of C&O track connecting with the Tra- verse City branch and with the main line at Petoskey, which had been cut off by C&O abandonments and purchased by the State of Michigan. Additionally, on
January 2, 1983,
MIGN took over operation of the Chief Wawatam, through a new subsidiary called “The Boat Company.” The Chief’s northern
connection, Soo Line, had controlled the assets of the Mackinac Transportation Co. since the formation of Conrail, but operations were later handed over to Detroit & Mackinac in August 1976. Since D&M received only a small fraction of the boat’s traffic, this responsibility was transferred to a more involved connection, Michigan North- ern, for the boat’s final 20 months of op- eration. On August 21, 1984, 37 feet of the earthen fill at the St. Ignace carferry landing collapsed, causing approximate- ly $250,000 in damage. The Soo Line decided not to make repairs. Carferry service came to an abrupt end across the Straits after 97 years. The Chief sat idle at Mackinaw City for four years while preservation efforts were debated. A study of alternative uses for the
boat was jointly financed by the Michi- gan Department of Transportation and the Michigan Department of Natural Re- sources and was conducted by Temple, Barker & Sloane of Lexington, Mass. The study primarily looked at three pos- sible uses for the Chief: (1) as a museum and tourist shops at the Straits of Mack- inac; (2) as a traveling museum steam- ing or being towed to various locations on the Great Lakes; and (3) as a passen- ger excursion boat offering one-day or multi-day cruises. The April 1986 report proved to be a remarkably insightful document, spell- ing out the costs and regulatory restric- tions which each plan could expect. For the museum option, for example, the report said in part: “There should be no false expectations that the vessel will pay for itself easily as a museum. Admis- sion may defray a large part of the muse- um operating expenses, but the ship is a large, complex structure in need of much maintenance. The five-month tourist season is short. It is difficult to envision the ship being well-maintained without subsidy or endowment. The Chief Wawatam was ultimately sold to Purvis Marine of Sault Ste. Ma-
rie, Ont., for $110,000 and cut down into a barge. Jonathan Eppley of the St. Ig- nace News later wrote, “In her waning years as a barge, she was used mostly to haul steel to Chicago, Detroit, and Windsor, Ont., and the sight of her fa- miliar black hull being towed through the Straits elicited both excitement and sorrow from those who knew her, a pa- thetic remnant of a once proud era.” Eppley also reported the scrapping of Chief Wawatam for the same paper on November 12, 2009. He eloquently sum- marized a 73-year nautical career and observed, “In her heyday, the Chief was a lifeline to security and commerce be- tween the peninsulas.”
The gradual cut in state subsidy be- ginning in 1981 and the loss of the Chief Wawatam connection in 1984 obviously placed the future of Michigan Northern in question. There were, however, bright spots in the picture. In early 1982 Mich- igan Northern fell heir to a large sand move from Yuma, Mich., to a Ford Mo- tor Co. foundry at Cleveland. The sand was originally loaded on the Ann Ar- bor Railroad, 20 miles west of Cadillac. With the shutdown of the AA, the sand was trucked to Cadillac and loaded into
ABOVE: In its first year of operation, Michigan Northern traffic was minimal. Ex-Southern Railway RS3 No. 2037 is southbound on October 8, 1976, at Stanwood (51 miles south of Cadillac) with four boxcars in tow.
OPPOSITE: Michigan Northern’s last run south of Cadillac on September 29,
1984, arrives at Fuller Junction, the railroad’s Conrail connection at Grand Rapids, with a pair of GP7s, Nos. 1603 and 1608, leading. The crew was Paul Benson, engineer, and Dave Sandell, conductor. Michigan Northern would continue to operate a 35-mile segment of track from Mackinaw City to Petoskey for the next two years. PHOTO BY ALEX HUFF
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