Miss Bay City and The Myron K (Fishboats)

[Gillespie]

These boats are to be removed to disposal, there is an offer to preserve one of them for the marine museum. This will take some sponsorship if the public is interested. The Miss Bay City was built in Bay City Michigan in the late 20's or 30's and eventually brought to Beaver Island and converted to a fishing vessel by Hubert Maudrie, she eventually got beached and wound up on display at Robert Gillespie's dock where the fish market exists today. She will be removed and probably scrapped as will the Myron K (Skip Duhamels fish tug) unless some interest can be determined in saving one of these vessels as a historic display of the fishing era Beaver Island was so famous for. Post your thoughts, requests and rememberences!

[BI Pirate]

Preserving a community's history speaks volumes for creating its future.
The Tribe has always been generous with BI and may be a good source of support but islanders need to step up and do their share. I'm in! Skip was always the first boat in the spring to be out on the harbor even when most of the water was still hard (ice).

[John Bolton]

I'm sorry, I for one, can not vote to preserve the Myron K... it is official record that Skip and his boat, et al, were heavily involved in illegal fishing practices that broke not only Federal and State Laws, including taking an extremely large amount of our Tax Grant money to not do, EXACTLY what he ended up doing anyway....
He and his cohorts actions betrayed the trust of the Island to be protectors of its' resources, and not just more predators who took advantage of the remoteness and total lack of real enforcement...... not only by Local authorities, but State DNR and even the generous cash flush Tribe looked the other way....

I see no honor in keeping that eyesore of a boat as a representation of the "good ole days" of the fish trade... that is, unless you all want to tell the truth of what was (??) really going on...

I see all lot of talk about protecting the Island's resources from predators like cormorants and coyotes or over logging, however, the real predators who are endangering the Island's resources on a grand scale only have two feet, no paws, no wings.. all of the illegal netting that has historically be going on around the islands is the equivalent of humans "clear cutting" all the island's trees, except it is under the water...these actions affect the food chain on the island, as much as anything else that requires "protecting" in order to preserve what is going on in the archipelago in total.

Preserving the Island's future may be better served enforcing its' current resource bylaws, rather than spending proportional amounts of energy on, "How it used to be".

As a sports fisherman who pays the costs of legally fishing these waters, it is hard to justify those costs if the playing field has already been clear cut by professional poachers..
Sport fishing will be many, many times more financially beneficial to Beaver Island (on a pound for pound harvest) in the future, assuming there are fish here to be caught.

Don't believe me, read the Federal investigation report...
Btw... Not much came of that either...

[BI Pirate]

One eyed pirates look at the world differently. Did Skip break some laws? Most likely he did in some ways. That would be a first on Beaver Island!!!! Let's put history into perspective. We stole their lands, put them on reservations, forced their children to accept the white people ways and language, killed their bison and broke our word on treaties to include Great Lakes fishing rights. Haven't we screwed them over enough?

[Gillespie]

We are not talking about Skips boat so rest easy!! The Miss Bay City was a former excursion boat built in Bay City with two historic Island ships, the Mary Margaret, which was a local ferry and the American Girl which was and is a local tug boat, one built in 1923 and the other in 1922. So, the Miss Bay City was converted from an excursion boat to a fish boat on the shores of Beaver Island before my brother Robert bought it and made a patio out of it where the tribal fishing dock now exists. This has nothing to do with none of that other stuff! In fact, it's a rather great history!

[John Bolton]

Richie,
I have no problem with the Miss Bay City resting on her laurels and being preserved for her historical significance, and I will gladly donate to the cause...

The Myron K on the other hand, represents the worst...
As far as your pal BIP goes...according to the Feds, Skip and gang broke the law a lot, not just "a little..."
and he hid those actions behind all that, "We are Indian tribes so don't ask us to have to obey any horrible slave master white man's law..." that you are defending him with...
While he greedily pocketed our tax money and our resouces for he and his cohorts...and IF he was giving any of these illegally gained, tax evading Treaty violating proceeds to the Tribe... and IF they knew what was going on, then they too, would be accomplices... However, I will be the first to say the Federal report did not find any evidence of that, just a general lack of supervision...

Skip's actions ripped us ALL OFF, White, Red, Black, Michiganders, all AMERICANS...Even those Cheese Heads across the pond (':lol:')
and if there are still people out there on the lake illegally "clear cutting" our resources... those resources that belong to ALL of us, then they should be exposed for what they are. If there are people who have knowledge of these activities and do not report them, then they are accomplices, too.

The Life under the water around these islands are every bit as important as the life that live on top of and out of the water... as they are all critically interdependent.
I am merely asking for the recognition of the seriousness that commercial poaching violations are... even in the Lakes... and maybe especially in the Lakes...because it is what gives life and definition to these Islands.

BTW: I wasn't around when "civilization" came to North America and either was anyone else that is here now.
I am responsible for me... NOW
and each individual is responsible for themselves... NOW...
the rest is just excuses....for greed and miscreant behavior
and so, what's your excuse, B. I. Pirate?