Historical Society holds Leelanau Maritime History Festival

By Sandra Serra Bradshaw

Sun contributor

The Leelanau Historical Society (LHS) is set to host the annual Leelanau Maritime History Festival on Saturday, Sept. 12. This well-loved festival, along with the equally loved 21st annual Wood Boats on the Wall, welcomes guests along the newly constructed boardwalk overlooking the Leland River.

This free, family-friendly cultural celebration orchestrates Leelanau County’s rich maritime legacy with live music, classic boats, vintage cars and local craftsmanship for a memorable day on the waterfront. The festival, first held in 2022, brings together local history organizations, museums, maritime enthusiasts, and community partners as it celebrates the people, places, and traditions that define Leelanau’s connection to the water.

Leelanau has nearly 100 miles of coastline, along which are numerous bays and harbors. The country is well-watered by numerous inland lakes, rivers, ponds and streams. To top that off, it is home to some of the most magnificent sand dunes found worldwide; impressive in both their size and in the spectacular scenery they offer. Truly, Leelanau and its waterways have much to offer.

The 2026 festival carries extra weight as part of America 250 programming, and its organizers are billing it as bigger than in past years. Van’s Garage is again hosting the Classic Car Show, a crowd favorite.

For a festival built around Great Lakes maritime history, it becomes even more alive as it is set overlooking a new boardwalk that exists because a half-century-old seawall was about to fail. This kind of symmetry brings the past to the current events through well-researched museum exhibitions, collections, archives, educational programs and community events. LHS preserves and shares the diverse history and cultural heritage of the Leelanau Peninsula.

In 2004, a previous iteration of the festival was moved to September to coincide with the inaugural Leland Heritage Days, a community-wide celebration organized by the Leland Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Leelanau’s nonprofits and businesses. The festival featured attractions throughout Leland, including the wooden boat show, a classic car show, a working boats exposition in Fishtown, and cultural programming presented by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

The event continued to grow until 2019, when the final Leland Heritage Days were held. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the tradition to an end in 2020.

Determined to continue the beloved wooden boat show, LHS envisioned a new event that would celebrate the Leelanau Peninsula’s broader maritime heritage. Possessing more water than land area, Leelanau County’s history has been shaped by Lake Michigan, along with its inland lakes, rivers, streams, and ecologically important wetlands. The organization’s vision became the Leelanau Maritime Festival we now enjoy.

“History is at the heart of the festival, but we also want people to see that Leelanau’s maritime story is still very alive. The traditions of the past continue to influence how we enjoy it today,” said Leelanau Historical Society executive director Kim Kelderhouse.

“The Leelanau Maritime History Festival is a celebration of how water has shaped the history, culture, work, and communities of the Leelanau Peninsula and Great Lakes,” she said. “As our Anishinaabe neighbors say, water (nibi) is life. It carries memory, connects generations and remains at the center of life in Leelanau. This festival celebrates the many people, cultures and community organizations working together to protect our waters and keep Leelanau’s longstanding maritime heritage alive and well for generations to come.”

The first wooden boat show began on a beautiful autumn day, Oct. 18, 2003, when the LHS hosted the first Wood Boats on the Wall. Conceived by then LHS director John Mitchell, the event celebrated the region’s rich wooden boating tradition by bringing classic boats together along the Leland River. For its first decade, the show was coordinated by Dave Ball of Ball Boat Works, whose leadership helped establish it as a favorite annual tradition.

“I was the inventor of the classic boat show,” said Mitchell. “The Board of Directors of the museum were looking for ways to bring us into the 21st century. After becoming executive director, I was at my desk looking out over the waters of the Leland River. I was watching all these classic boats out there—a lot of money involved in them—and people like to show them off!”

“So that was how Boats on the Wall became a reality,” Mitchell said. “What we wanted to accomplish—bringing the level of the inside exhibits to reach out (their importance) to the community with these beautiful wooden boats for all to enjoy on the river. And that is just how the boat show evolved into becoming the great event it is today!”

In celebration of America 250, the Leelanau Classic Car Show hosted by Van’s Garage will make a special return to this year’s festival, along E. Cedar St. filling the Leland Cultural District with style from a bygone era. Great Lakes musician Lee Murdoc, widely recognized as a leading interpreter of Great Lakes songs and stories, will perform. Murdock draws from freshwater shanties, folk ballads, blues, Irish musical traditions and the working songs of sailors and lumberjacks.

Murdock has uncovered a boundless body of music and stories about the nautical aspects of his home region. Noted as a fluent instrumentalist on both six and twelve-string guitars, his music is influenced over the span of 15 generations, from 17th century Irish harp music, to Scott Joplin guitar rags, and embracing the blues, peppy freshwater shanties, original songs and ballads. His songs are amazingly timeless, and are about sailors’ hard work, their hard living, and of the ships that went down and ships that came in. The music is grounded in the catchy work song tradition from the rugged days of lumberjacks and wooden sailing schooners. Murdock is a joy to listen to with his original ballads of contemporary commerce and revelry in the grand folk style.

This year’s festival includes a special program exploring the life and legacy of Gar Wood, the 20th-century icon known as “The Speedboat King.” He was the legendary inventor and speedboat racer whose record-setting achievements helped define an exhilarating era in American powerboat racing. Wood revolutionized powerboat design and broke multiple world water speed records, famously piloting his Miss America craft past an amazing 124 miles per hour. The program will be presented by Kendall Wingrove, past President of the Historical Society of Michigan.

The boat show has been renamed the Jim Wenstrup Wooden Boat Show in memory of Jim Wenstrup, who coordinated the show for the past decade. Wenstrup’s kindness, enthusiasm, and deep love for Lake Leelanau and its wooden boating traditions helped make the event what it is today. His legacy continues through the many boaters, volunteers, and visitors who gather each September to celebrate Leelanau’s significant maritime heritage.

Whether you’re a lifelong boat enthusiast, a maritime history lover, or a family looking for a fun day in Leland, you are invited to set a course for the Leelanau Maritime History Festival. Admission is free and all ages are welcome.

For a complete festival schedule and a list of participating community organizations, visit LeelanauHistory.org/maritime-history-festival.