Castle Rock St. Ignace: 170 Steps, $1, Hours and Season

Castle Rock is a column of breccia that rises 195 feet above the water just north of St. Ignace, and the Eby family has been sending people up it since 1929. The trip to the top is 170 steps and a catwalk, and it costs $1. From 1929 until the late 1970s it cost 10 cents, and the billboards said so: “Stop and climb, it’s still a dime.”

A grassy, tree-covered rock face rising to a fenced wooden viewing platform with an American flag, water visible beyond. Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0). — The top of Castle Rock north of St. Ignace, with its fenced viewing platform and flag, in June 2009. Photo: Bobak Ha’Eri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The payoff at the top is Mackinac Island, the towers of the Mackinac Bridge, downtown St. Ignace and a lot of forest. The operators say the view runs up to 20 miles, and the deck has viewing binoculars in case your eyes need help. Down at the bottom, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox wait for the photo you were always going to take.

Looking down from a high viewpoint over forest, a divided highway and buildings toward a wide stretch of blue water under a cloudy sky. Photo: Viplav Valluri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). — The view from the top of Castle Rock toward St. Ignace, July 2016. Photo: Viplav Valluri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

A Dime, Then a Dollar

The family’s own site says Clarence Eby “opened Castle rock for tourists in 1929.” Wikipedia moves that a year early, saying C. C. Eby bought the stack in 1928 “and opened Castle Rock to the public.” The operator and The Detroit News both put the start at 1929, and The Detroit News credits the purchase to Clarence and Helen Eby that year.

Nearly a century later it is still an Eby operation. Clarence’s grandson Mark Eby has been involved in the family business his whole life, according to The Detroit News. The dime is gone, and the dollar still gets you to the top.

The rock tops out about 183 feet above I‑75, which makes it hard to miss from the highway. The architectural historians at SAH Archipedia say it became a stop for early motorists on U.S. 2 between St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie.

The Bunyan Department

The statues of Paul and Babe were built by Mark’s uncle in 1959. Roadside America points out the detail that makes this Bunyan special: he sits instead of standing, “staring googly-eyed towards the lake.” It is a relaxed lumberjack, which feels correct for the Straits.

Inside, the gift shop has a birch bark ceiling and walls that the operators say were hand crafted by local Native Americans in the early 1950s. Atlas Obscura also reports a taxidermied black bear in a cowboy hat. The hat comes without explanation, which is correct.

A large seated statue of a bearded lumberjack in a red shirt beside a blue ox statue, behind a chain-link fence, under a yellow Castle Rock sign. Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5). — The seated Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues at the base of Castle Rock, June 2009. Photo: Bobak Ha’Eri / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5).

What the Rock Actually Is

Castle Rock is Mackinac Breccia, the same stuff as the other scenic chimney rocks around the Straits. The state’s 1945 geological report on the region calls it “indurated trans‑formational breccia” and traces the whole mess back to salt: “Percolating underground waters leached great quantities of salt from around the rim of the salt basin.” Later, the waves of Lake Algonquin and Lake Nipissing, higher lakes left behind by the glaciers, sculpted it.

SAH Archipedia and Wikipedia both call it a sea stack. The same 1945 state report says Castle Rock is “not a true stack” and describes it “buttressing a sharp Nipissing headland from which it was not quite isolated by the waves.”

The name history is murkier. The attraction’s listing says the Ojibwa knew it as “Pontiac’s Lookout.” Wikipedia says it has been advertised as “Ojibway’s Lookout,” but that the nearby hill of Rabbit’s Back was more likely the true lookout.

Sources: Castle Rock (castlerockmi.com); Michigan Department of Conservation, Geological Survey Division (Publication 44, 1945); The Detroit News; SAH Archipedia; Pure Michigan; Roadside America; Atlas Obscura; Wikipedia.

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