- Built
- undated
- Coordinates
- 45.6087° N, 85.5617° WGoogle Maps: The MASH signDownload KML
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- trailsrecreationtoponymyModern era
- Within
- Beaver Island
- Media
- The MASH sign, 2026
Summary
The MASH sign is a signpost at a trail junction in the interior of Beaver Island, where Buffalo’s Camp Trail meets the route south toward Lake Geneserath and the west side of the island. It carries five hand-painted blue arms radiating at different angles, each lettered in white with a destination and a distance.
It matters to this archive out of proportion to its size, because three separate articles already use it as a landmark — Buffalo’s Camp Trail, Doty’s Camp Trail and the West Lake Trail — and because it is the junction the township’s own trail narrative measures from.
What it says
Read off a photograph taken on 16 August 2026:
| arm | reads |
|---|---|
| → | Lake Geneserath S. Arm 2.7 Mi |
| → | Beaver Head Lighthouse 3.6 Mi |
| → | [Fox] Lake Rd: 3.8 Mi |
| → | W. Side Dr. Miller Marsh 2.6 Mi |
| ← | Lake Geneserath N.[Arm] |
The fifth arm’s destination is partly obscured in the frame. The Fox Lake Road arm is read as “Fox” from context and from a second photograph of the same post; the leading word is not fully legible on either.
A blue diamond blaze is fixed to a cedar beside the post — see A blue diamond blaze, 2026.
The name
The sign bears no lettering reading “MASH.” The name is vernacular: it is how the township’s 2021 trail description and the sources held in this archive refer to the junction, and it is used that way in three articles here. What it refers to is not established by any source held.
Where it is
A photograph of the post, matched by shutter time to the walked GPS track of 16 August 2026, places it at 45.60872 N, 85.56168 W — about 5 m from waypoint O of the trail map’s lettered GPS panel, which is close enough that the two are the same place within the accuracy either method claims.
That position comes from the track rather than from the camera: across the thirty-one photographs of that walk the camera’s own GPS yields only fifteen distinct coordinates, and only sixteen of the thirty-one fall within 50 m of where the track puts the walker at the same instant.
Access and ownership
The junction lies within ground the walked track of 2026-08-16 records as inside a Michigan DNR or PAD-US holding, and the 2024 Peaine Township Parks and Recreation Plan places much of southern Peaine Township inside the Beaver Islands State Wildlife Research Area. No parcel-level record held here confirms the ownership of the ground the post stands on.
Open questions
- What does “MASH” refer to? No source held here explains the name. The post carries five arms radiating at different angles toward named destinations, an arrangement that resembles the signpost from the television series M*A*S*H — but that resemblance is an observation made here, not a documented etymology, and it should not be repeated as one until a source supports it.
- Who maintains the sign, and when were the arms last repainted? The lettering is hand-applied and in good condition, unlike the blank boards at the Y half a mile east.
- Is the fifth arm’s destination “Lake Geneserath N. Arm”? Only the first word and a partial second are legible in the frames held.
If you can answer any of these, or correct anything above, the archive wants to hear it — see Corrections.
Sources
- Bommarito, Michael. Field photograph, Buffalo's Camp Trail and the route south to waypoint V, Beaver Island, 16 August 2026.Photographed 2026-08-16 at 20:18 UTC. Five hand-painted arms, four of them legible with distances.photos · fieldwork · mash-sign-2026
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “The MASH sign”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/structures/mash-sign/, accessed [date], citing Bommarito, Michael. Field photograph, Buffalo's Camp Trail and the route south to waypoint V, Beaver Island, 16 August 2026..
Last revised 2026-08-21. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.