The national forest that grew back on failed farmland north of White Cloud

Drive north out of White Cloud and the land stops belonging to anybody you could knock on a door and ask. Most of the upper third of Newaygo County — the country around Bitely, up in Lilley Township — is national forest. It’s part of the Manistee National Forest, half of the federally run Huron-Manistee National Forests, which sprawl across several West Michigan counties and run well past half a million acres.

That came about the hard way. Loggers stripped the white pine through the 1800s and walked away, leaving behind a moonscape of stumps and sandy, cut-over ground. Settlers tried to farm it. The soil wouldn’t have it, the farms failed, and parcel after parcel fell out of private hands. The federal government bought up the worn-out acreage through the early 20th century and replanted it. The forest you walk through today — red pine in suspiciously straight rows in places — is the second crop, grown back on land people once gave up for dead.

Because it’s national forest, it’s yours. With the usual rules you can hike it, hunt it, camp on it, ride the two-tracks, fish the small lakes scattered through it like Pettibone and Houseman, and cut firewood with a permit. The North Country Trail, the coast-to-coast national scenic trail, threads through this stretch near White Cloud, which is why White Cloud is an official Trail Town. The spring-fed White River runs through the country too, cold and fast.

One catch worth knowing before you wander off a road: the ownership map up here is a checkerboard. Public and private parcels sit right against each other, sometimes with nothing on the ground to tell you which is which. Carry a forest map and know whose stumps you’re standing on.