Topic
The Great Outdoors
From Great Lakes shoreline to waterfalls, trails, state parks, and quiet two-tracks, Michigan was made for getting outside. These notes connect the outdoor places to the communities around them.
From the Porch
Notes from this topic.
Porch Note
10,000 wild acres on Saginaw's doorstep: the Shiawassee refuge
The Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, five miles south of Saginaw, gathers four rivers into a marshland so vast that locals call it Michigan's Everglades.
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Bear hunting in Michigan: how the drawing (and the waiting) works
Michigan's black bear hunt runs on a preference-point drawing — here's how points work, when to apply, and the rules drawn hunters need to know.
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Bears, coyotes, wolves, and cougars: the encounter page
What to actually do about Michigan's big animals — bear attractants, coyote hazing, wolf law, and the real (calm) story on cougars. Written to lower heart rates.
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Bewabic State Park and the lakes the CCC loved
Just west of Crystal Falls, Bewabic State Park sits on a beautiful chain of glacial lakes -- a 1930s gem hand-built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the only Michigan state park with a tennis court.
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Beyond hook and line: spearing, bowfishing, netting, and smelt dipping
Michigan's regulations make honest room for the old ways — bowfishing, spearing, smelt dipping, minnow traps — with species lists and water lists that matter.
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Bond Falls, the U.P.'s postcard waterfall
Near Paulding in southern Ontonagon County, the Ontonagon River spreads across a hundred feet of fractured rock to make Bond Falls -- one of the most photographed and easiest-to-reach waterfalls in the Upper Peninsula.
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Canyon Falls, the 'Grand Canyon of the U.P.'
An easy walk off US-41 leads to Canyon Falls, where the Sturgeon River drops into a dark, sheer-walled gorge that's earned it the nickname the 'Grand Canyon of the Upper Peninsula.'
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Copper Harbor, the end of the road
At the very tip of the Keweenaw sits Copper Harbor -- Michigan's northernmost town and the spot where US-41 finally ends, nearly two thousand miles from its other end in Miami.
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Copper Peak, where skiers fly
Just north of Ironwood stands Copper Peak -- the only ski-flying hill in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest artificial ski jump on Earth, now being rebuilt to host the world's best again.
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Crisp Point Lighthouse and the Shipwreck Coast
Luce County's remote Lake Superior shore holds Crisp Point Lighthouse, the Two-Hearted River, and Muskallonge Lake State Park along the old Shipwreck Coast.
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Deer hunting in Michigan: the 2026 rules
Michigan's deer seasons, licenses, baiting rules, and disease zones — including the sweeping 2026 changes and the one-buck rule arriving in 2027.
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Downriver's secret: an international wildlife refuge at the front door
The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge — North America's only international refuge — strings islands and marshes along Downriver's shore, with Elizabeth Park and the Gateway in Trenton.
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Dune buggies and asparagus: Oceana's unlikely double crown
Oceana County has Michigan's only drive-on dunes at Silver Lake and calls itself the Asparagus Capital — celebrated each June at Hart's National Asparagus Festival.
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Elk hunting in Michigan: the rarest tag in the state
Yes, Michigan has wild elk — about 1,000 in the northeast Lower Peninsula — and an elk tag is the hardest draw in Michigan hunting. Here's how the lottery works.
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Farmington Hills' green heart (and the festival next door)
Heritage Park gives Farmington Hills 200 wooded acres with a nature center and sledding hills, and the neighboring Farmington Founders Festival has run for generations.
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Fishing the Bays de Noc
Gladstone and Escanaba sit on some of the best fishing water in the Midwest -- the Bays de Noc, famous for trophy walleye and a smallmouth bass fishery state biologists have called world-class.
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Found a baby animal? Read this first
That fawn is not abandoned. The species-by-species guide to baby wildlife, the real emergency signs, and the legal way to help when help is actually needed.
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Furbearers, coyotes, and trapping in Michigan: the fine-print license
Michigan's fur harvester license, the year-round coyote framework, night-hunting rules, and the five species only residents may take.
