7 Cutest Small Towns In The Great Lakes

Cute is one of those words travel writers tend to wave around without actually proving. Saugatuck has a chain ferry that still gets cranked across the river by a single human turning a wheel, the only one of its kind still working in the United States. Geneva-on-the-Lake has a mini-golf course that opened in 1924. Petoskey has streetlamps shaped like fossilized coral. Skaneateles has a mailboat that tosses waterproofed mail sacks onto lakefront docks at full motor speed. Seven Great Lakes towns, seven specific reasons to call them cute.

Grand Marais, Minnesota

Grand Marais (population about 1,300) is the last real town before you hit the Canadian border on Lake Superior's North Shore, and the downtown has the kind of harbor-and-breakwater layout that gets photographed about a thousand times a day in summer. The North House Folk School has been teaching traditional crafts on the harbor since 1997, with more than 500 workshops a year covering timber framing, sourdough baking, kayak building, and sauna construction (this is northern Minnesota, of course there's a sauna program).

Sivertson Gallery on Wisconsin Street runs North Shore-inspired Native and contemporary art. Java Moose handles the morning coffee with harbor views. The Angry Trout Café up on Lake Avenue serves freshly caught Superior whitefish on a deck right above the water. Judge C.R. Magney State Park (15 miles north) holds the Devil's Kettle, a waterfall where half the Brule River appears to disappear underground (researchers traced the flow downstream in 2017, but the optical illusion still works on visitors).

Saugatuck, Michigan

Saugatuck (population about 900 year-round) holds the only hand-cranked chain ferry still operating in the United States. The Saugatuck Chain Ferry has been crossing the Kalamazoo River since 1838; the current vessel dates to 1965 and is operated by a single human who turns a manual wheel to pull the boat across the chain bridging the river. Tickets are a dollar each way. On the far side, the Mount Baldhead stairs climb a 282-foot sand dune for water-and-town views.

The Saugatuck Center for the Arts and Amazwi Contemporary Art (formerly the Saugatuck Center for the Arts) both run rotating exhibitions and live performances through the summer. Oval Beach on the Lake Michigan side is regularly ranked among Michigan's best public beaches. Dinner options include The Southerner (fried chicken with lake views) and Phil's Bar & Grille (the casual locally-loved end of the dinner scale). Saugatuck's been an arts colony since the late 1800s and the warm-weather population swells from about 900 to several thousand from May through September.

Bayfield, Wisconsin

Bayfield (population about 470) is the mainland gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, an archipelago of 22 islands off Lake Superior's south shore. The town itself, on a hillside facing Madeline Island, holds a downtown of about three blocks that can be walked end-to-end in fifteen minutes. The Brownstone Centre on Rittenhouse Avenue houses boutiques and a wine bar inside a historic stone-block building, and Wonderstate Coffee handles morning espresso with porch seating.

Apostle Islands Cruises runs daily summer trips through the archipelago to the sea caves and the historic lighthouses (the Apostle Islands hold the largest collection of pre-1900 lighthouses in the country). In late summer, Blue Vista Farm runs you-pick raspberries and Hauser's Superior View Farm handles apples and apple cider. The Bayfield Apple Festival in early October draws around 50,000 visitors to a town of fewer than 500, the kind of math that says everything about what Bayfield means to its region.

Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio

Geneva-on-the-Lake is Ohio's oldest summer resort town, established as a Lake Erie camp meeting in 1869. The strip along Lake Road still runs on old-fashioned arcades, lakefront amusement-park rides, and roadside food in a way that feels essentially unchanged since the 1950s. Allison's Mini Golf has been open since 1924, making it one of the oldest continuously operating miniature golf courses in the country. Eddie's Grill across the strip is a 1950s-era diner with jukebox booth seating, footlong chili dogs, and a root beer barrel out front. Madsen Donuts has been turning out glazed twists for over 80 years.

Down at Geneva State Park, the Lake Erie beach handles the swim crowd alongside hiking trails and kayak rentals. The Grand River Valley AVA covers more than 20 wineries within a short drive, with Laurentia Vineyard & Winery and Debonné Vineyards as the main anchors. Lake Erie sunsets over the water are the unscripted nightly headliner.

Petoskey, Michigan

Petoskey runs the Little Traverse Bay shoreline with a Gaslight District downtown that has held its independent-shop character better than nearly any other northern Michigan town. The streetlamps on Lake Street and Howard Street are shaped like Petoskey stones (fossilized colonial coral, Hexagonaria percarinata, that became Michigan's official state stone in 1965). Sunset Park and Magnus Park Beach are the two best places to hunt the stones themselves, which polish up to a hexagonal pattern when wet.

Breakfast goes to Julienne Tomatoes on Howard Street; McLean & Eakin Booksellers next door handles the independent-bookstore side. Symons General Store, two doors down, stocks gourmet snacks and runs a cellar wine bar. The Little Traverse Wheelway is a 26-mile paved waterfront trail linking Charlevoix, Petoskey, and Harbor Springs along the shoreline. City Park Grill is where Ernest Hemingway used to sit at the bar in the 1910s while writing the stories that became In Our Time.

Skaneateles, New York

Skaneateles is technically not on the Great Lakes shoreline, but Skaneateles Lake drains via the Seneca and Oswego Rivers into Lake Ontario, putting the town inside the Great Lakes basin. The lake itself is the cleanest of the Finger Lakes and serves as the public water supply for Syracuse and points east, drawn into the municipal system with only minimal disinfection treatment (an unusual arrangement for a 21st-century US public water system).

The Sherwood Inn on Genesee Street, opened in 1807 as a stagecoach stop, still operates as a hotel and tavern. Mid-Lakes Navigation runs daily mailboat cruises from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with the captain literally tossing waterproofed mailbags onto private lakefront docks as the boat passes. The Skaneateles Bakery handles morning cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven. Doug's Fish Fry runs the locally-loved lunch crowd with no-frills haddock and sides at outdoor picnic tables.

Elora, Ontario

Elora sits about 20 kilometres north of Guelph in Wellington County, Ontario, on the Grand River that eventually drains south into Lake Erie. The town's identity is built around the Elora Gorge, where the Grand River cuts through 22-metre limestone cliffs. Rim trails follow both sides of the gorge, and in summer visitors can rent an inner tube and float the river between the cliff walls (the tubing route is run by the Grand River Conservation Authority and the season runs roughly mid-May through mid-September depending on water levels).

The Lost & Found Café handles morning coffee, and the Elora Centre for the Arts in a converted 1846 stone mill on Mill Street runs local productions and exhibits. Elora Brewing Company on Metcalfe Street pours pints with live music on the schedule. The Elora Mill Hotel & Spa is the town's high-end overnight option, a converted 19th-century grist mill that handles fine dining alongside the rooms. The Highland Festival and Fergus Scottish Festival each August (Fergus is the next town up the road) round out the summer calendar.

Seven Cute Anchors

The cuteness arithmetic in each of these towns comes down to one thing nobody else has copied. Saugatuck's hand-cranked chain ferry. Geneva-on-the-Lake's 1924 mini-golf course. Petoskey's Petoskey-stone streetlamps. Skaneateles's mailboat that tosses bags at docks. Grand Marais's folk school teaching sauna construction. Bayfield's annual apple festival drawing 50,000 visitors to a town of 470. Elora's tubing run through 22-metre limestone cliffs. Cute earned the long way.