Featured Destination Story

Charity Island Lighthouse

Au Gres,

Charity Island Light is a lighthouse on Big Charity Island in Lake Huron just off the coast of Caseville in northern Michigan. Big Charity Island is home to a very unique archaeological site. The islands are actually an outcropping of limestone that was formed 350 million years ago when most of North America, including all of Michigan, was covered by a warm shallow ocean. The limestone bedrock formation that outcrops along the Island’s northern shore has mineral deposits known as “chert ” embedded in it.

Chert is a form of flint that was a very important material for making stone tools by the people who lived in this area long before there were European explorers. Known as a quarrying site, Big Charity Island is heavily littered with the remains of the stone tool-making activity by generations of Native Americans from over 1500 years ago. Ultimately, the Native tribes were driven from Michigan to Oklahoma and Charity island was ceded to the British by the French. The territory became property of the United States in 1805.