Dossin Great Lakes Museum

Belle Isle is a nearly 1000 acre park in the Detroit River. In the summer it costs Michigan residents $11 per vehicle to drive onto the island if you don’t have the Recreation Pass from the State Department, but it’s free in the winter. It’s been the home of the Detroit Grand Prix as well as the summer playground for Detroiters for many years. Look at it like Central Park in New York City. Anyway, nestled between Lake Tacoma (there are 3 lakes on the island) and the Canadian border is Dossin Great Lakes Museum.

The museum is open year-round from Friday to Sunday. The hours are 10AM to 4PM. Obviously it’s dedicated to the ships that plied the waters around the Great Lakes.

You can see Belle Isle on the photo above in tan to the east of both Detroit and Windsor.

Bob-Lo Island was an amusement park in Amherstburg Ontario, just south of Detroit. I remember visiting often as a kid on school trips, riding the ferry after a long bus ride. It closed for good in 1993.

The museum has an observatory overlooking Windsor made from an old ship, complete with instruments and controls.

It was clearly cold when I visited but it didn’t seem to bother the Canadian geese.

I’m glad the museum is open to the public. I enjoyed learning more about how shipping shaped the area but now I can’t stop hearing the Gordon Lightfoot song.

~ Freddy