The immense rock, which consists of resistant limestone breccia, was cut off from Ancient Mackinac Island or the Turtle's Back by the glacial meltwaters of Lake Algonquin.

Polar storms released by the retreating ice sheet created erosional forces much stronger than any existing today on the Great Lakes.

The primary sweetening enjoyed by people of all backgrounds on the frontier Great Lakes was maple sugar, packed into cone-shaped baskets or makakoon of birchbark.

The profile in limestone, affixed to the side of Sugar Loaf Rock, of a male face may have suggested this legend.

De Beaumont reported that the rock was filled with "crevices and faults where the Indians sometimes deposed the bones of the dead."