I don't know why the old Mackinaw was docked in Cheboygan instead of Mackinaw City or Sault Saint Marie. It may have been because there was a war going on and they didn't want all their ships in one place making a tempting target. If you look at the satellite view, you will see the Mackinaw's dock near the mouth of the river. It doesn't stick out, it runs along the shore parallel to the channel. Just upstream of the dock is the turning basin, a wide spot that was dredged out to enable the ship to turn around and face downstream so it would be ready to go the next time it was called out. Other than that, there is not much room for a big ship to dock in the river. One exception is a large tug and barge that comes periodically to unload gasoline at the small tank farm. I don't think they use the turning basin, they back out after unloading.
Cheboygan started out as an Indian village and became a trading post during our fur trapping era. Marine traffic was mostly canoes in those days, so they didn't need a lot of dock space.
During our logging era, there were two or three big sawmills and numerous smaller ones in and around Cheboygan. Logs were floated down the river and cut into boards that were loaded into sailing schooners that were small ships by today's standards. There were some docks that projected out into the straits to accommodate the lumber schooners, but they were made out of wood and eventually rotted away. On a clear day you can still see traces of these docks underwater. After they ran out of timber close to the water, they ran narrow gauge railroad tracks out into the woods and skidded the logs with animal power to where they could be loaded. One outfit had a railroad steam engine that had been converted to run on treads like a tank, with two skis where the front wheels would have been.
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