Its Lore
A wide variety of stories were told by Native Americans and frontier dwellers about Sugar Loaf. It was said by some to be the home of Gitchie Manitou. Other tales suggested that the rock was the final form taken by a man afflicted with hubris who broke a taboo and was punished by being petrified into the form of a giant stone. The profile in limestone, affixed to the side of Sugar Loaf Rock, of a male face may have suggested this legend. The profile is said to be that of the lost soul, who can never escape the identity he took upon his moral condemnation.
Sugar Loaf Rock appears to have been used as a site of ritual burials and inhumations. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited Mackinac Island. De Beaumont reported that the rock was filled with "crevices and faults where the Indians sometimes deposed the bones of the dead." Any such deposits have long since disappeared.
A natural cave passes through Sugar Loaf from side to side, too small for passage by any but adventurous children.
Read more about this topic: Sugar Loaf (Mackinac Island)
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