The Muskegon headwaters and the Dead Stream country

The eastern and interior townships of Missaukee County are big-water, big-woods country. The young Muskegon River — one of Michigan’s major rivers — runs down through the eastern side of the county not far below its source at Houghton Lake, and the Clam River winds across the middle to meet it.

The centerpiece out here is the Dead Stream Flooding. Back in 1940, Civilian Conservation Corps crews built the Reedsburg Dam across the Muskegon in Enterprise Township to hold back flooding from Houghton Lake, and the water it backed up created a big, marshy reservoir that’s now a state wildlife area. It’s a haven for ducks, geese, herons, and beaver, and a favorite of paddlers and anglers who like their water quiet and their shoreline wild. All around it stretches state forest — thousands of acres of public land laced with two-tracks and trails, open to hunting, fishing, berry-picking, and snowmobiling.

If you’re buying out this way, expect a private well and septic, a long driveway, and a lot of trees — and check how close your parcel sits to the river floodplain or the flooding before you build.