Fishtown Preservation Society owns commercial fishing boats, their licenses to fish and several of the old shanties in Leland’s historic Fishtown district. And now the nonprofit also owns a house well-known to locals: the Van Raalte house, right next to Van’s Garage.
The house sits on the Leland River, behind The Cove Restaurant and Falling Waters Lodge.
“People who were here before always thought of this [house] as part of Fishtown,” said Amanda Holmes, executive director of Fishtown Preservation Society.
The nonprofit raised over $2 million to purchase the family home, which until now has been residential. It will be turned into the nonprofit’s new office — an upgrade from a small, cramped room on the other side of M-22.
That expansion comes as commercial fishing becomes less and less viable in northern Michigan, something that’s not lost on Holmes.
“If you look at the history of commercial fishing, it has been a story of ever decreasing, ever decreasing, ever decreasing,” she said. “And yet there are people who are still doing it.”
The nonprofit was created by fishing families in Leland who wanted to preserve the area’s historic fishing village.
While historic preservation is a key part of Fishtown Preservation Society, the organization also works to keep the commercial fishing industry alive — something that’s getting harder to do as whitefish struggle in most of Lake Michigan.
“Ideally, [commercial fishing] will continue. But it's a struggle across the whole state,” Holmes said. “If it disappears, suddenly no one's going to even care about it anymore. I'm going to make people care. I want them to care. I want them to understand. I want them to miss it. I want them to fight for it now.”
The group expects to begin renovations this fall and move into the new office next year.
