Horseshoe Bay Wilderness

Horseshoe Bay Wilderness is a 3,787-acre protected coastal wetland in Michigan at the northwestern corner of Lake Huron near the Straits of Mackinac. Part of Hiawatha National Forest, it preserves former shoreline and lake-bottom land left as Lake Huron receded after the last ice age. Its humid forests of paper birch and northern whitecedar border fish-spawning waters and habitat that attracts waterfowl, including great blue herons. Native Americans long used these wetlands for fishing and for materials such as birch bark and cedar roots to make canoes. After heavy logging by timber companies, the land returned to public ownership and was designated wilderness by Congress in 1987.

St. Ignace, Michigan · United States