Hardy Dam and the Muskegon River: Newaygo's water kingdom

Newaygo County’s spine is the Muskegon River, and its crown is a piece of 1920s mega-engineering most Michiganders have never seen: Hardy Dam, which at its completion was the largest earthen dam in North America east of the Mississippi. The dam backs the river into Hardy Pond — nearly 4,000 acres with fifty miles of wooded shoreline — ringed by campgrounds, launches, a marina, and county parks, with a rail-and-boardwalk trail across the top of the great earthen wall itself.

Below and above the dams, the river earns the county’s living the pleasant way: canoe and tube liveries float thousands of paddlers out of Newaygo and Croton every summer weekend, salmon and steelhead run up to Croton each fall and spring, and the trout water draws fly anglers from three states. Add Newaygo State Park on Hardy’s shore and the Manistee National Forest covering much of the county’s west half, and the picture is honest: this is the close-to-Grand-Rapids county where the woods-and-water life starts at the property line.