Lake Gogebic, the U.P.'s biggest inland lake

Lake Gogebic is the giant of the western U.P. — the largest inland lake in the whole Upper Peninsula, stretching some fifteen miles north to south and covering well over thirteen thousand acres of clear water. It’s so big, in fact, that it can’t decide what county or even what clock it belongs to: the lake straddles the line between Gogebic and Ontonagon counties, and that line happens to be the boundary between Central and Eastern time. The southern half, here in Gogebic County’s Marenisco Township, runs on Central time; cross to the northern end near Bergland and your watch jumps an hour ahead.

What draws people from all over the Midwest is the fishing. Lake Gogebic is one of Michigan’s premier walleye lakes, and it gives up jumbo yellow perch, smallmouth bass, northern pike, and whitefish besides — a year-round fishery, with summer anglers in boats and winter anglers in ice shanties chasing the same walleye through three feet of ice. Resorts and lodges have ringed the shore for well over a century, since the railroad first ran “fish trains” out here in the 1880s. The lake even shares its Ojibwe name with the county: from Agogebic, a name tied to these high waters.

The best public foothold is Lake Gogebic State Park, a quiet 360-acre park on the western shore with a campground, a beach, and a boat launch, tucked into the surrounding Ottawa National Forest. A Recreation Passport gets you in; details at michigan.gov/dnr.