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Grand Island, the wild island off Munising
Half a mile off Munising lies Grand Island -- about 13,500 acres of Lake Superior woodland with no cars, reachable by ferry, once owned by an iron company and now a national recreation area.
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Grand Marais and the Grand Sable Dunes
At the quiet eastern end of Pictured Rocks, the harbor town of Grand Marais opens onto the Grand Sable Dunes, Sable Falls, the Log Slide, and the 1874 Au Sable Light.
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Grand Mere: three hidden lakes behind the dunes
Grand Mere State Park near Stevensville hides three interdunal lakes behind Lake Michigan's dunes — a National Natural Landmark kept deliberately wild.
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Great Lakes beach and water safety: the postcard that saves lives
The flag system, the pier rule, and Flip-Float-Follow — the short list of knowledge that keeps families safe on the Great Lakes, written for a parent on a beach towel.
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Gun Lake and Yankee Springs: Barry County's playground
Barry County centers on 2,600-acre Gun Lake and the 5,000-acre Yankee Springs Recreation Area — West Michigan's favorite lakes-and-trails weekend.
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Hardy Dam and the Muskegon River: Newaygo's water kingdom
Newaygo County is built around the Muskegon River — Hardy Dam's 4,000-acre pond, canoe liveries, and trout water make it West Michigan's playground.
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Hines Park: seventeen green miles through the western suburbs
Edward Hines Drive strings 25 parks along the Middle Rouge from Dearborn through Dearborn Heights, Westland, and Livonia to Northville — western Wayne County's shared backyard.
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Ice fishing in Michigan: same license, a few special rules, one big truth
Michigan ice fishing rules: lines and tip-ups, shanty labeling and removal deadlines, spearing traditions — and the safety truth that no ice is safe ice.
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Indian Lake, the UP's big friendly lake
Just west of Manistique spreads Indian Lake -- the fourth-largest inland lake in the Upper Peninsula, big, shallow, and warm, with a classic state park on its shores.
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Isle Royale, the national park almost nobody visits
Far out in Lake Superior -- but still part of Keweenaw County -- Isle Royale is the least-visited national park in the Lower 48: a roadless wilderness of wolves, moose, and water reachable only by boat or seaplane.
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J.W. Wells State Park, where the old forest survived
On three miles of Green Bay shore stands J.W. Wells State Park -- built around a stand of virgin timber that survived the lumber boom, donated by a lumberman's own children in 1925.
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Kitch-iti-kipi, the Big Spring
A few miles northwest of Manistique lies Kitch-iti-kipi, Michigan's largest freshwater spring -- two hundred feet of emerald water you cross on a hand-pulled raft, and it never freezes.
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Lake Gogebic, the U.P.'s biggest inland lake
Lake Gogebic is the largest inland lake in the Upper Peninsula -- a fifteen-mile fishing paradise so big it sits in two counties and two time zones at once, ringed by the Ottawa National Forest.
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Lake Gogebic's quieter, northern half
The Upper Peninsula's biggest inland lake, Lake Gogebic, reaches up into southwestern Ontonagon County -- where the village of Bergland sits on its northern shore, an hour and a time zone away from the lake's southern end.
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Lake sturgeon and the Black Lake season: Michigan's dinosaur fish
Lake sturgeon get the strictest rules in Michigan fishing — one per year, short harvest lists, 24-hour registration — and one glorious exception: Black Lake's minutes-long winter spearing season.
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Menominee: river rapids, a Green Bay shore, and the U.P.'s mildest corner
Menominee County runs from the wild Menominee River to Green Bay's M-35 beach drive — the warmest, most farmable corner of the Upper Peninsula.
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Metal detecting, gold panning, and the artifact line
Where detecting is welcome in state parks, the show-your-finds rule, Michigan's modest-but-real gold, and the line that never moves: artifacts and shipwrecks stay.
