Miniature museum in northern Michigan offers wacky take on taxidermy

• Taxidermy meets whimsy at a miniatures display in Mackinaw City
• An Indiana couple run the display during summer, creating a destination for tourists at the foot of the Mackinac Bridge
• The museum is among Michigan’s many roadside attractions, which range from fruit stands and wineries to quirky stops

MACKINAW CITY — There’s nothing unusual about taxidermy in Northern Michigan, where mounted bucks accent knotty pine walls in family cottages across the wide swath from Manistee to Cheboygan. 

Dress a mouse in a pink bikini, though, and it’s a different story.

Add an iced tub of miniature beer bottles, a dollhouse-sized tiki bar and lakeside sand volleyball game — and a few more mice — and suddenly a day-at-the-beach tableau comes alive.

Even when the characters are, well, dead. 

Taxidermy turns into whimsy at the Wacky Taxidermy & Miniatures Museum, one of Michigan’s newer roadside attractions.

Forget lifelike woodland critters perched in a natural setting. This museum is filled with clever Main Street-themed dioramas built around a heavy dose of anthropomorphism. Add some humor and plenty of feeder mice or roadkill, and the creative options seem endless to owners Brandon and Julie Howey.

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Like, a king and queen. A construction worker with a jackhammer. Fairies,  gnomes and mermaids. A weightlifter. Mackinaw City tourists, ready with a camera. 

“We get a lot of people that love miniatures, and then get so excited to just see a bunch,” Julie Howey said. “And I think that they forget they're even looking at mice, because they're just looking at a little bakery.

“People don't believe us that they're real.”

The story behind the Wacky Taxidermy & Miniatures Museum starts with the Howeys,  Indiana-based artists who wanted to open a tourist business around what they call their “weird” art.

The couple says they “fell in love” with Mackinaw City, choosing to launch their attraction in the town at the southern end of the state’s iconic Mackinac Bridge, which 4 million people cross between the Lower and Upper Peninsulas every year. 

Not all of the museum critters are mice in dollhouse-like displays. There’s Bobcat Marley, for example, and Deervid Bowie. 

But it’s the dioramas “that add more imagination to the museum,” Brandon Howey said. “That’s really our speciality.”

Most visitors find the museum by searching for roadside attractions in northern Michigan, which is also home to the long-time Call of the Wild Museum, a Man-Killing Clam, and the Paul Bunyan statue at Castle Rock (not to be confused with the Paul Bunyan statues in Ossineke, Oscoda or the village of Brooklyn).

‘Creating an experience’

The Michigan Economic Development Corp. estimates there were 131.7 million individual travel days in the state during 2022, either for a day trip or overnight. About 40% were overnight stays.

Sightseeing was the second most popular activity (behind shopping) for overnight visitors, with one-fifth of visitors checking out the state’s attributes. About 12% visited a landmark. Sightseeing is slightly higher for people just doing a day trip.

No matter why people travel, “they also discover other things along their way,” said Nick Nerbonne, manager for Travel Michigan. 

With the state’s roadside attractions, Nerbonne said “it is just about creating an experience … that adds that element of fun.”

That’s exactly what the Howeys offer, Brandon said: “We want everything to be like, just a colorful, wacky joke.”

It’s also a business for the couple. 

A growing one?

“That might be a bit ambitious,” Brandon said. 

But it is profitable and making people happy, he added, and “it is catching on.”

The couple makes their attraction work with no employees, living in a campground and using down time to make the taxidermy art that they will peddle online and at off-season shows after they move back to their home in Indiana. 

The museum is a few blocks from the historical fort and rows of shops and restaurants along North Huron near the bridge. And it’s also south of the well-named Central Avenue, which is also lined with businesses as the road brings visitors from I-75 to the Mackinac Island ferries. 

The Howeys join some other newer destinations on their stretch of the city, like an escape room, a rock store and several wine tasting rooms. The city’s only Starbucks is steps away.

The museum fits into the many unique businesses in the area that appeal to tourists, said Amy Millard, executive director of the Mackinaw City Chamber of Commerce.

“Many offer one-of-a-kind” items, Millard said, that fit travelers who are seeking local experiences.

The couple has seen some nearby stores come and go during their five years in Mackinaw City, but it doesn’t worry them since their business doesn’t rely on foot traffic.

The short tourist season also doesn’t bother the couple, who describe the money-making period as July 4 through mid-August. 

The Howeys know their attraction won’t appeal to all of Mackinaw City’s tourists. But after five years, they’ve seen many types of people — including large, extended families — enter, just a few with skepticism. It’s not long before they get lost in discovering the details of the quirky dioramas.

“Because they're in clothes and all these funny scenes and whatnot,” Brandon said, “people almost forget that they're looking at dead animals.”

The couple’s dream is to expand into still more space.

“Honestly, I wish we had the space to make another city street,” Julie said. “For a bowling alley, a laundromat and a schoolhouse.”

Meanwhile, for anyone wondering, why mice?

“We can get them,” Julie said, describing the market for ready-to-taxidermy rodents that are used to feed snakes and birds of prey. Plus, she added, they’re dollhouse sized.

In fact, the mice populating the Howeys’ dioramas are still used for food: The couple (who are vegetarians) carefully preserve the critters’ physical appearance while donating the edible portions to pet owners. 

They also don’t hunt their own subjects for sport or food, Julie said, though will make use of roadkill “once they're gone and have passed.”

The Wacky Taxidermy & Miniatures Museum is open Thursday through Monday at 272 S. Huron, Mackinaw City