes Fisheries Heritage Trail: A Good Boat - The Mackinaw - Great Lakes Fisheries Heritage Tr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to The Tides That Tie: Exploring Two Islands, One Soul. A podcast that delves into the powerful connections between Beaver Island, Michigan, and Aaronmore, County Donegal. Their histories, their cultures, their challenges, and the enduring spirit that unites them across the sea. Join your hosts Ron Gregg and Kevin Green as they uncover the stories, the traditions, and the voices that keep these islands forever linked. This is the Tides That Tie.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Welcome to the podcast All Things Aaron Moore and Beaver Island. I'm Kevin Green. Growing up on Beaver Island in the 1970s, co-host Ron Gregg and I were lucky in a lot of ways. We caught the tail end of the commercial fishing era, but enough of it to feel like what it must have been like in its prime. You'd see pieces of it everywhere if you were paying attention. The old beach pound net driver, the Coast Guard lifeboat launched, the Martins moved from Whiskey Point and turned into a boathouse, walking into the coal's backyard while they were mending those massive trap nets. And for me, the one that always stuck, the dugout ice pit covered in sawdust, located across the street from my house, ice cut straight out of the harbor in the winter, packed away, and then used months later to cover fish in the summer. It doesn't seem like that long ago. And somehow as kids, we were right in the middle of the leftovers of it. At the same time, we grew up in a place where the lake wasn't just something you looked at. It's where you went, it's what you did. And we had a kind of freedom that looking back was pretty rare. We could just go. Most of the time that meant being out on Ron's boat, a 19-foot O-day mariner called Sweet P. And we sailed that thing everywhere. Out to high islands, squaw, garden, around the points, and sometimes further than we probably should have been. And when you spend enough time out there, you start to understand the lake a little differently. You realize just how big it really is, how fast it can turn on you, how easy it is to lose your sense of distance. Things that look close aren't, things that look like nothing end up being exactly what you needed to find. We got pretty good at reading what was around us, picking out landmarks, noticing a change in watercolor that meant a show, spotting buoys that mark the fishing nets. But once you got beyond the island, it hits you pretty quick just how vast Lake Michigan really is. Cross Village, the nearest point on the mainland, is about 20 miles. Charleville is over 30. The upper peninsula, 22 plus miles in the other direction. That's a lot of open water. Now when we did go further out, it was usually on a bigger boat. And we had navigation, charts, radios, Loran systems, eventually GPS. But even then it wasn't hard to imagine a time when none of that existed. The lake's full of shipwrecks, and they're there for a reason. Things can go wrong out there, and they can go wrong fast. Living on an island in days past was a give and take relationship between man and water. And that's really what this episode is all about. Today, Ron walks you through a history he wrote about a time when life on Beaver Island and on this lake wasn't so forgiving, when everything evolved around the water and getting across it wasn't always guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

If you stood along the shoreline near Cross Village in the years just after the US Civil War and looked west, the lake would meet you with its usual quiet indifference, a long level horizon, water and sky in a single unbroken line, not empty exactly, just vast. The kind of distance that doesn't offer much to hold on to unless you know where to look. About seven miles out, there was something. Not much, just a low dark shape, an island so small and spare it barely seemed to exist at all, no trees, no bushes, nothing. On that tiny island, set into it as firmly as the engineers could manage, stood the lighthouse, a brick and mortar structure with the sole purpose of warning sailors off the adjacent shoals, embedded into the fractured stony foundation of a low, tiny island six miles from the nearest landmass. From shore, it didn't shout for attention, especially in the evenings when you were there for the sunset. It didn't loom, it simply stood there. As the sky grew darker, a faint white light in the tower would give it away, seeming to grow brighter as the sky darkened. But if you were looking out there in the morning, a few hours after sunrise, you'd notice it. Clean, bright, man made, at least if the light caught it right. From Cross Village, if you were up on the bluff, it may have looked bright pale yellow in the morning sun. If the conditions were right, you might have been able to make out the shapes of the tower in the keepers quarters. In fact, if you were a local, this may have become a pastime, as the whole thing was in the final stages of being completely rebuilt. New tower, new pier, new buildings, fresh paint. It wasn't meant to awe, it was meant to be reliable, a simple tower on a small