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Michigan's six scramble areas (and the Silver Lake rulebook)
The open-riding playgrounds of Michigan off-roading — Silver Lake's dunes, Holly Oaks, The Mounds, St. Helen, Bull Gap, and Black Lake — and the extra rules each one layers on.
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Morel hunting in Michigan: rules, maps, and manners
May is morel month. The rules (personal use, no selling public-land finds), the DNR's burn-area map, the false-morel safety check, and the sacred secrecy of spots.
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Mount Arvon, the top of Michigan
Tucked in the Huron Mountains of Baraga County, Mount Arvon is the highest point in Michigan -- a quiet, forested summit at the end of a rough logging road, with a mailbox at the top for visitors to sign.
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Newberry, Michigan's Moose Capital
Newberry is Luce County's only town and Michigan's Official Moose Capital -- the southern gateway to Tahquamenon Falls, set deep in the Lake Superior State Forest.
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Ninety-two miles, no cars: the White Pine Trail towns
The Fred Meijer White Pine Trail runs 92 miles from Grand Rapids' edge to Cadillac, giving a string of small towns a linear state park for a main street.
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Out of Monroe's harbors, the world's best walleye water
Western Lake Erie's walleye fishery is so productive that anglers call it the Walleye Capital of the World — and Monroe County's harbors are Michigan's front door to it.
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Paddling Michigan: kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards
Paddlecraft skip almost all the apparatus — no registration, no certificate — so the rules that remain are about water, cold, and judgment. Here they are.
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Peninsula Point: a lighthouse and ten thousand butterflies
At the wild tip of the Stonington Peninsula stands an 1865 lighthouse you can climb for free -- and every fall, clouds of monarch butterflies gather here before crossing Lake Michigan.
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Petoskey stones and beach treasure: the collector's rules
The 25-pound rule, the 93-pound legend, and the field guide to Michigan's beach treasures — Petoskeys, Charlevoix stones, glowing Yooperlites, agates, copper, and Leland Blue.
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Pictured Rocks, the first national lakeshore
Just east of Munising, Lake Superior meets the multicolored sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks -- the first national lakeshore in the United States, best seen from the water.
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Piers Gorge, the U.P.'s wildest water
South of Norway, the Menominee River squeezes through Piers Gorge in a run of roaring rapids -- some of the fastest water in Michigan or Wisconsin, and a genuine whitewater-rafting destination.
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Pointe Mouillee: a world-class marsh rebuilt at Lake Erie's edge
Berlin Township borders Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, one of North America's great freshwater marsh restorations and host of a waterfowl festival running since the 1940s.
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Presque Isle Park and Sugarloaf, Marquette's outdoor gems
Two of Marquette's best-loved spots sit minutes from downtown: Presque Isle Park, a forested headland ringed by ancient black cliffs on Lake Superior, and Sugarloaf Mountain, a short climb to a sweeping view of the whole shoreline.
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Rapids, river road, and a trail that keeps growing: Scio's Huron riverfront
Scio Township's stretch of the Huron River has Delhi Metropark's rapids, canoe launches, and newly built miles of the Border-to-Border Trail.
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Saginaw Bay's walleye: a comeback for the record books
Saginaw Bay's once-collapsed walleye fishery recovered so completely that it's now ranked among the best in the country, with millions of fish and a busy charter fleet.
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Salmon in the river, 92 miles of trail: downtown Rockford's backyard
Rockford's downtown sits where the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail crosses the Rogue River — salmon and steelhead below the dam, and one of Michigan's longest rail-trails out the door.
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Sleeping Bear, Pictured Rocks, and Isle Royale: the federal marquees
Michigan's three national-park-caliber destinations run on federal systems — your Recreation Passport doesn't work there, and here's what does.
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Small game hunting in Michigan: what your base license already covers
Rabbits, squirrels, grouse, pheasants, woodcock and more — the seasons, limits, and the few extra stamps and licenses small game requires.
