North Manitou Island appears headed toward a second straight year of very limited visitation, with access to South Manitou curtailed in 2026.
And the future for island visitation doesn’t look bright, either, with the owners of Manitou Island Transit (MIT) railing over year-long shutdowns of their business. The Grosvenor and Munoz families have little faith that their ferry service will survive upcoming drought years for island visitation.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Megan Munoz, a fourth-generation owner of MIT whose great-grandfather started the company as a mail service plying the Manitou Passage in 1917. “(Her son) Jack is up at Northern Michigan University learning how to captain the boat in the summer. All us kids grew up knowing the island. I can’t imagine how this is going to work out.”
