The harbors in Leelanau County serve thousands of boaters and vessels every year, and become especially busy in the peak summer season.
Part of the reason many of these marinas offer top notch services is because of the people that work there daily, including the numerous dockhands hired every summer. The dockhands serve as the frontline operational staff for vessel assistance and preparation, fuel dock services, waste management and restroom upkeep, among other duties, throughout the day.
More often than not at Northport’s G. Marsten Dame Marina, those working as dockhands are returnees from the previous summer that continue to come back for the job and the experience they gain from it.
Madison Long, a college student, is now in her sixth consecutive summer working as a dockhand at Northport marina. The job starts when the marina opens on May 15 and continues until it closes on Oct. 15. Long said her duties have included everything from docking and fueling boats, conducting pump outs, cleaning boaters’ bathrooms and the public restrooms on shore, and picking up trash around the marina park.
Long has returned to work at the marina for the last six years because she loves the environment the job offers and learns a lot working under the leadership of Northport Harbormaster Bill Rosemurgy, who has been there for the same amount of time she has. It was a job she began in high school and one that she still appreciates today.
“The environment is great, the people are super friendly,” Long said. “I love talking to people when I’m fueling their boats. I also love being outside and I get to enjoy the sunshine and I’m not stuck inside a building.”
Maddie Scott, a high schooler and another Northport marina dockhand, is now in her second summer at the job. Scott said she also loves the fact that they are able to talk with different people everyday and the flexibility of spending most of the day outside.
“You can’t beat being outside all summer long,” Scott said, who noted she plans to continue working as a dockhand in the years ahead.
Harbormaster Rosemurgy said they simply couldn’t operate the marina without the work of the dockhands.
In Northport, Rosemurgy said it can be a struggle to find reliable staff as they have a very small base, unlike larger neighboring communities like Traverse City, to draw from. However, for the past few years, he said they’ve been really lucky to have a lot of returning dockhands so the general knowledge of people on staff increases each year.
“The primary duties for us are at the fuel service station docks, so it’s fueling boats with gas and diesel and doing pump outs, then greeting boats at the dock when they arrive and assisting them in leaving,” Rosemurgy said. “Those are the main jobs for dockhands. At Northport, our dockhands also clean the boaters’ bathrooms and we have two different sets of public restrooms in our parks that we are responsible for. And they also pick trash all throughout the parks and the marina. So we’ve got a large footprint here.”
