TAHQUAMENON FALLS STATE PARK

Region: Tahquamenon & Seney, Grand Marais & Whitefish Point

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Most Michigan waterfalls are attractive but puny affairs when compared with the mighty waterfalls of the world. Michigan's one really substantial waterfall is the Upper Falls of the Tahquamenon River. The falls are nearly 200 feet across. As much as 50,000 gallons of water a second plunge 48 feet into a canyon below. The sandstone shelf of the falls is compressed beach sand from when this was a seashore in late Cambrian times, 500 million years ago. The sand was the eroded particles of ancient mountains deposited by streams and sifted by wave action.
Tahquamenon Falls has been an important landmark and attraction at least since before the time of the Ojibwa. In Longfellow's poem based on Ojibwa legends, Hiawatha builds his canoe "by the rushing Tahquamenew."

JMP Photography

Upper Tahquamenon Falls.

Park visitors are concentrated so intensely at the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls four miles downstream that it's easy to forget that this park, now around 47,000 acres, is Michigan's second-biggest state park, laced with 42 miles of hiking trails. The park stretches 13 miles west from Whitefish Bay at the Tahquamenon River's mouth. Most of it is a wild area where you won't see a power line or hear a car. Moose have been seen from time to time, and many other kinds of wildlife: bear, beaver, otters, and spruce and sharp tail grouse. Some 20,000 acres of the park form a proposed natural area.

In 2004 the park gained 6,500 acres, mostly on the northeast side adjacent to the Farm Truck Trail. (Land swaps between parks and state forests are part of the DNR's ongoing effort to consolidate and better manage state land holdings.) Maps – and consultation – are available at the fee stations at the Upper and Lower Falls or at park headquarters on M-123 between them.

The interesting Rivermouth picnic area and beach (see Point of Interest) is not reached by a road within the park, but by taking M-123 to Paradise and going south.

Free guided nature walks and other programs put visitors to the sprawling state park in touch with the area's history and wildlife. Here then-park naturalist Bob Wild (fourth from left) takes a group to visit an active eagle's nest near the Tahquamenon River mouth on Whitefish Bay south of Paradise. Well behaved dogs on leashes are welcome. One can be seen at the far right.

This much-visited state park is fortunate to have a permanent, year-round naturalist/interpreter. A field trip to see an eagle's nest or a campground talk can be a highlight of a park visit. For schedule of year-round nature presentations, call the park at (906) 492-3415 or pick up a free copy of the Tahquamenon Falls Visitor at the contact station. A good birding map of the park with extensive annotations can be found at Return to Tahquamenon & Seney, Grand Marais & Whitefish Point

PLACES AROUND TAHQUAMENON FALLS STATE PARK TO

Eat Sleep Camp