Mackinaw City, the Straits, and Wilderness

The very top of Emmet County meets the Straits of Mackinac, where Lakes Michigan and Huron join and the Mackinac Bridge soars across to the Upper Peninsula. Mackinaw City sits right here — the Emmet County side lies in Wawatam Township — and it’s one of Michigan’s biggest tourist towns, the jumping-off point for ferries to Mackinac Island and home to the reconstructed 1700s fort at Colonial Michilimackinac, the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, and big views of the bridge. Just west of town, the Headlands International Dark Sky Park draws stargazers to some of the darkest skies in the region.

West along the Lake Michigan shore, Bliss Township holds Wilderness State Park — thousands of acres of forest, wetlands, and more than twenty miles of wild, undeveloped shoreline, with great hiking, camping, and beaches. Carp Lake Township, just south of Mackinaw City, is quieter country around Paradise Lake and the community of Carp Lake.

For buyers, this end of the county is a mix: tourist-driven Mackinaw City (lots of seasonal lodging and cottages), and large stretches of woods, lakeshore, and state land in Bliss and Carp Lake where you can find rural acreage and waterfront away from the crowds. Homes out here are on wells and septic (see the well-and-septic note).