island, doing its work in a stretch of water that didn't forgive much. The French had called this island Isle Augalais, Island of Pebbles. A simple, honest name, stone worn down by years of wind and water, nothing loose was obligated to stay, only gravity held it now, and even that gave way when the ice got involved. Over the years the nearly impossible to pronounce name morphed into something that was easier and more fun to say. In fact, Brother Jim Boynton wrote a song about it, which many of us have heard him perform along with Danny Gillespie and friends. I'm talking about Skilligalee. We'll come back to this island, and the song at the end of the story. About seventeen miles away, at two hundred eighty six degrees west northwest, sat another lighthouse, on Whiskey Point, just outside the harbor at St. James, this one built in eighteen fifty six. There wasn't much ceremony to it, materials brought in, work done with urgency, hands moving because they had to, no lingering, just get it up and get it lit. You would think a brand new lighthouse would be quite a big deal, but in the summer of eighteen fifty six, such events were unfolding on the island that would alter the very history of the place, and made the construction of a new lighthouse seem almost insignificant, but that isn't this story. The Whiskey Point Lighthouse was built because the need was already there before the structure ever stood. Boats were coming in, sometimes in conditions that didn't leave much margin. This harbor didn't announce itself until you were practically in it, especially at night before electricity lit the town. Seasoned captains, who knew the waters, still approached with caution. There were rocks and reefs of plenty to reward them for a lack of attention or skill. The harbor entrance needed to be marked, not perfectly at first, just something for the mariners to aim for, a fixed point in a place that otherwise shifted with light and weather. The standard harbor lighthouse in the eighteen fifties was only about twenty to thirty foot tall. It gave some guidance and did its job, for a while, but not for long. Because, like a lot of things built in haste, it didn't hold up the way people hoped it would. More traffic meant more risk every season, and so by eighteen seventy, they built it again. This time a proper lighthouse built with intention, something that looked the part and felt like it belonged there, not just placed, but established. Forty one feet tall, tall enough to rise above the low shoreline, to be seen when the lake was restless and the horizon wasn't clean. From the deck of a boat, that extra height matters. It changes when you first pick it up with your eyes, which can be critical. Positioned to be seen, and for the first time, you had two reliable lights, one white light at Skiligalee and one red light with a six second on off cycle at St. James Harbor. Not identical, not connected by anything formal, both doing their part, one closer in, one farther out, each catching a different moment of the approach. One at the harbor, close enough that you could start to judge your entry, the shape of the shoreline beginning to make sense, the water calming as you moved inward, and maybe the breeze carrying some wood smoke or the scent of fresh tilled soil. One out in open water, farther off, the first indicator that you were where you would hope to be, and that your destination lay only a few miles ahead, even if you couldn't see anything else. There was no fixed path drawn out ahead of time, but already they were beginning to define one. A line formed in the habits of the people who used it, something you learned by doing, until one night you realized you're no longer guessing quite as much as you used to. By the early eighteen seventies, Beaver Island wasn't quiet, not in the way you might imagine it now. If you were to walk around the harbor at sunrise, you wouldn't have found stillness. You'd have stepped into something already in motion, a working town well underway. You were walking through the beating heart of one of the richest Great Lakes fisheries at its peak. Men at it, lines moving, the day not beginning, just continuing. Boats everywhere. Some at docks, some pulled up on the beach, some turning gently at anchor. Not a handful, dozens, enough that your eyes would lose track, two and three masted schooners riding at anchor, rigging drawn in fine lines against a brightening sky, a loose block tapping as the hull shifted. Someone on deck checking a line with practiced economy, a steamer at the dock taking on wood or loading fish, men passing cordwood hand to hand, steam drifting in short bursts, a deck hand wiping his hands, glancing towards shore, then back to work. And in among them the smaller boats, eighteen feet, twenty four, some pushing thirty, low in the water, built for work, new boards showing where repairs had been made, family boats, working boats. A boy stepping in with oars while an older man steadied the gunnel. No ceremony, just the quiet understanding of when it was time to go, and the sound of it layered, one thing blending into the next, a fish box hitting the dock, barrels rolling, lines tightening, wood creaking, water slapping softly