Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The secrets of the Huron Mountain Club

The history of the Huron Mountain Club, in northern Marquette County, is a study in contrasts (and a difficult study at that, as its members are notoriously tight-lipped about their little piece of paradise). When it began around 1890, the club served as a high-priced, very exclusive hunting ground for industrialists from cities like Detroit and Chicago. Membership in the club, located on Lake Superior near the community of Big Bay, was limited to fifty primary members (people who could own cabins) and eighty associate members (people who couldn't live on-site). The club became a source of mystery and, eventually, consternation to locals, especially after a potential member thwarted plans to create a state highway that would have passed near the club's land (more on that later). To many, the Huron Mountain Club represented greed and self-interest over the needs of the community at large.

Old-timey postcard of the Huron Mountain Club

Fast forward several decades, and Michiganders are singing a different tune. The very exclusivity that made the Huron Mountain Club a focus of derision in the early 20th century has helped preserve approximately 24,000 acres of pristine lakes and forests. Because club members are fiercely protective of their land, they've worked to stop developers from altering the landscape. Consequently, they've created a wildlife preserve of sorts, albeit one accessible only to Huron Mountain Club members.

As mentioned previously, the Huron Mountain Club began as a playground for the monied class. In the 1880s, prominent Midwesterners like Cyrus McCormick (founder of the tractor company that became International Harvester) and Frederick Miller (of Miller Brewing Company fame) bought land in the Huron Mountains, establishing the area as a hot spot for wilderness recreation among the wealthy. The Huron Mountain Club was founded soon after, and attracted so much interest that when a certain automobile magnate named Henry Ford decided he wanted in, he found himself placed on a waiting list.

Ford was not one to sit around until an existing Huron Mountain Club member sold his land or died. To get in the club's good graces, he bought land nearby, then refused to let officials build state highway M-35 across the property, even though the trunkline's proposed route had been established before Ford bought his land. The Huron Mountain Club rewarded Ford's efforts by making him a member, and Ford promptly hired workers to build a $100,000 hideaway in his long-sought-after holdings.

Henry Ford, thinking about how great it is to be rich
 
Huron Mountain Club members thwarted other attempts to encourage public use of surrounding land, including an effort in the 1950s to create a national park in the Huron Mountains. Though some might see such efforts as exclusionist, it was actually the Huron Mountain Club's wise stewardship of its acreage that made the area such an attractive site for public recreation. In 1938, naturalist Aldo Leopold conducted a study of the Huron Mountain Club's holdings and created a management system that helped members preserve the old-growth hardwood forests in which they lived. Had the club not taken this and similar measures, its land might have fallen victim to overdevelopment, and the Huron Mountains would never have been considered an appropriate venue for a national park.

The Huron Mountains

Today, the Huron Mountain Club consists of 50 primary members and 100 associate members who are just as secretive as their predecessors. Many are descendants of the club's founders. Huron Mountain Club members avoid the media and generally keep to themselves. However, their conservation work continues, just as it did in the days of Leopold's nature study. The Huron Mountain Club has opened its holdings to the Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation, which conducts biological and geological research. Conservation, not hunting, is now the focus, as today's Huron Mountain Club attempts to keep its land as pristine--and as private--as possible.

43 comments:

  1. canyon lake is my favorite, with its own unique species of fish seen nowhere else!

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    1. Canyon lake looks intriquing ona topo map..could you publish pictures?

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    2. Rush has its own species of fish, the Huronicus. Its a a small, dark Lake Trout. Canyon Lake is not oxygenated so only small bait fish can survive there.

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  2. I've been there! Did some research in grad school for ecology.

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  3. It's a beautiful place, I worked there one summer in highscool, it was one of my best memories

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  4. On my bucket list to some day visit and ask a lot of questions! ��

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  5. I had the opportunity back in the early 70's to visit the club a couple of times. A very pristine area.

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  6. Let's not forget that the HMC also hired locals, full-time year-round and summer staff as well. For more than 100 years.

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  7. Been up there numerous times. Often fishing and once hunting. (I had a parent who worked there.(And yes I'm being purposefully vague...)) It is a beautiful area that I could see very quickly and easily being trashed if opened to the public. Heck, I'm protective of my property too, and it's no where near as pristine. I consider it a privilege to have been fortunate enough to spend time (even if I had to be accompanied)that i did exploring that area.

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    1. Lucky you. Sounds like an experience of a lifetime.

