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Shoreline drive to the Peninsula Point lighthouse
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If you have the time, the 20-mile drive on CR 513 south down the Stonington Peninsula and out to the Peninsula Point lighthouse is well worthwhile. A good deal of the road is along the shore. Traffic is light, so this is a good road for bicycling. After the hamlet of Stonington, the pavement is occasionally gravel.
Not far from the road up to Squaw Creek, ripe blueberries can be found and picked, typically starting in late July for three or four weeks. During the 1920s and 1930s the area was a popular berrying destination for campers who would boat across from Escanaba, fish, and pick berries to can or sell to local merchants.
It's unusual to have so many big old-growth trees on this easily reached 64-acre stand. Few old-growth areas survived the logging era, and few of the surviving remnants are easily accessible from public roads. Here you'll find very large red and white pines, red oak, birch, and eastern hemlock, always especially impressive for their girth and dense canopy. This is not a "virgin" forest. But 19th-century logging spared a good number of sizable trees, now grown huge.
In the 1930s local residents and Escanaba civic groups campaigned to include the area in the new Hiawatha National Forest. Today the Squaw Creek Old Growth Area is not a marked and developed attraction, but it's worth seeking out. Existing two-tracks and logging roads are the only pathways. Take a compass if you want to explore off the paths. The high, dense canopy stunts understory growth and invites walking on the forest floor, springy with fallen needles. Old Squaw Creek angles across the area's southern half, and "adds its own special charm to the scenery," writes Tom Powers in his Natural Michigan: A Nature Lover's Guide to 228 Attractions. "The fast-moving, red-tinged creek flows between high banks that twist and turn through the woods . . . . Huge trees grow along the banks and in many places tilt toward each other from opposite shores to form a green tent over the cool water."
On County Road 513 6 miles south of U.S. 2. Turn south onto 513 at the Hiawatha National Forest Rapid River Ranger Office 3 miles east of Rapid River.
Return to Stonington Peninsula
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