59 Hartwick Pines State Park 
wildlife viewing
| directions and facility information
 The visitor center at Hartwick Pines
State Park surrounds visitors
with the fascinating history of Michigan's
forests and lumbering era. Walk through a stand of virgin white pine
trees just behind the visitor center.
Photo: ©Phil T. Seng
Hartwick Pines State Park is the largest state park in Michigans
northern lower peninsula. Fittingly, it also contains the largest stand
of virgin white pines remaining in the lower peninsula. Visitors can
relax in the Michigan Forest Visitor
Center and learn more about Michigan's forests
in an exhibit hall that focuses on the history of logging, forestry, and
the numerous ways we utilize trees in our daily lives. It also is the
main interpretive center for the 3.9 million acre state forest system
managed by the DNRthe largest state forest system in the United States.
Visitors are also invited to experience the Logging
Museum buildings, where you are
taken back in time to life in a 1880s logging camp and explore the
history of the white pine logging era, when most of Michigan's northern lower peninsula
was covered with the huge, majestic trees that still can be seen
here. In addition to the virgin pines, the park has a good mixture
of other forest types that typically grow on the sandy soils found in
this part of Michigan.
These habitats include northern hardwood forests (beech and maple), jack
pine and oak forests, and lowland conifer forests (cedar, spruce and
tamarack). Several small lakes, the East Branch of the Au Sable River and
its associated streams and wetlands further add to the diversity that
makes this park very attractive to wildlife.
 Wildlife
Viewing
Photo: Craig Kasmer, MI DNR
A 50-acre stand of virgin pine trees is one
of the premier attractions of this site. These trees were saved from the
lumberman's axe. Stroll the Old Growth Forest Foot Trail and let your
mind imagine how much of northern Michigan
must have looked when these forest monarchs stretched from shore to
shore. Because of its age, this vestige of virgin pines is gradually
dying, and some are dead. These dead trees are not totally dead, however,
since they continue to provide habitat for woodpeckers, chipmunks,
woodland mice, bats, salamanders, dozens of insects, and other smaller
life forms that thrive on dead or dying trees. Watch for the hairy and
downy woodpeckers, the red and white breasted nuthatches, the northern
flicker, even the crow-sized pileated
woodpecker foraging for insects in the dead snags or downed trees along
the trails.
Photo: Craig Kasmer, MI DNR
Throughout the spring and into the summer,
you cannot walk more than a few feet along the trail without hearing the
resident solitary vireo, blackburnian warbler,
or black-throated green warbler. Also, watch and listen for the melodic
trill of the pine warbler, and the raspy, robin-like call of the scarlet
tanager all popular species of these northern mature pine habitats. Red
and black squirrels are very common in the park, and can be seen from
dawn to dusk. Black squirrels are actually just a dark color phase of the
gray squirrel that is common throughout the eastern United States.
Larger mammals like white-tailed deer, bobcats, coyotes, and black bear
are also found here. Stop at the visitor center for more information and
maps, and ask about these and the other wildlife viewing opportunities
available in this special state park.
Portions of this area are open to
public hunting. Contact the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources for affected seasons and locations.
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