The Rock River Canyon Wilderness is a unit within the Hiawatha National Forest. It is located in Alger County, Michigan. The wilderness is accessible from M-94, which runs south of the unit in a west-to-east direction. The nearest town is Chatham, Michigan, which is located approximately south of the wilderness unit's eastern end. Like the rest of the Hiawatha Forest, the Rock River Canyon Wilderness was logged starting about 1880 and ending about 1930. The typical method of logging was to clear-cut all marketable timber and leave the discarded slashings on the forest floor. A severe forest fire was almost inevitable, followed by severe erosion and the creation of a second-growth forest that differed from the previous

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

in many ways. The wilderness is now a template of natural succession that contrasts with most of the Hiawatha National Forest, which continues to be managed for harvestable

pulpwood Pulpwood is timber with the principal use of making wood pulp for paper production. Applications * Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 15% of world pulp production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more gener ...

. Today, the Rock River Canyon Wilderness is a roadless unit within the managed Hiawatha Forest. The wilderness centers on two small sandstone

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

s, approximately deep, through which flow the

Rock River Rock River may refer to: Streams ;United States * Rock River (Mississippi River), a tributary of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin and Illinois * Rock River (Iowa), a tributary of the Big Sioux River in Minnesota and Iowa * Rock River (Lake Mich ...

and its tributary Silver Creek.

Rock climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...

is discouraged because the wilderness's sandstone cliffs are friable and crumbly. The wilderness also includes a waterfall, Rock River Falls, and a shallow lake, Ginpole Lake. Both waterways, the waterfall, and the lake are all part of the Lake Superior drainage basin. Large fauna within the Rock River Canyon Wilderness includes the black bear and the whitetail deer. Fish in the Rock River and Silver Creek include the northern pike, coho salmon,

brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere ...

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...

, and

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

. The Rock River Canyon Wilderness was created by Congress in 1987.

References

IUCN Category Ib Protected areas of Alger County, Michigan Wilderness areas of Michigan Hiawatha National Forest {{Michigan-protected-area-stub