Kathleen Lavey

Lansing State Journal

LELAND – With a jumble of weathered gray fishing shanties behind her, Denise Kiernan stood on a wooden dock between a dam and a charter fishing boat and cast a line into the Leland River,

She didn’t necessarily care what kind of fish she caught – or if she caught any.

She and her family just like Fishtown, a unique community where the Leland River pours into Lake Michigan. It’s a working commercial fishery, a collection of unique shops and a Michigan history lesson all rolled into one.

“I love the old charm of it, taking us back,” said Kiernan, of Ridgewood, New Jersey.

During the busy summer months, Fishtown is a popular attraction. Tourists like Kiernan and her family – husband, Peter, and daughters Caroline and Eleanor – look forward to visiting each summer.

They scoop candy from glass jars at the Dam Candy Shop, buy T-shirts, jewelry and knick-knacks from merchants who make the most of impossibly tiny shanty spaces. They can even reserve a week’s lodging in a remodeled shanty across the river.

But make no mistake. Despite the baubles and bangles, candy and cheese, Fishtown is still about fish, thanks to a massive community effort spearheaded first by a fishing family and then by a nonprofit society known as the Fishtown Preservation Society.

Two commercial vessels – the Joy and the Janice Sue – still ply their nets in the big lake from a Fishtown home base, and 10 charter fishing vessels make morning and afternoon trips each day of the season. The smell of new-caught fish and the smokers used to preserve them both linger in the air. The wooden screen door at Carlson’s opens and shuts all day long as people go inside for smoked whitefish sausage and smoked whitefish pate, a blend of cream cheese, spices and fish.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful place and it’s a dynamic place,” said Amanda Holmes, executive director of the Fishtown Preservation Society, which just opened a new visitors' center in June. “Most people are not aware of its history.”

And many are not aware of the effort it took to preserve it for future generations.

A little bit of history

Geographically, Fishtown is a small part of the small, unincorporated town of Leland. European settlers arrived in the 1850s and quickly established commercial fishing operations there.

Its heyday was from about 1910 to 1940, when most of Fishtown’s signature weathered shanties were built and multiple commercial fisheries operated there, including one owned by the Carlson family, now in its fifth generation in Fishtown.

By the late 1940s, populations of the invasive sea lamprey exploded in the Great Lakes, killing millions of fish and greatly reducing commercial catches. The planting of salmon in the 1960s put a focus on sport fishing over commercial operations, and Fishtown’s fishermen started to go out of business, for a variety of reasons including the difficulty of the work, younger family members not wanting to continue and changing state regulations.

By the late 1960s, some Fishtown shanties already were home to unique shops. The Carlson family saw an opportunity to diversify the docks further. They bought up a segment of the shanties and started renting them to small retailers in the 1970s. The fish business also switched focus, moving from wholesale to retail specialty products.

“The Carlsons were the ones who realized that you don’t have to just sell your fish wholesale to a restaurant or to buyers in Chicago or New York,” Holmes said. “You can do a few other things to it, smoke it, make fish sausage out of it and sell it directly to your customers.”

Continued evolution

Over the next few years, Fishtown continued to evolve, and so did commercial fishing on the Great Lakes. By 2000, quotas for commercial fisherman had decreased significantly. The Carlsons were allowed only 65,000 pounds of whitefish a year. That’s not enough to make a living.

Worried about the future of both the fishery and the fate of the charming, picturesque site, Carlson started the Fishtown Preservation Society.

“The concern was that everything would go away and someone would build something new and shiny just for themselves,” Holmes said. “That first work the Carlsons did was to raise awareness.

The community responded. By 2006, a plan was in place to transfer ownership of Carlson’s Fishtown properties to the Preservation Society. Fund-raising started in March with a goal of raising $80,000 for a down payment.

“By early June we were on our way towards raising basically $3 million for a quarter acre of real estate,” Holmes said. “But there’s no quarter-acre like this anywhere else.” At that time, there also were eight other property owners in Fishtown.

The deal included a decades-long lease for Carlson's Fishery, now run by fifth-generation Nels Carlson and his business partner, Joe Campo.

The Preservation Society owns the Janice Sue and the Joy and the commercial licenses that go with them. They’re moored in the river and are used for fishing once a week or so, with Capt. Joel Peterson at the helm.

The future

Charter captain Bob Schlitts has been sailing out of Fishtown since 1978, one of 10 charter operators there. He has watched it evolve into the bustling tourist spot it is today.

Visitors eat sandwiches from the Village Cheese Shanty at picnic tables nearby, and people with back-packs and bedrolls poured off the ferry after camping overnight on South Manitou Island or North Manitou Island.

“Dock traffic is unique here. There are a lot more people,” he said. That can be a boon to a charter operator with an open afternoon slot and a willingness to chat with passersby.

“Oftentimes they have no idea they’re going to fishing until we chat,” he said.

Jimmy Munoz runs the ferry to the islands every day. He is the son of a Fishtown charter captain, Jim Munoz.

He appreciates Fishtown’s history and its turn-of-the-century flair.

“I think that’s part of the allure, that it doesn’t change,” he said.

Last year, the Fishtown Preservation Society had the chance to buy a shanty on the south side of the river for $620,000, sealing the deal this past February. A total of 35 donors contributed to the down payment, and the property, used as a vacation rental, goes for for $2,000 a week during high season.

“It was an opportunity we did not want to pass up,” Holmes said.

The Fishtown Preservation Society also took ownership in March of the building next door to the shanty, purchased from the Leelanau Historical Society for $1. It needs foundation repair, and plans are being made for that.

“There were a couple of properties on the south side of the river that summer residents purchased, to have them not disappear,” Holmes said. The deed was turned over to the historical society with the stipulation that it be used for commercial fishing.

“That’s how it’s used now, that’s how it’s always been used," Holmes said, "so any of the plans that we’re working on include that use. It would always be our goal to be active in the industry.”

Learn more

The Fishtown Preservation Society is at www.fishtownmi.org.

Find out more about Fishtown and Leland shops at www.lelandmi.com.

Check out the Carlson family’s fishing story at www.carlsonsfish.com.

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