How Amazon Handled All Those Holiday Deliveries to Michigan’s Mackinac Island
This past holiday season seemed to be the season of Amazon. With people choosing to use online shopping instead of venturing out to the malls, delivery drivers were everywhere. Seeing all those Amazon trucks during Christmas seems normal unless you live on Michigan's Mackinac Island, and Amazon just shared how they got it done.
One of the most popular tourist destinations in Michigan, Mackinac Island attracts as many as 15,000 visitors per day during its peak summer season. Mackinac Island has the unique distinction of being an island without any cars. Visitors rely on walking, horse-drawn carriages, and bicycles to get around which seems to be a great draw. Between the shops and hotels, Mackinac Island is a busy place during the warmer months, but when the tourist season is over, things get pretty quiet.
At just over 4 miles square miles, the island has about 500 year-round residents. During the winter months, they trade in those bikes for snowmobiles to make their way around their island home, but what about deliveries? Let's face it, the holiday season has got to be pretty busy even on Mackinac Island.
How Does Amazon Handle Deliveries on Mackinac Island?
Amazon just released a cool video showcasing just how they handled all those holiday deliveries to the carless Mackinac Island. In the video, Amazon shows how after the general order fulfillment process, packages are transported to a loading dock in St. Ignace not far from the island. There the more than 600 packages a day are loaded onto a ferry bound for Mackinac Island.
Once on the island, packages fall into the hands of "locals" who take on the task of delivering them around the island, normally by horse and carriage. For year rounds residents the whole process seems normal but for outsiders, the whole thing has a big of Christmas magic to it. There's something very Hallmark movie about a decorated horse-drawn carriage going down Mainstreet with the snow falling filled with Christmas presents.
The whole process is so unique that Amazon made the decision to include Mackinac Island in their series of videos on extreme deliveries join other locations such as the Himalayas.
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