CHARLEVOIX
Where Three Lakes Meet, A Story Unfolds Across Centuries
CHARLEVOIX
Where Three Lakes Meet, A Story Unfolds Across Centuries
CHARLEVOIX
Where Three Lakes Meet, A Story Unfolds Across Centuries
A Definitive New Pictorial History of the Charlevoix Region in a Single Landmark Volume
The Charlevoix Historical Society presents a stunning, museum-quality volume capturing the rich history of the Michigan waters that gave rise to Charlevoix and the neighboring inland communities around Lake Charlevoix—from Indigenous times to today.
The most comprehensive pictorial record of the area's maritime legacy ever assembled, The City on Three Lakes blends historic and newly commissioned contemporary photography with rare maps and vivid stories of the people, traditions, places, and events that shaped a region's identity across centuries. A substantial addition to the visual and historical record of Michigan's great "Up North."
Tracing the Currents of the Past
Through original scholarship, historical narrative, and meticulous research, The City on Three Lakes traces the evolving relationship between Charlevoix and its waters—from Indigenous homelands and early settlement through the navigation, industry, infrastructure, and culture that have shaped the region across centuries.
Bringing together more than 875 images, the book offers an unparalleled visual account of the area’s maritime legacy. Expansive in scope and richly documented, it illuminates the people, traditions, and defining moments that shaped not just a city, but an interconnected region bound by shared waters and a shared past.
Years in the Making:
An Exceptional Pictorial History
At the heart of The City on Three Lakes is one of the most remarkable visual archives ever assembled about the Lake Charlevoix region. Drawn from the Charlevoix Historical Society's collection of more than 40,000 historic photographs—meticulously curated and digitized for the first time—and enriched through collaboration with leading public and private institutions across Michigan, the United States, and Canada, the book's imagery reveals the region as it has never been seen before. Many images have never been published. Together, they form a visual record of extraordinary depth and breadth.
Past meets present
For the first time in the Charlevoix Historical Society's publishing history, original contemporary photography was commissioned specifically for this volume. Led by John Doskoch, president of the Charlevoix Photography Club, this new work—including striking aerial photography—captures the color, texture, and character of Charlevoix's landscapes and waterways today.
The result is a rare and compelling dialogue between past and present: archival images in conversation with contemporary ones, revealing both how much has changed and how much endures.
Mapping a Region
A story never before told — the early mapping of the Great Lakes, with Charlevoix at its center.
Among the most distinctive contributions to The City on Three Lakes is a richly illustrated chapter on cartography—tracing how European explorers, surveyors, and settlers assimilated centuries of Indigenous knowledge into the Western scientific frameworks that would come to define how this corner of the Great Lakes was charted and understood. Developed in collaboration with curators Mary Pedley and Sierra Laddusaw at the University of Michigan's William L. Clements Library, it is a chapter unlike anything previously published about the region.
The Voices Behind the Book
The City on Three Lakes draws on the expertise of leading writers, scholars, curators, and experts to tell a story that is both deeply local and broadly significant.
David L. Miles
David L. Miles is an award-winning local historian and author specializing in the history of Charlevoix, Michigan. He has written ten books and produced two documentaries. His latest book, Boulders: The Life and Creations of Earl Young, Charlevoix’s Master Builder in Stone, was selected by the Library of Michigan as a Michigan Notable Book, and received a State History Award from the Historical Society of Michigan, both in 2021. He also contributed to an Emmy-winning documentary on Earl Young that aired on Michigan PBS.
Ole Lyngklip
Ole Lyngklip is a first-time author who began curatorial collaborations with the Charlevoix Historical Society in 2018 with the exhibit 150 Years of Photography. The exhibit, which he co-curated with David Miles, documented Charlevoix’s photographic history from the late 19th century to the early modern era. His second exhibit in 2023, A Maritime History of Charlevoix, co-curated with Miles, sparked the idea for this project. He sits on the boards of the Charlevoix Historical Society and the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Charles Eisendrath
Foreword
Foreign correspondent for TIME magazine in Washington, London, Paris, and Buenos Aires, and founder of Wallace House at the University of Michigan—home to the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowships, one of the nation's most prestigious mid-career journalism programs. Author of the acclaimed memoir Downstream from Here, Eisendrath is a longtime Charlevoix area resident whose foreword offers a deeply personal reflection on the region and its waters.
Eric Hemenway
Contributing Author
From Cross Village, Michigan, Hemenway served as Director of Repatriation, Archives and Records for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in Harbor Springs. A leading authority on Waganakising Odawa culture and history, his contribution grounds the book in the Indigenous heritage at the heart of the region's story.
Mary Pedley & Sierra Laddusaw
Contributing Authors, Curators at the University of Michigan's William L. Clements Library
Pedley and Laddusaw bring rare scholarly depth to The City on Three Lakes. Their contribution, a richly illustrated chapter on the early cartography of the Great Lakes region, draws on the Clements' extraordinary map collections to tell a story that has never before been told with Charlevoix at its center.
Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council
Contributing Author
A leading freshwater conservation nonprofit in Northern Michigan, brings an environmental stewardship perspective to the region's relationship with its waters.
John Doskoch
Photographic Contributor
Principal Contemporary Photography, President of the Charlevoix Photography Club, whose contemporary photography captures Charlevoix as it exists today.
A book with lasting impact
The City on Three Lakes is more than a landmark publication; it is a cornerstone of the Charlevoix Historical Society’s long‑term vision for preserving and sharing the region’s history. Support generated through book purchases and related gifts strengthens the Museum at Harsha House—the community’s living archive—and helps build the permanent resources that will sustain its work for generations to come.
Photo by John Doskoch
A Landmark in the Making
Built on a legacy. Reaching a new generation.
The City on Three Lakes carries forward a tradition that began in 1976, when the Charlevoix Historical Society published Bob Miles' Charlevoix—a pictorial history that became an instant classic and continues to shape how the region understands its own past. Nearly fifty years later, this new volume takes a bold step forward: larger in scope, richer in imagery, and wider in perspective than anything the Society has produced before.
This museum‑quality hardcover is printed in the United States by a leading art‑book press and is designed and produced to fine‑press standards.
To explore all available editions of The City on Three Lakes, including donor‑supported collector’s editions visit Editions.
Bridging our past with our future
The Charlevoix Historical Society is dedicated to curating, preserving, and sharing the rich history of the Charlevoix area. Through its collections, museum exhibits, programs, and publications, the Society educates the public, celebrates the region's unique heritage, and fosters research and a deeper understanding of Charlevoix's past. Its Museum at Harsha House is located at 103 State Street, Charlevoix, Michigan. The Charlevoix Historical Society is the proud recipient of the 2025 Michigan Governor's Award for Historic Preservation.
A true milestone for the Charlevoix Historical Society.
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS, PRESIDENT, CHARLEVOIX HISTORICAL SOCIETY
© 2026 Charlevoix Historical Society
The City on Three Lakes is proudly
published by Mission Point Press
