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. It flows not far below its source at Houghton Lake. 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. It was meant to hold back flooding from Houghton Lake. 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. Paddlers and anglers love it too, the ones who like their water quiet and their shoreline wild. All around it stretches state forest. That’s thousands of acres of public land laced with two-tracks and trails, open to hunting, fishing, berry-picking, and snowmobiling.

Buy out this way and you’re signing up for a private well and septic, a long driveway, and a lot of trees. The catch is the same water that makes the place. A parcel near the Muskegon’s floodplain or the edge of the flooding can sit wet. That low ground is exactly where the marsh wants to spread.