The state forest where bird dogs have competed for a century

Tucked into the northwest corner of Gladwin County is a patch of state forest set aside in 1916 for a single purpose: to give pointing dogs a place to work wild birds. The Gladwin Field Trial Area covers almost 4,900 acres, and across the northern states it’s considered about the best ground there is for what handlers call cover-dog trials.

Here’s what makes it unusual. Most field trials happen on open grass with pen-raised birds planted ahead of time, the handlers following on horseback. Cover-dog trials throw that out. The dogs work real forest — young aspen, alder, tangled brush — hunting for wild ruffed grouse and woodcock that nobody put there. Handlers walk, not ride. When a bird flushes, they fire a blank from a cap gun to test whether the dog holds steady. No bird is shot; the whole thing is about the dog’s nose, range, and nerve.

Roughly thirteen events run here every year, from late March into October, and every so often the national grouse and woodcock championships land at Gladwin, pulling in dogs and owners from all over the country. To keep the grouse cover thick, the DNR logs the aspen here on a shorter cutting cycle than usual — deliberately keeping young, dense growth on the ground, because that’s what the birds and the dogs need.

Three DNR divisions share the place — Forest Resources, Parks and Recreation, and Wildlife — with Wildlife in the lead. For everyone else, the trade-off is some quiet woods with a catch: to protect the grounds, ORVs, dirt bikes, horses, and mountain bikes are kept out. What’s left is foot traffic, bird dogs, and a corner of the forest that has been running this same competition for more than a century — set aside the year before the country entered the First World War, and still at it.