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Snowmobiling in Michigan: the winter sibling, explained
Snowmobiles aren't ORVs in Michigan law — different registration, a $65 trail permit for 2026-27, and 6,000-plus miles of groomed trails, mostly volunteer-maintained.
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State forest campgrounds: Michigan's 140 best-kept secrets
About 140 rustic campgrounds on lakes and rivers most people have never heard of — cheap, first-come, and never part of the reservation race.
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Sterling State Park: Michigan's only state park on Lake Erie
Frenchtown Township is home to Sterling State Park — a mile of Lake Erie beach, lagoons full of birds, and a trail link to the national battlefield park.
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Stony Creek: 4,400 acres of up-north, twenty minutes from home
Stony Creek Metropark gives northern Macomb County 4,400 acres of lake, beaches, and trails — the suburbs' own piece of up north.
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Tahquamenon Falls, the 'Root Beer Falls' (Paradise / Chippewa side)
Most of Tahquamenon Falls State Park lies in Chippewa County, where the amber-colored Tahquamenon River pours over the Upper Falls -- one of the biggest waterfalls east of the Mississippi -- on its way to Lake Superior.
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Tahquamenon Falls, the Root Beer Falls (Newberry / Luce side)
Tahquamenon Falls, north of Newberry, is one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi -- famous for its amber, root-beer-colored water and its huge state park.
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The Humongous Fungus: Crystal Falls' giant underground neighbor
In the woods near Crystal Falls lives one of the largest and oldest living things on Earth -- a single fungus, sprawling for acres underground, that the town throws a festival for every summer.
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The Huron: a National Water Trail runs through it
The Huron River is a designated National Water Trail, with more than a hundred paddleable miles and liveries, launches, and river towns strung along it.
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The Ledges: Eaton County's slice of rock-climbing country
Grand Ledge's 300-million-year-old sandstone ledges rise over the Grand River — the only natural rock climbing in Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
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The Lower Peninsula's biggest park is in Washtenaw's backyard
Waterloo Recreation Area — roughly 20,000 acres of lakes, hills, and trails — sprawls across western Washtenaw and eastern Jackson counties, the largest park in the Lower Peninsula.
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The Manistique Lakes
The southwest corner of Luce County opens onto the Manistique Lakes -- big, fish-filled waters straddling the Luce-Mackinac line, anchored by Big Manistique Lake.
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The Pine Mountain ski jump, where Americans learned to fly
Since 1937, ski jumpers have launched off Pine Mountain in Iron Mountain -- one of the highest artificial ski jumps in the world, home of the longest jump ever made on a regular hill in America.
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The Porcupine Mountains, Michigan's biggest wild park
The 'Porkies' are Michigan's largest state park -- some sixty thousand acres of virgin forest, wild rivers, and Lake Superior shoreline, crowned by the unforgettable view over Lake of the Clouds.
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The Seney National Wildlife Refuge
More than 95,000 acres of marsh, bog, and forest make up the Seney National Wildlife Refuge -- a 1935 recovery story that's now one of the best places in Michigan to see swans, loons, and eagles.
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The university's gardens are in the township: Matthaei
The University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens — conservatory, bonsai collection, and miles of free trails — sits in Ann Arbor Township.
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The waterfalls of Munising
Munising sits in one of the most waterfall-rich corners of Michigan -- Alger County has around seventeen named falls, from the easy paved path at Munising Falls to dozens hidden in the woods.
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Thirty-four lakes in one township: Oakland's lake country
Waterford alone holds 34 named lakes, and Cass Lake — southeast Michigan's largest — spreads between Waterford and West Bloomfield, with a state-park beach on its shore.
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Tobico Marsh: a national landmark wetland behind the beach
Bay City State Park in Bangor Township pairs a Saginaw Bay beach with Tobico Marsh, a National Natural Landmark and one of the largest Great Lakes coastal wetlands.
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Trail etiquette: how to ride right in Michigan
Michigan's trails run on volunteer clubs and tolerant neighbors. Here's the unwritten code, written down — because every closed trail closed for the same reason.
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