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Belle Isle refers to two different islands in Michigan.
View from the southwest tip of Belle Isle, looking toward Windsor, Ontario on the left and downtown Detroit on the right.
Belle Isle, Detroit
Belle Isle is a 702 acre (2.8 km²) island in the Detroit River that is a park managed by the Detroit Department of Parks and Recreation. It is connected to the rest of the city by the MacArthur Bridge. It is home to the Detroit Yacht Club, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, a Coast Guard post, a municipal golf course, and a zoo, which was temporarily closed in 2003 due to budget constraints. The island includes a half-mile (800 m) swimming beach, the only beach in the city of Detroit.
The island was landscaped in the 1880s by Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominent urban park designer. The 1908 Belle Isle Casino building is still used for occasional public events but no longer a casino. The highlight of Belle Isle is the combination of the America's first public aquarium and a beautiful botanical garden. Both the casino and the conservatory were built by Detroit architect Albert Kahn, best known for developing open floor plan concrete factories. The island was long home to a large herd of escaped European fallow deer, though authorities are presently working to eradicate the disease-ridden population.
Additional recreational options include a nature center, wheelchair accessible nature trail, playground, picnic shelters, and tennis and basketball courts and baseball fields.
Belle Isle is a small island just off the north shore of Isle Royale at the head of Belle Harbor. It is the site of a primitive campground and is visited every second day during the peak season by the island-circling ferry.
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