against a hull, and every now and then the steamer, a noisy neighbor hissing, clanking, belching, darker smoke than anything else in the harbor. You noticed it while it was there, and the moment it left, everything felt quieter. Then the harbor settled back into its more natural cadence, tarred lines tapping against spars, a soft repeated knock you could almost predict. Voices carrying across the water, work jargon in three languages Irish, Adawa, English, a shout, a splash, a laugh that carried farther than expected, a bit of song from someone near shore, dogs running at the edge of things, chickens underfoot, a horse pulling a wagon full of fish boxes, hoofs striking wood, then dirt, then wood, and always the gulls, watching, waiting. The smells came and went with the breeze, fish fresh and not so fresh, wood smoke rising thin and blue, tar warming in a pot, coffee, bread, bacon, tobacco, simple things close at hand, all of it layered into something that once you knew it, it never quite left you. And then the rhythm shifted. Less dragging, more lifting, more movement, buckets rising, water sloshing, sails going up, canvas catching just enough wind to take shape, oars dipping in even strokes, calls for luck in more than one language, a nod or a wave in return, and one by one the boats began to leave. No signal, no order, just hull by hull, each finding its own path out, sails pale against the water, then smaller, then gone, until the harbor opened up again, not empty, but with more space between things, the movement shifting outward, the sounds softening with distance. And if there was a decent breeze, you'd see dozens of dark sails, many preserved with tan bark tea that colored the cotton fabric reddish brown, catching that early sun, turning them bronze for just a moment before they scattered beyond the harbor. But that wasn't the whole day. Because later, towards afternoon and maybe into evening, they came back. And they didn't come back the same way they left, not under full sail, not driving hard, the urgency was gone, the lake work mostly behind them. They eased their way home, some carrying a small jib out front, another sail set toward the back, the mizzen, just enough canvas to keep the boat moving. The mainsail, boom, and gaff were lashed to the mast. Space cleared for the work that happened in the middle of the boat, fish being gutted and cleaned right there over the centerboard trunk on the way in, knives moving in steady rhythm, not rushed, not careful, just practiced, water sloshing over the side, bits slipping into the lake, and gulls gathering, then circling, their cries carrying across the water, announcing the returning fishermen. The boats themselves didn't all look the same anymore, some riding lower in the water, some lighter, coming back with less than they'd hoped for, crews quieter or louder depending on the day, but all of them pointed towards the same place home. And this scene played out again and again and again, from May into October, day after day, only the weather decided how it would unfold, until slowly, almost without noticing the season began to turn, the light changing, the air cooling, and Lake Michigan becoming a little less willing to let them do it again tomorrow. Fishing didn't stop all at once. It eased back in a way you could feel more than see at first, like something loosening its grip. A boat might still go out, but with a little more caution and a bit less eagerness. Fewer boats leaving in the morning. The early light would come up over a quieter harbor. You'd still see a few silhouettes moving out, but there were gaps now, empty slips where a boat had already been pulled out for the season, and full slips where they were simply left tied for the day. The sound carried differently too, more time spent ashore, nets being mended instead of set. The work moved in closer, nets wound round large reels or laid right on the dock, giving off that familiar smell, while keen eyes inspected them. Fingers working methodically through the mesh, tying, checking, pulling it taut, gear cleaned, repaired, put in order, more net boxes, fewer fish boxes, tools laid out. You'd hear the dull tap of a hammer, the rasp of something being filed smooth. A man might pause, turn a piece over in his hands, then set it aside for later. Things were being readied, not for tomorrow, more for the season ahead, whatever that would bring. And every family had something else waiting. Work did not stop at the shoreline, it followed people home. You could see it in the way folks carried themselves, already thinking about what still needed to be done before the weather turned for good, gardens to bring in, rows to be cleared, the sound of shovels biting into the soil, the soft thud of vegetables being dropped into a basket or a repurposed fish box, hands brushing dirt away, then reaching for the next thing. The air had that cooler edge, and you could feel time pressing just a little. Food to preserve. Back then it would have been the drying of some fruits and berries mostly, herbs for seasoning. Most folk would have a root cellar for the harvest of potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, onions, and apples. Wood to cut, split, and