Michigan Golf Journal September 2021

Michigan Golf Journal Thunder Bay Resort to the north – but the main attraction on this eastside swing is Thunder Bay’s award-winning Elk viewing carriage ride. It is complete with gourmet dinner and wine tasting inside a modernized yet rustic-looking cabin in the woods. In the winter, the Belgian horse-drawn carriage is changed over from rubber tires to be fitted with sleigh runners and people bundle up under their own blanket for the tour through the 160-acre Elk nature preserve on the way to dinner. ‘Over the River and through the Woods’ is not just a music lyric in this case. It’s what you literally experience as the Thunder Bay Resort Elk tour meanders through the only wild Elk preserve within range of dozens of states. In non-Covid years, thousands of travelers come in from other regions across the U.S. to participate. “Some people think the Elk are tame, and we can get quite close to totally wild Elk as well, but most of these animals have never been touched by a human being – we keep them as close to totally wild as we can,” said the original and current property owner at Thunder Bay, Jack Mathias, age 80. He first developed the front 9 of the now 18-hole course in 1971 – meaning this is the property’s 50 th anniversary year.