Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

By the late 1910s, the Mackinac Wilderness had been extensively logged, but natural regeneration has allowed a second-growth forest to reclaim the land, with some trees now standing for 60 to 80 years. In the northeastern section, a dense forest of northern hardwoods grows along low ridges, with stands of birch and aspen. The rest of the Wilderness is characterized by large wetlands, bordered by sand ridges, shallow bogs, and marshes interspersed with small clumps of trees. Busy beavers frequently dam the drainages, forming seven major ponds. In the northeast, seven-acre Spring Lake sits at the edge of the wetlands, serving as the headwaters for Spring Lake Creek.

Wildlife native to the area includes bald eagles, ospreys, sandhill cranes, great blue herons, pileated woodpeckers, ruffed grouse, black bears, raccoons, pine martens, mink, muskrats, red squirrels, and snowshoe hares. White-tailed deer also winter here in the dense stands of trees. Most visitors, however, come to experience Mackinac’s most celebrated feature: the Carp River. Flowing through the heart of the Wilderness, the sandy-bottomed Carp carves its way through water-shaped riverbanks and numerous oxbows. Brook, rainbow, and brown trout spawn in the Carp and its tributaries, drawing anglers from near and far.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Mackinac Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Mackinac Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

Michigan Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 100-184

Date: December 8, 1987
Acreage: 12,230 acres

Michigan Wilderness Act of 1987 - Public law 100-184 (12/8/1987) To designate certain lands in the State of Michigan as wilderness, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 100-184 or special provisions for 100-184 or legislative history for 100-184.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management.

The Hiawatha is seeking volunteer assistance for ongoing maintenance and monitoring projects. Please contact your local ranger district to request more information on volunteering.

Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.