Dossin Great Lakes Museum

Detroit’s other history museum is on an island and devoted almost entirely to boats, which sounds narrow until you remember the city only exists because of the river. The Dossin sits on The Strand, small enough to see properly in an hour and odd enough to stick with you. The Gothic Room — a men’s smoking lounge lifted whole out of the steamer City of Detroit III — is gilded-age excess parked improbably on Belle Isle. The Miss Pepsi hydroplane has held her pavilion since 1963. And the bow anchor of the Edmund Fitzgerald, recovered from the Detroit River in 1992, does to a Michigander’s afternoon exactly what that name always does.

The centerpiece is the restored pilot house of the freighter William Clay Ford, where you stand at the wheel and watch working freighters actually go past — not a simulation, just the shipping lane. Outside, the 2020 grounds project added a riverwalk, a kayak launch and a lawn worth loitering on.

Five dollars, one hour, and the rest of Belle Isle waiting when you walk out. It’s high on our list.