What an appealing camp this is! What a great place to vacation. It’s close to town and it is offered at a great price. This could be just the thing for a young family, for a vacation home, or for retirement. Move in, stay put, and you can have all three!

It starts with the land. The approach down Miner’s Castle Road through Hiawatha National Forest has tall sugar maples with the kind of crown I love that arches right over the road. That leads to a good gravel road and the entry gate. Here the forest on both sides is maple with heavy ground hemlock covering the forest floor, beautifully.

This is a 40-acre ownership in the woods with a surprise: a long view down a wide grassy trail and meadow with an apple tree, “sugarplum” and berries along the edges. This is a setting where fawns gambol about, and bear, fox,and wildlife of every kind loiter and cross far enough from your perch on the long front porch that they feel safe.

It’s a quiet, peaceful woods with National Forest lands and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore forming three of the four borders of the property. There are many camps in the Upper Peninsula and some of them have character. This is one of those.

There’s a big, first floor master bedroom and master bath, and a roomy, pleasant kitchen. The Hiawatha Log Home was built on a 34×28 plan in 2000. It has a large guest room/loft above on the second floor with a cathedral ceiling over the living spaces below. Utilities include an approved septic system, drilled well (with exceptionally great water), and power from a 4,500 watt Owens generator with battery pack system. (Power is 1.6 miles away if you want to run it in.) Heating is by propane, with a wall-mounted system, supplemented by a wood stove that throws a wonderful radiant heat in the cold of winter storms. The roof is metal with a steep pitch and baked-on green lacquer.

This property comes “turnkey” with everything but a few personal items so you can move right in and start enjoying life in the north woods. For additional features, room dimensions, and a summary on the property, click right here.

The floor plan is open and roomy with hardwood maple. It features an expansive deck under roof across the east side to take full advantage of the morning sun and the long view down the hillside. This has the feel of “Northern Exposure” wilderness living but here you are just eight miles from town and one of the best harbors on Lake Superior.

A short walk to the east Miner’s Castle River, a brook trout stream, threads northerly into the Pictured Rocks. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore offers great hiking trails, a spectacular cross country ski trail, and hunting and fishing in abundance. Protected and beautiful Munising Bay with dockage for sail and powerboats, and Grand Island, also administered as a park with spectacular natural features, lie to the north and west. Hiawatha National Forest is south and east, starting right at the property line.

Blue lakes and forest roads under an arcing canopy of high sugar maple forest make this an area of uncommon beauty. Wonders abound in every direction and in every season of the year the forest and lakes offer interesting activities for adventurers of any age. Fishing, hiking, bird watching, snowshoeing, gathering wonderful mushrooms from spring through fall — there is always activity and opportunities to learn. If golf is your game you will enjoy Pictured Rocks Golf & Country Club less than four miles down the road.

I count at least seven reasons to like this property, all of which are uncommon in our fast paced, modern society: An exceptionally sharp and clean, nicely finished and decorated log home in the woods with all the conveniences, owned and cared for by people who care. Privacy and quiet. Forest land with character. A crystal, cold stream and a pond with brook trout. Wildlife in abundance. Easy access to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. And city services nearby in Munising.

As a retirement home this is a great “base of operations” to explore the wonders of the Upper Peninsula and you’ll come home to lots of active things to do. City supplies and services are handy, and there’s a new hospital just a few mile away on Munising Bay if the need ever arises. The Alger County Historical Museum is there also.

You can research living in the Munising area further right here at Munising.com. The more you know, the more you’ll want to come!

In spring trillium and other wildflowers cover the forest floor and mushroom hunters search for morel mushrooms. Warblers fill the woods, grouse drum on old logs, and the Miner’s Castle River and the small lake it flows to are home to nesting waterfowl.

Summer offers many pleasures including kayaking on the lakes and rivers in the area or, starting at the harbor in Grand Marais, paddling on Lake Superior down the face of the Grand Sable Dune and past the rock grottos and sandstone cliffs of the Pictured Rocks, with fresh whitefish or pizza later under the parquet ceiling at the Dunes. I’d be tempted to keep a day sailor or powerboat in the harbor for longer jaunts.

Few parcels of land anywhere offer more ready access to surrounding lands that are open to the public. Fifty miles of the shoreline and the land behind it to the north and west are in the Federal park. It’s an absolutely wonderful place for a hunting/fishing camp, and if you haven’t seen the north woods in fall with the maples in full color, you haven’t lived.

For a snowmobiler, the winter in this area is as good as it gets. From this property there is easy access to the groomed trails in the Pictured Rocks, and there is a web of two-tracks and logging roads for exploring the lakes and land on your own. My own preference runs to snowshoeing and cross country, but I’ll admit that running your sled through this forest in the powder is a memorable and wonderful experience.

The property is less than a mile off an excellent paved state highway, but this is a remote wilderness setting. The seller will convey legal, insurable access with title insurance. The owners have lived here for six years, and it has been loved for every bit of it. Own it now and build your own family traditions.