Havenhill Country Cottage


Visiting Charlevoix? Stay at Havenhill Country Cottage

The Area

The Lake Charlevoix area includes the northwestern lower peninsula communities of Boyne City, Charlevoix and East Jordan and smaller places like Advance, Horton’s Bay and Ironton. Petoskey is not too much further north on Lake Michigan.

Ernest Hemingway in his own time referred to the area as “God’s country” and overall includes some of the most beautiful environmental attributes in the country. Fresh water lakes and streams with excellent fishing and recreation along with extraordinary wildlife make it interesting as it is serene.

Harbors are filled with pleasure craft including a good number of Chris Craft runabouts like the one in On Golden Pond. Sailboats large and small glide between waterways that also carry impressive (and not so impressive) motor yachts.

The unique four-car Ironton ferry is still in operation from the spring thaw until ice “thick enough to run a freight train over” gives it a rest for the winter. Sadly, it’s Diesel engine has been replaced with an electric motor so the wonderful “chug, chug, chug” that would echo across the lake as people went to sleep is part of an era that has passed. So too is gone the 1900 train bridge, an engineering marvel in it’s time.

But Murdick’s fudge is still made for the abundant flow of summer tourists (known locally as “fudgies”) and the festivities of Charlevoix’s Venetian Festival among many other special events and things that make it a place you cannot wait to return to.