Keweenaw’s Grant Township preserves Hunter’s Point for future generations

The hand-painted sign at the Hunter’s Point trailhead seemed to promise a relatively undeveloped, but well loved, trail through the woods at the far reaches of Michigan’s remote Keweenaw Peninsula.

Our trek along Hunter’s Point near Copper Harbor didn’t disappoint!

So many trails near city centers are heavily developed, heavily traveled and offer no escape from the omnipresent traffic noise.

The remote location of Hunter’s Point gives the trail a quiet serenity, and the continuing efforts of local residents and officials to protect the area from development ensure that generations to come will enjoy the same quiet solitude as they hike this great little trail.

Grant Township, which includes the villages of Copper Harbor and Lac LaBelle, purchased this beautiful piece of Lake Superior lakefront property with the help of a $560,000 grant that the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund approved in 2004.

The point itself is a narrow spit of land protecting Copper Harbor from the legendary Lake Superior storms. Residents and visitors enjoyed hiking Hunter’s Point for years, so when possible subdivision development threatened to choke off public access to the trail, township residents and friends worked to save the area from unrestricted development.

The first hurdle involved raising the needed match funds to qualify for the state grant. Work continued through 2005 as the purchase process began for the 9.4 acres of land and 4,800 feet of shoreline, and volunteers worked to build and improve rustic wood walkways and bridges along the trail.

We certainly appreciated the motivation and work behind saving this pristine piece of the northern landscape for generations of hikers as we enjoyed hiking through the woods and along Superior’s serpentine shoreline.

Our last trip to the area came one early autumn. We ended up going out on the trail a couple of times that week—once to enjoy a walk as the morning mist started to lift and later check out the lake and agate beach on a sunny afternoon.

I can only imagine how beautiful the trail would be during full fall color season or as a snowshoeing trail in the winter.

Local efforts continue with the construction of a boardwalk from a new parking lot to a viewing deck, completed after our visit to Hunter’s Point, and beginning the process of purchasing 46 more acres of land adjacent to the park to keep public access from the nearby marina to the trail, plus another 76 acres of land south of the area.

Photos at the Hunter’s Point Park Web site show me that the parking lot has a brand-new kiosk with Hunter’s Point information, but I sincerely hope they’ve kept the old wooden sign at the trailhead heading out to the point.

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