stack high enough to last. You would hear it across the island, the steady thunk of an axe, then the crack as a log gave way, pieces tossed aside, then gathered and stacked row by row. The work didn't disappear, it was still there, just as steady as before. You could feel it in the days filling up quicker, because the nights were getting longer. The work shifted from water to land, from movement to preparation, the kind of work that stays closer to home but asks no less of you. The smells changed first. Something you noticed without thinking about, less of the harbor, that sharp mix of fish, wet rope, and lake faded. It didn't vanish, but it no longer filled the air the same way either. You could walk along the dock and catch it in patches instead of all at once. More of wood smoke and damp wool, thin lines of smoke starting to rise from chimneys, especially in the mornings, the smell settling low, hanging in the cool air. It would catch in your clothes a little if you stayed out long enough. Cool air replacing the warmth of summer, the kind of cool that made you pull your jacket a bit tighter. Breath just starting to show if you were out early. The sun's still there, but not carrying the same weight. The lake taking on a different look, the surface darker some days, less reflective, small waves moving with a sharper edge. You could stand and watch it for a while and feel that it wasn't quite the same lake you'd just been on a few weeks before, and then gradually, winter took hold. Ice forming along the edges at first, larger boats secured tight, lines checked and rechecked, the smaller boats inside buildings or inverted over planks well up from the water, the harbour settling into a quieter kind of stillness, and people, without much discussion, turning their attention fully to what came next. It was the kind of change you don't notice in a single day, only when you look back and realize something has shifted. The sky was grayer, and the air had a frigid sting to it more frequently. One morning, the harbor wasn't water anymore, no movement, no roll against the pilings. It was something entirely different. It was solid. A surface that caught the light differently, dull in some places, glassy in others, depending on how the wind had worked it, ice forming, thickening, shifting in the cold. You could hear it sometimes. Even during the day, a faint ticking or a distant crack that made you glance up without thinking, or the strange ringing sound that faded quickly. And at night, when it was colder and had fewer sounds to compete with, you could hear it more, low, distant, unearthly, almost like something alive beneath the surface. A long groan that rose and fell, followed by a sharp report that echoed off the shoreline. People would pause when they heard it. Each day it grew thicker, snow settling on top, then blowing off again in streaks that revealed snow. The blue grey surface underneath. Strong enough to walk on. Strong enough to work on. And work is exactly what they did. No delay, no waiting for perfect conditions, just a shift in what the day required. Snow cleared away at first, shovels scraping, the sound of metal on ice carrying across the open space. Opening a wide stretch of ice. You could see the cleared area from shore, a pale rectangle against the rougher, wind marked surface beyond. Then the scoring began. A horse pulling an ice plough, cutting shallow lines across the surface, the animal's breath visible in the cold, hooves finding careful footing as it leaned into the harness, back and forth. The same path repeated, the lines growing more defined with each pass, until a pattern started to appear. Long straight runs intersecting at angles. Something you could step back and recognize as intentional. Not perfect, but deliberate. Men followed those lines with saws, cutting deeper, the steady rasp of the teeth gnawing through the dark ice, the small spray of ice chips and water building slush along the cut, gloves stiff with cold, shoulders working in slow, even motion until a section finally gave way, dark water opening in the middle of the white. And then everything moved. What had been fixed became fluid again, but only for those cut sections, blocks breaking free, edges separating cleanly where the scoring had been done right, guided with long pike poles pushed along narrow channels towards the shore, men walking beside them, boots crunching, poles dipping and pressing, adjusting the path inch by inch. T and in the right light, those blocks looked less like ice and more like long pale blue beams sliding out of the water, almost like strange lumber being brought in from some unseen mill beneath the surface. At the shoreline, they were gripped with tongs and pulled up on ramps, wood creaking under the weight of the blocks and leaving a wet sheen as they slid upward, packed into ice houses set back from the water, dark interiors that smelled faintly of musty wood and cold, layered with sawdust, those soft, dry granules spread between each layer, insulating, holding the cold in place, holding it tight, doors closed, gaps sealed as well as they could manage, because there was no backup. No second chance if it was done poorly. If you wanted ice