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  8. I just returned yesterday from a long weekend of fishing at our family camp which is located inside the HMC. My grandfather purchased land and built a camp there in 1950. He has passed and the property has been passed down to me. I spent a lot of time there as a child and and even more now as a parent with my kids. They are now 17 and 19 and going there is bigger than Christmas to them. The beautiful thing is that the area is the same as it was when I started going there as a kid in the 70's. It truely is a special spot and I feel lucky to have acceess inside the HMC. Anytime I take a someone new to our camp, they are blown away by how rustic and untouched everything feels. The fishing is crazy good too!

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    2. Sounds enchanting! I've lived all my life in Michigan and never heard of this. I'm an artist, would like to go up there and paint. Sounds like the kind of place I could have solitude and peace :)))

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  9. The cabins are rustic,very rustic as the weather has taken its toll on the exterior wood.they have a tennis court,a dining building and a great beach.inside the cabins is rustic beauty also,(at least the one I was in when my daughter was hired as a live in babysitter) has a mounted lynx appearing to spring onto a mounted pheasant,both I presume shot many years ago at the club.it is a very nice getaway for the rich to unwind from the stress of making money.

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  10. Was there today.
    Have some awesome pics...

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  11. I hope it never opens to the public and the families who maintain stewardship continue to protect it. Given the nature of so many people and their lack of stewardship of the land, it would only take a heartbeat for the area to be ruined by some jackasses wanting to mine copper...just having an area untouched by government, and maintained by conscientious families for over 100 years is a legacy that should be maintained.

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    1. It's gold and proposed sulfide mining nearby that is threatening the club's pristine.

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    2. totally untrue. Mining is done near by completely safe and by the highest standards ever set for a mining company. The Eagle Mine covers 1 square mile of property with a tunnel to access the underground operations. It is is no way effecting anything about the Huron Mountain Club. Poor information like this should not be published.

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    3. No mining operation is "safe" or good for any ecosystem.. poor information like yours shouldn't be published either

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    4. If you know anything about The U.P. Mining was and is our Bread and Butter. Then logging and tourism.

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  12. What a fabulous setting for a crime novel. Or has someone already created a fictional setting such as this. If so, please let me know cause I want to read it. The Edge comes to mind, but the movie The Edge had a lodge that was not nearly as huge, (although very beautiful.)

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  13. Have you ever heard "Anatomy of a Murder," filmed in the area.

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  14. We have a cabin in the club though we are not members. The club is more open to talking to the people with cabins on the land and allow access to certain places when asked. Also something interesting we noticed a light on the top of the mountain checked and found no reports of a light being there. The next 2 nights we looked and no light was seen. We have been to the top of the mountain before and have never seen a light. I doubt that anyone would dare climb the mountain in the dark.

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    1. True no one would dare climb it in the dark, but it is a well known fact that campers hike and stay overnight on the mountains all the time in the summer months. It has been happening since the beginning of the Club. The guides would pack up large camp sites and host overnight outings for members and their families on a regular basis.

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    2. Current employee here, we go for night hikes in the mountains whenever we can! Most of us use the moonlight for vision so that could be why you only saw one light the whole time. It also could've been one of the patrol officers but I don't know why he'd be on a mountain. Very proud to see such a high level of mutual respect for this place and privilaged to be here!

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    3. Pry poaching. Like most for the guards do.

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  15. Where can I find more pictures of this land? Can hardly seem to find anything on the web

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  16. Please keep me informed of the progress I would love to visit there.. some day.. Please keep me updated you can reach me at db24ktaaol.com. Thank you so much all the best to all of you Tim

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  17. HMC.....live on undisturbed forever

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  18. I myself have worked in there and live in Big Bay.
    It's actually preserved for the Lord! It has been set aside for the day of the Lord. In fact it's the whole Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
    Upper Peninsula is considered God's country. Look in Wikipedia under God's country.

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  19. This is where the Kings will gather in the end!

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  20. Check google maps at the mouth of the Pine River. These certainly don't look like "rustic cabins" to me. I grew up in the UP, and while growing up felt the Huron Mountain Club was like a prison for the rich.

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  22. Actually it is 34,000 acres not 24,000 i’ve been to The Huron Mountain Club

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  23. I’ve been there with channing tatum

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  24. I've been there..had to spend 5 million though to stay 1 week

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    1. 5 Million for one week as a guest?

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  25. Rumor has it in big bay that they keep young child sex slaves up there like Epstein’s island

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