The Venetian Festival

Every summer this quiet harbor throws one of the oldest and best-loved parties in Northern Michigan, the Charlevoix Venetian Festival. The harbor exists because of a channel dredged along the Pine River in eighteen sixty-nine, which linked Lake Michigan to Lake Charlevoix. The tradition traces back to the early nineteen thirties, when boats drifted across Round Lake at night lit only by candles, like the canals of Venice.

That single image of glowing boats on dark water became the soul of the whole event. Over the years the celebration grew into a multi-day festival and then a full week of fun. Today the Venetian Festival runs about a week and packs in fireworks over the water, a lighted boat parade, a street parade, big-name concerts, a carnival, running races, and food vendors crowding the waterfront.

But the heart of it is still that after-dark parade of boats glowing on Round Lake, a tradition now stretching back the better part of a century. Nearby stand the stone mushroom houses that self-taught architect Earl Young began building from local boulders in nineteen eighteen, and the ferry to Beaver Island, the largest island in Lake Michigan, leaves from Charlevoix. The town takes its name from Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, a French explorer who traveled the Great Lakes.