Europe Bay Woods State Natural Area

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Europe Bay Woods is located on an undeveloped isthmus between Lake Michigan and Europe Lake featuring over one mile of Great Lakes dune and beach communities, red pine groves, boreal forest, and northern dry-mesic and mesic forest. The isthmus, once the ancient shoreline of Lake Michigan, was created through wave action resulting in sand and gravel deposition and today contains northern dry-mesic forest dominated by red pine and red oak with scattered hemlock, beech, and red maple. Common understory plants include beaked hazelnut, wild sarsaparilla, wintergreen, Canada mayflower, and rough-leaved rice grass. Also present is a mature mesic forest consisting of beech, sugar maple, red oak, and yellow birch on undulating topography. Along Lake Michigan is an undeveloped sand beach and low dunes grading to cobblestone beach and finally dolomite bedrock. The dunes contain extensive mats of bearberry and creeping juniper intermingled with rabbit-berry, sand cherry, and the state threatened prairie sand-reed (Calamovilfa longifolia var. magna). The area harbors numerous rare plants and animals including bird's-eye primrose (Primula mistassinica), dune goldenrod (Solidago simplex var. gillmanii), seaside spurge (Euphorbia polygonifolia), lesser fringed gentian (Gentianopsis procera), Lake Huron locust (Trimerotropis huroniana), and beach-dune tiger beetle (Cicindela hirticollis rhodensis). On gently sloping sandy soils is a boreal forest of balsam fir, white cedar, quaking aspen, white birch, and white spruce with white and red pine as the site grades into a forested ridge and swale community. Rare species include the federally threatened dwarf lake iris (Iris lacustris), giant pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea), crawe sedge (Carex craweii), Cape May warbler (Dendroica tigrina), and black-throated blue warbler (Dendroica caerulescens). Europe Bay Woods is owned by the DNR and was designated a State Natural Area in 2002.