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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

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THOMPSON
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Thompson State Hatchery. Millions of trout, walleye, and salmon call this home until they're big enough to stock Midwestern lakes and streams. Visitors can view the indoor tanks, outdoor raceways, and show ponds with giant trout. Signs and photos show the destruction and restoration of fish habitat in the U.P. ... more

Big Spring (Kitch-iti-kipi). One of Michigan's most enchanting sites, this deep, clear spring in a pine-cedar forest is viewable from a raft visitors pull themselves ... more

Indian Lake State Park. The lake here is up to six miles long and three to four miles wide, fourth largest inland lake in the U.P. Good walleye and perch fishing. The shallow lake warms up early for swimming ... more

Rainey Wildlife Area. Boardwalks and an observation platform provide good bird-watching perches on the northeast side of Indian Lake. Songbirds are abundant in spring ... more

Bishop Baraga Mission at Indian Lake. This peaceful park on Indian Lake commemorates the "Snowshoe Priest" with a memorial chapel and a version of an Odawa bark house he had built at his mission here. There's a lakefront observation deck, too. ... more

THOMPSON

Bishop Baraga Mission at Indian Lake

In 1832 the celebrated missionary and "snowshoe priest" Frederic Baraga, later the U.P.'s first bishop, established a mission here on Indian Lake. He erected a small log-and-bark building for it. Father Baraga's interpreter was an Odawa man who had interpreted for the British in the Was of 1812.

Here local history buffs and Catholics have erected buildings akin to the Odawas' at the time of settlement. In the chapel, usually locked, are a life-size statue of Bishop Baraga and the Stations of the Cross (done on tooled leather by native people in the area.

Now this stretch of lakefront is owned and managed as a park by Schoolcraft County. A short boardwalk leads from the parking lot to an observation deck by the lake. Many visitors just come to sit here and enjoy the setting. People are welcome to picnic, to walk in the woods, and pick berries and sweet grass, that wonderfully aromatic grass Woodland Indians use in making baskets and in decorating bark objects

On the east side of Indian Lake just north of the Indian River. From Manistique, take M-94 north through town, but turn west on State Rd./CR 440 two blocks after M-94 turns north at Deer St. CR 440 ends at Indian Lake. Go right (north) over the Indian River and in 100 feet turn left onto a dirt road which dead ends at park.. Handicap accessible: no.

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