7 Prettiest Towns In the Great Lakes Region

There is a particular kind of pretty that turns up where a town meets a Great Lake. The water does half the work, and the town handles the other half with a red lighthouse on the breakwater, Victorian cottages up a bluff, or brick storefronts a block from the beach. Mackinac Island pulls it off with white cottages over a harbor ringed by limestone cliffs, and no cars anywhere to clutter the view. These seven towns have a real knack for looking their best from the waterline, and they rank among the prettiest around the Great Lakes.

Grand Marais, Minnesota

A working harbor and a lighthouse frame the view in Grand Marais, out on Lake Superior's north shore near the Canadian border. The downtown along Broadway Avenue is small enough to cross on foot. Most days, walkers head out to Artist Point, a flat rock outcropping past the breakwater that opens onto a wide stretch of the Superior coast. Above town, the Pincushion Mountain trail system threads through the hills for hikers and mountain bikers, while the smooth-stone beaches of the recreation area and a harborside campground line the water's edge.

Munising, Michigan

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the first national lakeshore in the country, lines 15 miles of sandstone cliffs streaked rust, green, and white just up the shore from Munising, which lies at the foot of a protected bay on Lake Superior. Boat cruises and kayak tours leave the city pier for the best look at formations like Miners Castle, which stands 50 to 200 feet above the water. Just offshore, Grand Island National Recreation Area adds beaches, a north-end lighthouse, and quiet camping reached by a short ferry, while Wagner Falls tumbles over rock ledges a few minutes south of town.

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

Niagara-on-the-Lake stands where the Niagara River empties into Lake Ontario, downstream from the more famous Niagara Falls. Its Old Town has the best collection of post-1812 architecture in Canada, a heritage district of brick storefronts, the country's oldest apothecary, and the Shaw Festival theaters. At the river mouth, Fort George National Historic Site and the star-walled Fort Mississauga recall the War of 1812, the latter raised on the site of the Mississauga Point Lighthouse, the first ever built on the Great Lakes. The surrounding countryside is wine country, with estates like Peller and Konzelmann pouring within a short drive of downtown.

Mackinac Island, Michigan

Cars have been banned on Mackinac Island since 1898, so travel happens on foot, by bicycle, or behind a horse. Set in Lake Huron between Michigan's two peninsulas, the island gives over more than 80 percent of its land to Mackinac Island State Park. Fort Mackinac, which the British built on the bluff in 1780, headlines the historic sites, and its Officers' Stone Quarters is the oldest building in Michigan. Trails climb past Arch Rock, a limestone arch 146 feet above the lake, to Fort Holmes at the island's high point, where the view takes in both Great Lakes and the Mackinac Bridge. Victorian cottages line the bluffs, and the fudge shops along Main Street are an institution.

Port Clinton, Ohio

The Portage River meets Lake Erie at Port Clinton, where the best-known landmark stands in Waterworks Park. The Port Clinton Lighthouse, a timber pier light first lit in 1896, is the last wooden light of its kind on the lake and reopened after a multi-year restoration. The town calls itself the Walleye Capital of the World and marks each New Year by lowering a 600-pound fiberglass walleye over downtown. Families spend the day at the African Safari Wildlife Park, a drive-through preserve where giraffes and bison crowd the car windows, then drift out to Catawba Island State Park for one of the better fishing piers and sunsets on the lake.

Marquette, Michigan

Marquette grew up as an iron-ore port, and the evidence still lines its Lake Superior waterfront. The red Marquette Harbor Lighthouse, established in 1853, is the oldest structure in town and earned its trademark color in the 1960s. Down the shore, the towering Lower Harbor Ore Dock recalls the mines that built the city, while Mattson Lower Harbor Park and the Upper Peninsula Children's Museum give families a spot near the water. For a swim, locals head a few minutes north to the Black Rocks at Presque Isle Park, where ledges drop into clear, cold Superior water below the pines.

Goderich, Ontario

An unusual octagonal Courthouse Square, with streets radiating off an eight-sided green, helped earn Goderich its nickname as Canada's Prettiest Town. The Maitland River winds into Lake Huron at the town's edge, passing under the Menesetung Bridge and along the Tiger Dunlop Heritage Trail. Near the courthouse stands the Huron Historic Gaol, an octagonal stone jail that held prisoners from 1842 until 1972 and saw the last public hanging in Canada. On the bluff above the harbor, the 1847 Goderich lighthouse, the oldest on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, presides over the town beaches and some of the lake's best sunsets.

The Prettiest Side Of The Inland Seas

These seven towns make the case that freshwater can rival any ocean coast. Munising opens the door to the painted cliffs of Pictured Rocks, Goderich crowns its Lake Huron bluff with an octagonal square, and Marquette still works the iron-ore docks that built it. Add the harbors of Grand Marais and Port Clinton and the vineyards of Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the range becomes clear. Summer brings warm water and long evenings, autumn brings color, and the crowds stay thinner than the coasts to the south.