We spent one memorable evening a few years ago driving through the back roads around Jackson Hole, Wyoming listening to the loud bellows of the area's elk, but we never got a close-up view of the majestic animals until we visited Gaylord, Michigan.
The Pigeon River Country State Forest near this northern Michigan city is home to the largest free-ranging elk herd east of the Mississippi River.
Nearly 1,000 of the animals call the 105,000-acre forest home today, but the best way to get a really close-up view of the animals may be in a small fenced-in area behind, most appropriately, the Elk's Lodge just south of downtown Gaylord off Grandview Street at Elk View Park (they obviously don't want visitors to miss the point here!).
The City of Gaylord maintains the 108-acre park as home to at least three-dozen elk. The park opened with three elk more than a dozen years ago when a local nature area closed. Today's herd at the park includes a few bulls weighing more than 800 pounds and standing about six feet tall.
You can literally sit in your car in the lodge's parking lot and watch the elk feed or get out and take photos through or over the cyclone fence surrounding the area (which is how I got the images with this article).
The ease of viewing the elk here makes it a popular destination during weekends, and an easy option if you have limited time, small children or mobility challenges.
The best times to see elk in the area may early morning and late evening in late April through early May when the elk feed on new green growth in the woods or in September when the males are more active in trying to establish their dominance for mating by intimidating their rivals or impressing the females (why doesn't this surprise me?).
We still saw plenty of the animals one late afternoon at the viewing area in early June, though.
If you have more time than we did (we visited after spending most of the day hiking in Hartwick Pines), there are several other spots where you can try your luck with spotting these animals in the forest.
The Department of Natural Resources established a few viewing areas by seeding the ground with rye, alfalfa, buckwheat and clover to draw the elk, turkey and deer into open areas in the forests.
Find several recommended elk viewing spots on the Gaylord Area Convention and Tourism Bureau's site and the Michigan Trail Maps site.
As always, remember that the elk are large and wild animals, so it's best to keep your distance and use your binoculars and zoon lenses to get your images...even at the fenced-in park.
I was surprised to see, and read about, the many folks who insisted on feeding the animals, or letting their children feed the animals, despite posted signs asking visitors not to do so.
Michigan's native elk population nearly disappeared around 1875, rebounding only after state officials released seven elk imported in from the western U.S. near Wolverine (about 20 miles north of Gaylord) in 1918.
The elk population swelled to about 1,500 in the early 1960s, and the state allowed limited hunting of the animal during that decade.
By 1975, Michigan's elk population dwindled to about 200 because of poaching and the diminishing quality of the animals' natural habitat. That pitiful number and oil exploration in the area raised public awareness of the problem and a willingness to better manage the herd.
The state's elk population bounced back up to around 850 in 1984 and the state began allowing limited hunting of the animal again after their increasing numbers resulted in increased agricultural and forest damage in the area.
Michigan still maintains a limited elk season with a goal of maintaining about an 800 to 900 winter elk herd each year. A very small fraction of hunters who apply for elk licenses win them through a random drawing.
Want to learn more about the Pigeon River Country and its wildlife? Check out Pigeon River Country: A Michigan Forest (revised edition) by Dale Clarke Franz.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
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