Connor Bayou: a mile of boardwalk over the Grand River's backwater

A bayou this far north sounds like a misprint, but the Grand River makes them. Where the channel slows on its run to Lake Michigan, it spreads into still, marshy backwaters, and Connor Bayou is one of the prettiest. The Robinson Township park wraps 142 acres around nearly a mile of river frontage, and a low boardwalk carries you out east over the wetland for about a mile, close enough to the water that you can watch turtles slide off logs and herons stalk the shallows.

The land packs a surprising mix into a small footprint. There’s mature mixed hardwood and pine forest, broad cattail marsh, and even patches of remnant prairie — the dry, sandy plant community that once covered openings in this part of the river valley before farming and fire suppression crowded it out. A second loop swings west and climbs through the woods for roughly another mile, so you can do the river on the way out and the uplands on the way back.

For people who’d rather be on the water than beside it, the park has an accessible launch for kayaks and canoes, a fishing dock, and a deck built out over the bayou to take in the view north across the wetland. A small woodland cabin tucked in the trees can be rented for an overnight.

The gates follow daylight rather than a clock — open from 7 a.m. into the evening, with no fee to walk in or put a boat in. Show up at dawn in the warm months and the bayou does its best trick: a flat sheet of water holding the whole sky, perfectly still, until the first paddle stroke breaks it.