Today, we drove a short ways to Bay Port to check out their 40th Annual Fish Sandwich Festival.

It all started out several years ago, when one of the owners of the Bay Port Fish Company began selling fish sandwiches at his house to help pay for his daughters' college tuition.  In 1978 the activity became what is now a major event three day event for the small town with craft vendors, parade, entertainment, petting zoo, crowning of the festival queen, silent auction, zip lining, 5K walk/run, and fireworks.  The original sandwich was a large piece of fried mullet on a hoagie like bun.  Over time they have added other fish to the list to include walleye, perch and cod.  For non-fish lovers they also offer nachos and hot dogs.  Shirley had their "original" and I ordered their perch.  The fish was fried perfectly.  Good eats.  While we were there, we bought some salsa, queso cheese, and chips from a fellow retired veteran.

After checking out the vendors, we stopped at the Bay Port Fish Company to pick up some fish.   The Bay Port Fish Company was founded in 1895 and has been continually open since then.  The business is now owned by the Williams family who bought it more than 34 years ago.  Their motto is "Where the fish caught the man".  I have researched this and cannot find out its meaning.  We picked up a chinook salmon fillet and a lake whitefish fillet.  Both are caught from Lake Huron.  They offer several other types of fish and shell fish, but wanted something that came from the lake.  I asked why fish is not offered in the local restaurants and learned that US commercial fishing on the Great Lakes is significantly regulated; therefore, there are only a few commercial fisherman and the quantities of commercial fish are very limited.  On the other hand, Canadian commercial fishing has very few restrictions.  Go figure.    

From there we drove to Pigeon to check out their farmers' market, but found that it was not much more than a couple of craft vendors, so we drove back to the campground and decided to take a walk into town to check out the shops.  After working up a thirst, we stopped at the Thumb Brewery for a beer or two.  They have a large selection of their own brews as well as a long list of beers brewed in Michigan plus a couple from California.  We then returned to the coach and hunkered down for a windy and wet night.