Palms Book State Park is a publicly owned nature preserve encompassing in Thompson Township,

Schoolcraft County Schoolcraft County ( ) is a county located in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,047, making it Michigan's fourth-least populous county. The county seat is Manistique, which lies al ...

, in the eastern

Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula b ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. The

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

is noted for ''

Kitch-iti-kipi ''Kitch-iti-kipi'' (''"KITCH-i-tee-KI-pee"'' with short "i"s), located within Palms Book State Park, is Michigan's largest natural freshwater spring. The name means "big cold spring" in the Ojibwe language. It is also sometimes referred to as t ...

'', the "Big Spring" of the Upper Peninsula.

History

The Palms and Book Land Company sold the property to the state in 1926, insisting on the name and a ban on camping. John I. Bellaire arranged for the sale of a parcel to the state for $10. The arrangement called for the establishment of a park that would be named after the land company. During the 1930s, workers with the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

assisted in making park improvements that included construction of an observation raft, dock, and ranger's quarters.

The spring

, the spring, is a pool of clear water 400 feet (120 m) across in its largest dimension, and up to 40 feet (12 m) deep. The spring water can be seen from above as it wells upward through the pond's bottom of bedrock

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

, creating a continual pattern of random eddies and cross-currents in the depths of the pond. To the

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabe (alternatively spelled Anishinabe, Anicinape, Nishnaabe, Neshnabé, Anishinaabeg, Anishinabek, Aanishnaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of C ...

people that were the original inhabitants of much of the Upper Peninsula, this site was a place of mystery and wonder. The water is 45 °F (7 °C) in both winter and summer. Since the days of the

in the 1930s, the state has operated a manually propelled observation raft. The raft, which is fixed by cables, carries visitors onto the spring pond, allowing the depths of the pond to be seen from above. The pond is stocked with

trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...

The Indian Lake has more than 10,000 gallons (40,000 liters) of water per minute pass from the pond into nearby Indian Lake. Palms Book State Park protects approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) of lake frontage.

References

External links

Palms Book State Park
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Palms Book State Park Map
Michigan Department of Natural Resources {{authority control State parks of Michigan Protected areas of Schoolcraft County, Michigan Civilian Conservation Corps in Michigan Protected areas established in 1929 1929 establishments in Michigan