The Grand Traverse Conservation District (GTCD) recently received the East Creek Reserve as a donation from Rotary Camps and Services (RC&S). 

The director of the GTCD, Koffi Kpachavi says they have been managing the property prior to the donation. 

Kpachavi explains, “When the rotary decided to not own this property anymore because it didn’t make sense for their mission anymore, they said it made sense for them to give it to somebody who knows the property really well; you know, somebody who’s been maintaining the trials, the trees, and taking care of the land for such a long time.”

According to a press release from the GTCD, the conservation district had been managing the land since the late nineties; a few years after the RC&S obtained the land from Howard and Mary Edwards in 1993. 

By 2001, the conservation district and RC&S had developed a comprehensive plan for East Creek Reserve, which included resource management, land protection, and public recreation. 

Current landscape and uses

East Creek Reserve is located just 25 minutes South of Traverse City, Michigan. 

After being well maintained for decades, the GTCD press release states that the reserve includes “dense mature forests, open meadowlands and the picturesque lowlands of East Creek.”

Kpachavi says how it’s a perfect place for people to connect with nature after a long day at work. In the press release, Kpachavi calls the reserve “an extraordinary landscape that reflects the very heart of our mission.”

Kpachavi describes the GTCD’s next steps. 

“As we move forward, we will do some trailing programs, maybe add some new features to some trails, change the course, or elongate some trails. For the time being, we are working on a management plan to see what we would like to add or change to the property,” says Kpachavi.

Currently, East Creek Reserve has roughly 3.5 miles of trails open to the public. 

Hunting, fishing, and camping is not permitted on the land. 

An area of very old trees at Independence Oaks County Park has been recognized as part of a national network of old-growth forests, drawing attention to both rare natural features and thousands of years of human history tied to the land.

Carol Bacak-Egbo is an Oakland County Parks historian. She says the newly designated old-growth forest lies within a landscape shaped by Indigenous peoples for 5,000 to 6,000 years. The park sits near historic Native American trail routes, and contains the headwaters of the Clinton River, once a major travel route for the Anishinaabe across what is now southeast Michigan.

“This history doesn’t start with log cabins and sawmills,” Bacak-Egbo says. “People lived with and cared for this land long before Europeans arrived.”

Artifacts indicate the area was likely used as seasonal camps rather than permanent villages. The park also contains one of only two remaining wild rice beds in southeast Michigan, a culturally and spiritually significant food source for the Anishinaabe.

The forest largely escaped widespread logging and farming in the 19th century, almost by accident.

In the early 1900s, a wealthy Detroit businessman purchased land around Crooked Lake but left it undeveloped. Later owners also did not farm the southern portion of the property, allowing the old-growth trees to remain intact.

Park naturalist Kegan Schildberg says the designation supports efforts to protect remaining natural areas in Oakland County, which has developed rapidly during the last century.

Bacak-Egbo encourages visitors to view parks as places where natural and human history intersect.

“When people walk these trails, they aren’t just connecting with nature,” says Bacak-Egbo.  “They are walking through the same forest people walked through hundreds and even thousands of years ago.”

This story is part of WDET’s ongoing series, The Detroit Tree Canopy Project.