Mackinac Island in Michigan Was the First Cold Weather Location Ever Featured in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Long before the rise of the internet, Sports Illustrated was the weekly must-read for sports fans as its in-depth reporting was often the deepest available about the games and teams beyond local and regional coverage in newspapers.

SI, as it's lovingly called among readers, also famously (today, perhaps, infamously) veered into the kind of issue that maybe didn't make it onto the coffee table in the living room, the Swimsuit Issue. Dating back to 1964, the annual Swimsuit Issue is credited with popularizing the bikini and being the measuring stick for the pinnacle of success for a supermodel.

For the first three decades of the existence of the Swimsuit Issue, the photo shoots were set, unsurprisingly, in warm, often lush, tropical locations. Places like the Bahamas, Baja California and Polynesia.

That changed in 1993 when the magazine decided to turn their cameras' focus domestically and also to unexpected places. See, it was the early 1990s and one of the hottest TV shows of the era was 'Northern Exposure' about a doctor who opened a practice in a quirky small Alaskan town. Think lots of moose and flannel.

So SI, looking to keep with the zeitgeist of the era decided on a few cold weather locations for the 1993 Swimsuit Issue, They chose, in addition to stereotypical outposts like Oahu and Key West, Alaska, Martha's Vineyard in the chilly north Atlantic off Massachusetts and Michigan's Mackinac Island.

READ MORE: Michigan Once Considered a Plan to Build a Causeway to Mackinac Island

As the magazine's managing editor explained to open the issue,

Five locales were selected, four of them at extreme points of the American compass. Much of the Alaska shoot took place on the Matanuska Glacier, 75 rough miles northeast of Anchorage...where [the models] posed amidst snow and ice while insulated by little more than Lycra swimwear. It was 4,100 miles from there to the sun-drenched Florida Keys, another swimsuit stop. And 5,100 miles separate the tropical beaches of Honolulu and the windswept shores of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Mackinac Island, Mich., in Lake Huron, provides a nostalgic touch from the heartland.

Our emphasis added.

The shoot took in a few locations around the island including the regal Grand Hotel, both the pool and iconic front porch. Crews shot at the island's lighthouse and on neighboring Round Island.

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A short feature on the island remarks on the location's car-free nature, its history and as a place 'lost in time.'

The magazine over the years did make a few other visits to cold weather locations like Saranac Lake deep in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a music themed issue, and Whistler in the Canadian Rockies. However, as of 2019, SI has never returned for another swimsuit photo shoot anywhere in Michigan.

READ MORE: Due to a Legal Loophole, Mackinac Island Could Become a National Park Someday

The entire published 1993 photo shoot and article can be found in the Internet Archive collection.