Apple Island: the uninhabited island that named Orchard Lake

Out in the middle of Orchard Lake sits a wooded island that almost nobody is allowed to set foot on. It’s 35 acres, a little over a mile around, and it’s the reason the lake — and the small city around it — is called Orchard Lake at all. The Ottawa knew the place as Menahsagorning, which means roughly “the place of the apples,” for the trees that grew there. White settlers translated the idea and named the water Orchard Lake to match.

People have come to the island for a very long time. The earliest signs of camps go back centuries, drawn by a smart combination — land and water resources in one spot, plus the simple safety of sleeping with a moat around you. Apple trees were being tended on it as late as 1817. Plenty of legends have attached themselves to the place over the years, including a stubborn one that Chief Pontiac is buried there, though careful historians treat that as folklore rather than fact.

The modern chapter belongs to Willis Ward, who bought the island around 1915 and built a substantial house on it — wired for electricity from a generator he installed, which was no small thing on an island a century ago. Lightning burned that house down in 1946. When Ward’s daughter, Marjorie Ward Strong, died in 1970, her family honored her wish and handed the island to the West Bloomfield School District to keep as a nature center.

So it stays empty on purpose. No bridge, no houses, no day-trippers — just trees, old foundations, and archaeological sites the district protects. The historical society runs a few boat tours each June, the rare chance to actually walk the ground that named the lake. The rest of the year, Apple Island is exactly what its keepers want it to be: quiet, green, and just offshore.