Van’s Beach
Van’s Beach is one of the more famous rock hunting beaches in Michigan due to a special kind of slag found here—Leland Blue. Slag is the byproduct of smelting, so it can only be found near where ores were purified into metals.
The blue slag that litters Van’s Beach is a remnant of the iron smelting industry that once ran the town of Leland. Ores haven’t been processed in Leland for over 100 years, but they still appear on the beach fairly frequently. We only found a few small pieces, but the beach is a good place to hunt for other rocks, too. If rocks aren’t your thing, you can walk quite a ways down the beach and also watch the ferry to and from Manitou Island.
