Summary
Monatou Bay is a named bay at Garden Island. A June 1970 Beaver Beacon fishing report calls it a favorite spot for experienced and well-equipped fishermen and associates it with successful perch catches. The report is local recreational evidence rather than a survey of the bay’s fishery, and its OCR contains an ambiguous word immediately before the place name that is not treated as a variant of “Monatou.”
Open questions
- Can historical charts or Garden Island management records document the bay’s shoreline, access, and relationship to nearby named harbors?
- Are the 1970 perch observations part of a longer local fishery record?
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System, Domestic Names (Michigan), retrieved 2026-07-28.GNIS feature 632564; feature class 'Bay'.federal · gnis · gnis_names
- Beaver Beacon, June 1970, “Game News.”Calls Monatou Bay at Garden Island a favorite spot for experienced fishermen and reports good perch catches there; the OCR includes an ambiguous preceding “Pete” that is not interpreted as part of the place name.