South Manitou Island Lighthouse, NPS photo

I visited the island in July 2002. In order to get there, you have to
take a 17 mile trip out into Lake Michigan on the ferry that runs daily
to the island from Leland, MI. The more adventurous can actually kayak
out to the island on days when the lake is not too rough. Once off the
ferry, it's a couple miles of hiking (either on an inland trail or along
the southern beach) to get to the trees. As far as I know, the NPS
allows no motorized vehicles anywhere on the island. There was just
enough time for me to get there, explore the trees, and get back for a
quick tour of the lighthouse before the ferry departed back to the
mainland.

The Eastern White Cedar trees here are unique, at least for lower
Michigan. The former world champion, with a published CBH of 17 feet,
has died and the top has fallen, but there are several others almost as
large. I did not take any measurements of height, but I would estimate
the tallest trees are in the 100-110 foot range. I saw about 20 acres of
old growth from the trail that winds through here and there is probably
more, but since I was worried about getting back in time to catch the
ferry, I stayed on the marked trail. Other old growth species I noted
included beech and some really large and gnarled sugar maples. A couple
other things I noticed;

This area is in a valley that is protected from strong winds off Lake
Michigan by a tall (wooded) sand dune. In fact, even though it was a
fairly breezy day along the beach, I noticed little or no wind in the
old growth, even at tree top level. The trees did not appear wind
stressed at all. One of the theories offered as to why the trees were
never cut was that sand from the dunes had been embedded in the bark by
strong winds and the lumbermen didn't want the sand to dull their saws.
I am not sure if things were different a century ago, but there was no
sand in the bark of these trees in 2002.

The other thing that struck me was the total lack of young cedar trees.
The only cedars here were the big ones, 3-5 feet DBH. No smaller ones,
no seedlings at all. There was a stand of second growth cedar about a
mile away along the beach, but no smaller cedars in the old growth
stand.

Here are some websites that have photos of the trees:

http://www.leelanau.com/manitou/islands/cedar.html

http://www.charliet.net/PhotoPages/ValleyoftheGiants.htm

The last link has a photo of the (dead) champion white cedar as well as
a published height of 113 feet to go along with the 216 inch CBH. These
measurements were from 1978.

I did take some video of the trees, including the old maples and I am in
the process of learning how to convert video to stills which I can post
at some point in the future.

Ernie Ostuno

Here are two additional links for the National Park Service Sites.  South Manitou Island is a part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan.  The NPS site reads in part, "On South Manitou Island there is a small stand of very large, pre-Columbian northern white cedar. This 40-acre grove has some cedars that are 100 feet tall with 60-inch diameter trunks. The grove appears to have been larger but is being gradually succeeded by hardwoods."  The first link contains a map of the island.