Sugar Loaf is a 75-foot-high (23m) landlocked rock or stack in the interior of Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island

Mackinac Island is an island and resort area covering in land area, part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in Lake Huron, at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, between the state's Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The island was home to a Native American settlement before European...

 in Lake Huron. Created by erosion during the period of postglacial Lake Algonquin, Sugar Loaf is the largest post-glacial erosion feature in the Straits of Mackinac

Straits of Mackinac

The Straits of Mackinac is the strip of water that connects two of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and separates the Lower Peninsula of Michigan from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a shipping lane providing passage for raw materials and finished goods, connecting, for...

.

The immense rock, which consists of resistant limestone breccia

Breccia

Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....

, was cut off from Ancient Mackinac Island or the Turtle's Back by the glacial meltwaters of Lake Algonquin. Polar storms released by the retreating ice sheet created erosional forces much stronger than any existing today on the Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

.

The rock lies within the boundaries of the Mackinac Island State Park

Mackinac Island State Park

Mackinac Island State Park is a state park located on Mackinac Island in the U.S. state of Michigan. The island park encompasses 2.81 mi² , which is approximately 74% of the island's total area of 3.78 mi² . The park is also within the boundaries of the city of Mackinac Island and has permanent...

 near the junction of Crooked Tree Road and Sugar Loaf Road. It can be seen from Point Lookout, near the Island's highest point.

Its name

The primary sweetening enjoyed by people of all backgrounds on the frontier Great Lakes was maple sugar

Maple sugar

Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in the northeastern United States and Canada, prepared from the sap of the sugar maple tree.-Preparation:...

, packed into cone-shaped baskets

Wiigwaasi-makak

A wiigwaasi-makak , meaning "birch-bark box" in the Anishinaabe language, is a box made of panels of birchbark sewn together with watap...

 or makakoon of birchbark. Sugar Loaf Rock was named for its resemblance to one of these cones.

Its lore

A wide variety of stories were told by Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 and frontier dwellers about Sugar Loaf. It was said by some to be the home of Gitchie Manitou. Other tales suggested that the rock was the final form taken by a man afflicted with hubris

Hubris

Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....

 who broke a taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

 and was punished by being petrified into the form of a giant stone. The profile in limestone, affixed to the side of Sugar Loaf Rock, of a male face may have suggested this legend. The profile is said to be that of the lost soul, who can never escape the identity he took upon his moral condemnation.

Sugar Loaf Rock appears to have been used as a site of ritual burials and inhumations. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...

and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited Mackinac Island. De Beaumont reported that the rock was filled with "crevices and faults where the Indians sometimes deposed the bones of the dead." Any such deposits have long since disappeared.

A natural cave passes through Sugar Loaf from side to side, too small for passage by any but adventurous children.

Sources

• George W. Pierson, "Tocqueville and Beaumont in America" (New York City: Oxford University Press, 1938), page 302.