Houghton Lake — If you asked your average Michigander to name the largest lake in Michigan, they’d probably say Lake Michigan. The more thoughtful among them would pause and say, Lake Superior. A better guess, as it’s larger than Lake Michigan by both surface area and depth.
They’d both be wrong, though. The largest lake in Michigan is Houghton Lake.
It’s not a trick question, just a precise one. The largest lake in the state. Not around it, not next to it, but within the state. The Great Lakes, though we love them, aren’t Michigan’s alone. We share them with New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin… even Canada, sigh.
The largest lake we call our own in Michigan, within the boundaries of the state, is Houghton Lake. You might not have heard of it, but it’s worth knowing about.
With 30 miles of shoreline and a surface area of over 20,000 acres, Houghton Lake feels like an inland sea. You can see across it, depending on where you are and the weather that day, but only barely. More likely, the far shoreline is a shrouded mist.
It’s big enough to almost feel like you’re on one of the Great Lakes, with an aura far larger than the hundreds of other small inland lakes that dot Michigan.
For the most part, Houghton Lake functions as a blue-collar resort town. A summer vacation destination similar to what you’ll find in other less-traveled parts of the North, like the coastline along Lake Huron.
Small houses and cottages dot the lake, in varying sizes, but rarely enormous. Most are privately owned, passed down within families, and unoccupied for most of the year. A few resorts and rentals abound, but the majority are classic “Up North” Michigan summer homes.
Boating is the major draw, as Houghton Lake doesn’t really have beaches (apart from a few man-made ones). Tubing, water skiing, and jet skiing all find their place on the lake.
Pontoon boats as well—The Pontoon Capital of the World would be an appropriate nickname for this place. The docks are filled with them, dozens and dozens of pontoon boats.
Whether you like these floating patios with motors or not, they do make sense for Houghton Lake.
This lake is very shallow, with an average depth of less than nine feet. Many areas along the shoreline are much more shallow, with only three to four feet of depth extending out for several hundred yards.
In those spots, it’s common to see swimmers standing waist deep in the water far off from shore. The docks extend far into the water, long and spindly, until the drop-off where boats can pull up. Almost all have hoists to raise the boats up so they don’t scuttle with rising and falling water levels.
Pontoon boats make sense for casual boaters on a shallow lake. You do see speed boats there, but not the largest ones. Boating fast on Houghton Lake requires a careful eye, lest you end up skirting the shallow shoreline too closely.
Fishing is popular as well, with northern pike, bluegill, walleye, and both largemouth and smallmouth bass as the main draws.
Ice fishing brings in a winter crowd too, with an annual competition held during Houghton Lake’s “Tip-Up-Town USA.” Claimed to be Michigan’s largest and longest-running winter festival, the event features a winter parade, snowmobile drag races, and tons of other community events.
All in all, it’s a classic Michigan summer destination for ordinary people. Nothing too fancy, nothing ornate. There are a few restaurants, ice cream shops, even a Walmart, but nothing in the way of the kitschy boutiques and fancy eateries you’ll see in Traverse City.
There’s no real downtown, just a main drag south of the lake, with cottages ringing around it. Everywhere around the lake, you feel like you’re just on the lake, not in a city or even a small town.
Houghton Lake is great because it’s genuine, a modest vacation spot that isn’t trying to be something it isn’t. There are no pretenses of drawing tourist crowds from out of state, or even downstate.
Just the largest lake in Michigan, and the people that come back every summer like they have for generations.
Bobby Mars is art director of Michigan Enjoyer. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.
