Pendills Creek National Fish Hatchery

Lake trout stocked in the Great Lakes each year come from this hatchery and its subsidiary Hiawatha National Forest hatchery at nearby Raco. Long tanks called raceways are covered with galvanized steel roofs. Eggs go into egg-seeding programs in lakes Michigan and Huron. (In Lake Superior, native lake trout have been reproducing naturally well enough that stocking is no longer necessary.)
Here fry are reared for a year, until they are five to eight inches long. Then they are released. Visitors can enter the tank buildings and look down at the masses of little fish. The big, dark brood fish that used to be here have been moved to the Raco hatchery.

Displays and pamphlets at the visitor center here show eggs developing into fish. They tell the story of how parasitic sea lamprey from Lake Ontario nearly destroyed the Upper Great Lakes fishery in the 1930s before being partially controlled by a combination of lampricide chemicals and natural predators like the coho salmon.

On Lake Shore Rd. 4 miles west of Dollar Settlement and Forest Rd. #3154. (906) 437-5231. Open Mon-Fri 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Weekend outdoor visitation allowed, but visitor center is closed. Free. Wheelchair accessible.

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