An hour’s drive south of the Mackinac Bridge, a 67,000-acre patch of state forest known as Chandler Hills offers a stunning glimpse of how Michigan appeared in 1800, before a century of logging left much of the state looking like a moonscape.
The hiss of wind coursing through towering hardwoods and the gurgle of a brook that bursts forth from a ravine are often the only sounds in the densely wooded forest.