AU TRAIN

Region: Pictured Rocks/Munising/Au Train

Just north of M-28 the Au Train River lazily winds its way through sand to Lake Superior.

Located just south of where the Au Train River finally makes its sandy, serpentine union with Lake Superior, Au Train has long been a summer resort. The village is centered on the Au Train-Forest Lake Road that runs south from M-28 at Au Train Bay. Au Train has become a popular retirement community. The population swells in summertime. The local information hub is the Au Train Grocery (906-892-8142), also a gas station, general store, busy sub shop and deli, motel, and liquor store, open year-round. It's on H-03 a few blocks south of the M-28 blinker light. The deli's pasties have a big reputation; the five motel rooms are simple, clean, and convenient, within walking distance to the beach.

Au Train Lake, 830 acres, is an all-sports lake known for walleye and large northern pike. Smallmouth bass and large perch have been plentiful.

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The sand beach here along Lake Superior extends for miles and offers beautiful views across the bay. Scenic highway turnouts make it easy to get out and walk the beach. Charming Scott Falls is right on the south side of M-28 two miles east of Au Train. Park at the roadside park on the opposite side of the road to get out and explore it.

Au Train's preferred swimming spot is in the warmer Au Train River by the highway bridge, just before it enters the lake. "Au Train" is one of many Upper Peninsula names that comes from voyageurs canoeing Lake Superior's shores. According to Walter Romig in Michigan Place Names: The History of the Founding and the Naming of More than Five Thousand Past and Present Michigan Communities: "The river carried so much sand into the lake here as to form a shoal over which the voyageurs would drag (trainerant, in French) their canoes to make a short cut."

With canoe liveries right off M-28, the gentle Au Train River is a favorite for casual paddlers.

This site was also popular with Ojibwa, who camped here while they hunted and fished nearby. They used the river to begin yearly treks south to Lake Michigan over the Bay de Noc Trail, still maintained for hikers and horses by the Hiawatha National Forest. Later Au Train became a dog-team stop on the northern Upper Peninsula mail route.

The Paulson House, an 1884 house of Swedish log construction, is no longer open to the public. The exterior and front yard, planted with 1900-era bulbs and wildflowers, can be seen from Forest Lake Road, south of Au Train Lake and 2˝ miles south of the Au Train blinker light on M-28. The house was once part of Avery Studio's pioneer crafts museum.

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PLACES AROUND AU TRAIN TO

Eat Sleep Camp