Summer Island is an island in Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

. It is located 2.5 miles (4 km) miles off the southern tip of the Garden Peninsula

Garden Peninsula

The Garden Peninsula is a peninsula of in length that extends southwestward into Lake Michigan from the mainland of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The peninsula is bordered by Lake Michigan on the east, and by Big Bay de Noc on the west. The base of the peninsula is served by U.S. Highway 2, and...

 in the state of Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. The island can easily be seen from Fairport, on the southern end of Delta County Road 483, the locally maintained extension of M-183

M-183 (Michigan highway)

M-183 is a north–south state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. It serves Fayette State Park as an access route from US Highway 2 . The highway runs through rural farmlands of the Garden Peninsula and next to Big Bay de Noc, a bay of Lake Michigan. The community...

, but the island is not accessible to the general public.

The island is part of the Niagara Escarpment

Niagara Escarpment

The Niagara Escarpment is a long escarpment, or cuesta, in the United States and Canada that runs westward from New York State, through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois...

 archipelago in northwestern Lake Michigan. The highest point in Summer Island is 710 feet (217 m) above sea level, and 129 feet (40 m) above the level of the lake. One of the most prominent shoreline features of Summer Island is Gravel Point, a northern headland that stretches toward the Garden Peninsula mainland.

On the island's northeast side, two shallow points protect Summer Harbor, a small maritime shelter and site of a former settlement. During the 19th century, Summer Harbor was a fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

ing station for the harvesting of lake trout

Lake trout

Lake trout is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, lake char , touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, they can also be variously known as siscowet, paperbellies and leans...

 and whitefish

Freshwater whitefish

The freshwater whitefish are fish of the subfamily Coregoninae in the salmon family Salmonidae. Along with the freshwater whitefish, the Salmonidae includes the freshwater and anadromous trout and salmon species as well as graylings...

, and also served as a place to live for a small corps of logger

Lumberjack

A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...

s that harvested the island's timber. Summer Harbor was abandoned in the early 20th century. The settlement site was excavated by archeologists in 1968-1970.

More than one-half of the island is owned by the state of Michigan and is administered as part of Lake Superior State Forest

Lake Superior State Forest

Lake Superior State Forest is a state forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is operated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The North Country Trail utilizes this state forest for 43 miles of its route....

.