Point Betsie Light — a stop on M-22.
On your left now — and you cannot miss it — is Point Betsie Lighthouse, and it is probably the most photographed building in Michigan.
White tower, red roof, standing right down on the sand with the lake breaking behind it. There's a parking area and you can walk right up to it; in season you can go inside and climb the tower. Get out even if you only have ten minutes, because this one rewards standing next to it.
It's here for a specific reason. This point marks the south side of the Manitou Passage — the shipping channel that runs between the mainland and the Manitou Islands ahead of us. Every vessel working this coast used that passage to shortcut around the point, and in fog or a gale it was lethal. So the light went up in the eighteen fifties, and for over a century a keeper lived out here through Lake Michigan winters, keeping it burning.
It was one of the last lights on the lake to be automated — a keeper was stationed here into the nineteen eighties. Look at how exposed it is, then imagine February: ice coating the whole structure, spray freezing on the windows, and one family responsible for the ships out in that dark.