How 500 horses get to Mackinac Island each spring
An evening pause: As noted at this website:
The island was America’s second national park (after Yellowstone National Park) for 20 years and has been the state of Michigan’s first state park. The island has had a ban on automobiles since the earliest days and still has the only highway in the nation where cars are banned.
Apparently, during the winter the horses are taken to the mainland for their benefit, and then returned in the spring in preparation for the summer tourism season. As this is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, the start of the summer season, this seems most appropriate for tonight.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
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MGM Presents: James A. Fitzpatrick’s Travel Talks
Mackinac Island (1944)
https://youtu.be/q-jn127ea6Q
9:29
So what did the horses do before there was a park? Winter over on the island like nature intended? I thought the NPS was trying not to interfere with nature. Silly me
@Col Beausabre: “So what did the horses do before there was a park? Winter over on the island like nature intended? I thought the NPS was trying not to interfere with nature. Silly me”
These are working draft and saddle horses that carry goods and people around the island, in place of cars and trucks. There were no horses on the island before they were brought out there for this purpose, and they were never allowed to wander around like wild horses. They all live in corrals and livery stables when they are not hauling wagons or carrying riders..
End of the clip, that’s why the trucker’s union is called teamsters. Those who control a team of horses.
Col-
You’re thinking of the “Chincoteague Pony Swim,” where the NPS forces the horses to swim across a channel every year, then auctions off the ponies above the number they determine the Island can support.
https://www.assateagueisland.com/ponyswim/ponyswim.htm
97th Annual Pony Swim & Auction:
Chincoteague Pony Swim – July 27, 2022
https://youtu.be/o5fP3U7fVQw
6:41
“On the last Wednesday before the last Thursday in July, the wild Chincoteague Ponies are herded across the Assateague Channel in order to auction the foals to maintain the herd size at 150 adult ponies.”