Step into the home of Agatha and Edward Biddle, merchants who moved in around 1830. This was a time of change, and the 1830s were critical to the Biddles for another reason: as an Anishnaabek woman, Agatha and other indigenous people witnessed their culture subjected to immense changes. The decade transformed the Anishnaabek, linking old ways with Michigan’s modern indigenous culture. The continuing story of the Anishnaabek of northern Michigan is not always a happy one. It is a story of battles won and lost, promises made and broken, and cultures repressed and resurgent. Most importantly, the story in which the Biddle family played a role is one that continues today. This exhibit, created in conjunction with tribal partners, explores that story and how it still resonates on Mackinac Island and throughout northern Michigan.

Originally built in the 1880s, Robert Benjamin and later his son, Herbert, ran a blacksmith shop into the 1960s. The contents of the shop were moved to the reconstructed building in 1970. The Benjamin’s fixed carriage wheels and shoed horses in the early days and repaired lawnmowers and maintained yacht motors in later years.

Nowhere else does such a rare and exceptional collection of Mackinac-related art and photography come together to tell Mackinac’s story. In complement to the natural beauty of Mackinac Island, The Richard & Jane Manoogian Mackinac Art Museum allows visitors to experience fine and decorative arts inspired by Mackinac through the ages. One of the most diverse art museums in the region, the museum’s collection offers no shortage of beauty and history – from hand-beaded Native American garments and 17th and 18th-century maps of the Great Lakes, to one-of-a-kind pieces from the height of Mackinac Island’s Victorian era. Original photographs from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century present the beauty of Mackinac as captured by the camera’s eye. Featured are the works of William H. Gardiner, including dozens of his famed early-twentieth century hand-tinted views.