The Badger still sails: Mason County's working steamship

Every summer morning in Ludington, a 410-foot steamship blows its whistle and backs away from the dock with a load of cars, semis, and vacationers bound across Lake Michigan — exactly as it has since 1953. The SS Badger is the last coal-fired passenger steamship operating in the United States, a National Historic Landmark that turns the four-hour crossing to Manitowoc, Wisconsin into a floating time machine, complete with deck bingo and the world’s largest unsalted-water sunset.

The Badger is the flagship of a county that does Lake Michigan right. Ludington State Park — routinely ranked among Michigan’s best — threads dunes, beach, and the Big Sable Point Lighthouse between Hamlin Lake and the big water; the city beach anchors a downtown of galleries and ice cream; and the Pere Marquette River, America’s first river stocked with brown trout, draws anglers from everywhere to the county’s east half. Salmon capital claims, sunset traditions, a steamship for a neighbor: Mason County’s brand of up north comes with a working antique.