Whet your appetite for adventure with a visit to Hebard Park, just up the road from Fresh Coast Cabins.
- Location
- 47.28732, -87.57499
- Don't Forget
- Blanket, binoculars, bird identification book or app, picnic.
- Best Time to Go
- Anytime
Named for lumber and mining baron, Charles Hebard, who owned much of the Keweenaw’s northern reaches in the late 1800s.
This Roadside Park is a magnet for picnickers, rock-hungers, stargazers, and daydreamers.
Charles also happened to be the first deeded owner of the land where Fresh Coast Cabins now sits. It’s really less of a park than it is an overlook, featuring a generous shoulder of conglomerate that leads to a crescent-shaped pebble beach, gated on either side by basalt islets that tame the lake to a gentle murmur.
Fresh Coast Tip
The conglomerate at Hebard Park is more than just a good place to sit. It’s part of the Copper Harbor Formation, which formed over 1 billion years ago by the split of early continents and contains some of the oldest preserved evidence for life on land.
With a barely-there pullout and shrubbery-obscured entrance keeping it off the radar, chances are good that you’ll have this park and its 990 feet of Lake Superior shoreline all to yourself.
Well, you and the myriad species of birds that seek the shelter of the shoreline’s enclosed inlets. A magnet for birdwatchers during fall migration, Hebard Park is the best place to score rare sightings of species such as the greater scaup, horned lark, white-winged scoter, and double-crested cormorant.
Whether you’re looking for a quiet place to snooze, a romantic scene for a sunset picnic, or a secluded viewing area for the Northern Lights, Hebard Park is a hidden gem you’ll want to return to again and again.
Photo: Amanda Taivalkoski / @amandeliini