The City on Three Lakes: A Maritime History of Charlevoix & the Surrounding Region is a new book by the Charlevoix Historical Society and authors David L. Miles and Ole Lyngklip. This book aims to be a definitive pictorial history of Charlevoix, a northern Michigan community nestled between Lake Michigan, Lake Charlevoix, and Round Lake.
Proceeds from the book will benefit the Charlevoix Historical Society, who also offers many free resources that we want to highlight. You can visit their website to read excerpts from the book, see historical photographs, find events, and explore Charlevoix’s history!
The Authors of The City on Three Lakes were recently interviewed on Mission Point Press’s podcast This One’s About. You can find this episode wherever you get your podcasts, or on their website.
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. (via cityon3lakes.com)
Ole Lyngklip is a director of the Charlevoix Historical Society, where he has curated several exhibits on the history of Charlevoix, including 2018’s 150 Years of Photography and 2023’s A Maritime History of Charlevoix, both cocurated with
David L. Miles is a local historian specializing in Charlevoix, MI. He has won several awards, written 10 books, and produced two documentaries. Miles has also contributed to an Earl Young documentary, which won an Emmy and aired on Michigan PBS.
Charles R. Eisendrath, who wrote the foreward to The City on Three Lakes, is a former Time magazine correspondent and prominent journalist. He later transitioned to academia, teaching at University of Michigan and founding the Wallace House, which grants the annual Livingston Awards, “the Pulitzer Prize for the young.” He has lived in Northern Michigan for a number of years, where he has cultivated a cherry farm, founded a maple syrup company, and invented a new kind of wood-burning grill. You can read more about his experiences in Michigan in his book Downstream From Here.