in July, you harvested it in February. You did the work when the conditions allowed it, not when it was convenient. Winter didn't stop the work, it changed it, shifted it from one kind of effort to another, without pause. Trees were cut and hauled across snow and ice, logs sliding over packed snow easier than summer, but colder and harder on the hands. Some would be spars, planks, repairs for the boats that would be needed again all too soon. Some became firewood, split and stacked, carried in armfuls, the bark rough against the skin. Some became the structure that held everything together buildings, sheds, the quiet framework of daily life. And through it all, the desire to stay connected remained. Yearning for word from loved ones anywhere from thirty-two to thirty-two hundred miles away. T sometimes the mail came, not on a schedule you could count on down to the hour, carried across the ice, a route drawn not by road or trail, but by nature, instinct, and experience. T by horse, the animal picking its way carefully, ears forward, responding to the smallest shifts underfoot, sometimes on foot, by intrepid men who understood the risk and went anyway. Because there were people waiting on the other side. There are accounts of those crossings, stories told later, often simply without embellishment, of distance measured not in miles, but in endurance week after week through varying conditions, some easier, some not. Some male carriers were legendary for their incredible feats of endurance. They made crossings regularly, names remembered by a few, then fewer over time. Others didn't make it back. Stories that ended without much detail, just a quiet acknowledgement. And when the ice finally broke, when the surface that held everything together began to fracture and drift, that system broke with it. The path disappeared. And the harbor slowly became water again. By 1873 things were changing. Not just on the island, but across the region. Eighteen miles south of Cross Village, the town of Bear River was just officially changed to Pataski. The new name honored Chief Patasagay, an Adawa leader and merchant, whose name meant rays of the morning sun. He accepted the gesture and its anglicized pronunciation as a bridge between cultures. It seemed like the light was continuing to shine upon that village, for one wealthy visitor raved of the million dollar sunsets. This village was still small at this time, but the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad was scheduled to begin service to Potoski before the end of the year. Suddenly, a place that had been remote was becoming accessible. Before long, it would draw people from beyond Michigan, families of means, industrialists, travelers looking for something they couldn't find in the cities. That kind of change doesn't stay contained. And Beaver Island, already busy, already working, sat just far enough out there to feel it. The need didn't arrive all at once. It just built until someone decided it was time to make it official. About a hundred years later, my dad, Phil Gregg, would write about this in a Beaver Tales column of the Beaver Beacon. About Andy Gallagher, who held the first mail contract, carrying mail and passengers between Cross Village and Beaver Island by sailboat. The date sometime in April eighteen seventy three. Most of the boats working out of the St. James Harbor at the time weren't that large, smaller rigs for family sized operations, built for the work close to home. Andy Gallagher's boat was a little different at thirty six feet, not unusual for trade along the Great Lakes or even the larger mainland fishing operations. But for a fishing operation out of Beaver Island, it would have stood out it suggests something more more capacity, more range. T and when the time came to carry the mail and maybe a passenger or two, he already had the kind of vessel that could do it, the Mackinaw boat. Part canoe, part sailboat, shaped over time by people who understood these waters. It was elegantly practical. A working boat with remarkably flexible features. A solid double ended hull, sturdy enough to handle pretty heavy conditions, a sail array that enabled the crew and captain to adjust to most situations. Capable of being rowed, which wouldn't have been easy with such a large rig, but would be far better than sitting becomed. Shallow draft meaning the boat was equipped with a retractable centerboard that gave the vessel excellent sailing maneuverability plus the ability to pull up the centerboard and run right up onto a beach. Enough room to carry something as important as passengers and mail across open water between two lighthouses. Andy Gallagher didn't carry it alone forever. The work passed, as it tends to, to another man Dan Green. Dan Green took what had been proven and dialed it into something more regular, but still relying on the three pillars of wind, timing, and experience. Given the nature of the pay and the fickle nature of sailing conditions, both of these men likely made only one or two round trips per week. That would provide time enough for them to keep their day job, so to speak. If they farmed or fished, or as many did, both, they would have had the time to at least keep an