Pointe Mouillee: a rebuilt marsh at Lake Erie's edge
Berlin Township borders Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, one of North America's great freshwater marsh restorations and host of a waterfowl festival running since the 1940s.
Where the Huron River meets Lake Erie, Berlin Township borders one of the most ambitious wetland rebuilds on the continent. Pointe Mouillee means “wet point.” The French traders got that name exactly right. It was a legendary duck marsh, and the lake nearly swallowed it in the mid-1900s. Then, beginning in the 1970s, engineers built a massive crescent-shaped barrier island. Locals call it the Banana Dike. Behind it, they pumped the marsh back to life. Today the state game area covers thousands of acres of cattails, lagoons, and dikes. It’s celebrated among birders nationwide — egrets, eagles, rare shorebirds, and clouds of waterfowl in migration.
The human tradition is just as deep. The Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival has run since the 1940s. It’s a September weekend of duck-calling contests, decoy carving, and dog trials. The event fills the area with people who’ve hunted these marshes for generations. For Berlin Township residents it’s all backyard. Walk or bike the dikes any morning, and you’ll have a national-caliber wildlife spectacle mostly to yourself.
Where to see it
Pointe Mouillee State Game Area at the mouth of the Huron River, off US Turnpike Road near Rockwood; dikes open to walking and biking.