Roach Point
478.85 Acres in Chippewa County

Roach Point is a truly wild nature sanctuary that protects the Roach Point peninsula.  The point juts out into Munuscong Bay, between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, and is only accessible by boat or by trekking through acres of wetland.  However, southern portions of the sanctuary can be accessed along Gogomain Road, and the experience is worth the trip.

In 1981, Mason C. Schafer donated 141.1 acres on Roach Point to the MNA. With additional gifts and purchases, the sanctuary now totals almost 500 acres and includes parts of the bays on either side. The entire marsh occupying two bays was surveyed and sampled by the Michigan Natural Features Inventory in 1987 and was rated a good quality marsh, one of the best of the Great Lakes marshes visited. All but about 5% of the sanctuary was generously donated to MNA, including 23 acres donated in memory of Edward Bartlett Spaulding. Thanks to the foresight of these donors and by contributions made by visitors like you, the pristine Roach Point Peninsula and adjacent land to the south will be protected forever.

Past surveys have found many muskrat pools and a black tern population.   Other birds that nest here are: mallard, widgeon, wood, blue-winged teal, and common merganser ducks, bittern, and coot. Vegetation in the marsh areas include soft stem bulrush, bur reed, three-square bulrush, yellow water lily, pickerelweed, duck potato, and coontail.

In the first exploration of the Point, 92 kinds of plants, including 18 kinds of ferns were recorded. There was a large concentration of Braun’s holly fern; it was scattered over acres and surely was the largest patch of it in Michigan.

You’ll be impressed by the variety of forest types growing within this sanctuary.  There are park-like stands of maple and birch; patches of “ lake forest” containing balsam fir, white cedar, sugar maple and white spruce; and a sugar maple-hemlock forest at the heart of the property. 

Roach Point is remote, wondrous and a fine example of how nature looks when spared from human interference.