eye on their other ventures. The prevailing winds and the new lighthouses at each end of the route would have made the trips pretty simple during most of the seasonal weather. The trip from Beaver Island across village would likely have been a little easier because the southwesterly winds would make it a sweet run on most days. It's conceivable that some trips were less than four hours, but averaged about four and a half. It's easy to imagine those days when it all lined up nicely, clear sky and a solid southwest wind, sails full of wind and sunshine, with just enough chop to keep things interesting. I'm sure some aspects of travel have always been there. I can see a young passenger stretching to pier over the gunnel and maybe getting a wet face for their trouble. I can also see them wearing their parent out with questions about other boats. Imagine the glee when well clear of the island and the wind picks up and the centerboard begins to hum. A kid who had never heard an internal combustion engine would think that sound and vibration almost magical, especially when paired with the sensation of going faster than ever. That could have made a memory that lasted a lifetime. Maybe the captain offered to let them steer for a while, keeping his own hand on the tiller for safety, the youngster peering out into a distance that doesn't offer much to hold on to unless you knew where to look. The captain pointing to a pale lighthouse barely visible on the horizon and saying just aim there for now. The trip back to Beaver may have required a tack or two, and thus an hour or more, perhaps to reach the harbor. That glee might be missing from the faces as they anxiously waited for that lighthouse to get bigger. Still, that's not a bad rate, considering travel by sail without motor. Whether based out of Cross Village or Beaver Island, completing a round trip in one day was quite feasible. It was a schedule written in wind and water, and it worked. By the late eighteen eighties, something else was beginning to change. Steam. Boats that used to be an anomaly, that didn't wait on the wind, that could keep time in a different way, boats that were becoming more common every day. And so the mail contract shifted. The work that had been carried by sail passed into something new. But it didn't begin there. It began with a man, a Mackinaw boat, and a crossing between two lighthouses. Out on Skilligalee, the lighthouse stood vigilant, not in the way people had hoped it would. Lake levels had been rising, water pushing further inland, creeping into places people thought were safe. In eighteen seventy three, docks were sitting lower than expected throughout the region. Shoreline structures were closer to the water than they should have been. And then on December, a storm came through. And when it was over, two thirds of the island of Skilligalee was gone. They rebuilt, they reinforced, they adapted. But the lesson was always there. Out there nothing was permanent. Not the land, not the route, not the work. Only the need to keep going. I've given a lot of thought about that December storm and what must have been going through Andy Gallagher's mind, knowing he'd signed a contract that likely had a few more mail runs left in this season. Mail runs in an open Mackinac boat, where ice likely formed with every splash of water into the sails and rigging, knowing that each trip this late in the year could bring up a sudden storm with the power to consume most of a small island. An island that held a lighthouse that you relied upon. That's a man who didn't take his job lightly. The first mail contract didn't create something new. It gave shape to something that was already happening. Boats were already crossing, people were already moving, the harbor was already alive. What changed was the commitment a promise that the crossing would happen not when it was convenient, but when it was required. And from that everything else followed. Now I don't want to end on a downer note, so let's return to the poor little island of Skilligalee now that you've gotten to know it better. Here's Brother Jim Boynton, Danny Gillespie, and Sean McDonough. I've loved that song since hearing it for the first time a few years ago. Thanks again to Brother Jim Boynton, Danny Gillespie, and Sean McDonough for that. For those of you not familiar with the geography of the area or want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, please see our show notes, and thanks for listening. From Beaver Island to Aaron Moore and back again, we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

Blessed indeed we are to be two islands away once.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

The Tides That Tie is sponsored by the Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group. Music provided by Ed Palmer and Rich Scripps, Jerry Early, John Gallagher, Ann Canahan, John Flanagan, Hillary Palmer, Cindy Cushman, and Ruby John. With special thanks to Kevin Boyle for our introduction voiceover. To learn more or support the storytellers behind the Tides That Tie, email us at TidesThatTie at BIIHG.com. That's Tides That Tie at BIIHG.com. Copyright, 2026, Beaver Island Irish Heritage Group, all rights reserved.