High Island: perched dunes and a working-island past

High Island is more than an abandoned-settlement story. West of Beaver Island, it is 3,495 acres managed by Michigan DNR as part of the Beaver Islands State Wildlife Research Area. A DNR management plan says the island is entirely state-owned.

The landscape is the first surprise. A high plain rises above an escarpment that reaches more than 200 feet in places. On the west side, perched sand dunes sit above old beach ridges, cedar, and upland forest. DNR says these shoreline habitats support rare, threatened, and endangered plants and birds; its management plan also identifies federally designated piping plover habitat.

People lived and worked here, too. Cranbrook’s archive history describes several Odawa fishing families on High Island. When a Cranbrook survey team visited in 1938, it recorded three Native families in residence and a commercial fishing boat operated by the men. Cranbrook says the island has been uninhabited since 1940.

From 1912 to 1927, the Benton Harbor-based House of David ran a timber-cutting and potato-farm operation on the island. The religious commune had been founded in 1903 by Benjamin and Mary Purnell. Its own history says early members practiced celibacy, pacifism, and strict vegetarianism while sharing work and property. Archival photographs from 1938 show abandoned colony buildings, and DNR’s island plan still identifies House of David structures among the historical resources it manages.

That history can make High Island sound like a ready-made day trip. It is not. DNR says there is no regularly scheduled public transportation. Anyone considering a visit should begin with current DNR rules and realistic plans for weather, transportation, landing, and emergencies. The island’s sensitive habitat and surviving structures deserve the same care as its stories.