Au Train River
The Au Train River is a slow-moving river in Alger County on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It drains Au Train Lake in the Hiawatha National Forest and meanders roughly 10 miles north to Lake Superior at Au Train Bay, west of Munising.
Name
Local and government sources attribute the name Au Train to French usage along the south shore of Lake Superior. Township materials and regional histories describe the term as meaning “at the shortcut” or “traverse,” linked to sandbars at the river mouth where travelers dragged canoes across the beach rather than paddling around the point. Published scholarship also notes that voyageurs sometimes rendered Indigenous water-route names with French train-based forms, although a one-to-one translation for “Au Train” varies by source.
Course
The river begins at the outlet of Au Train Lake within the Hiawatha National Forest and flows north through low-gradient wetlands and sloughs before entering Lake Superior at Au Train Bay. The reach has no major rapids or portages and is commonly paddled from the Au Train Lake boat launch to the mouth.
History
Early travel and settlement
The river corridor functioned as a shoreline shortcut and portage for travelers along Lake Superior’s south shore. Township histories note intermittent visits by European explorers in the late eighteenth century and later use as a winter mail-route stop; Au Train also served briefly as a county-seat location before administrative functions shifted toward Munising.
Logging corridor (1860s–1900s)
The Au Train was used for log drives from the 1860s through the late nineteenth century. The U.S. Forest Service records logging along the river beginning in 1861, with the largest drive in 1887 when about 10 million board feet of pine were floated to Lake Superior. In the wider Pictured Rocks district, logs were rafted to Munising and Au Train bays for milling and shipment on the Great Lakes.
Industrial era and hydropower (1910–present)
Hydropower facilities were established near Au Train Falls in the early twentieth century. Federal energy records identify the Au Train Hydroelectric Project as first online in 1910 and licensed as a run-of-river project with two small units totaling about 0.9 MW. The project long operated under Upper Peninsula Power Company before ownership transitioned in the 2010s to affiliates of Renewable World Energies. In January 2021, UP Hydro announced it had filed to surrender the federal license; subsequent filings and correspondence with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) continued into 2024–2025 regarding dam condition and compliance plans.
Indigenous context
The Au Train River lies within the homelands of the Anishinaabe and within the ceded territory established by nineteenth-century treaties, under which signatory nations reserved rights to hunt, fish, and gather in the region.
Ecology and watershed
The river’s low gradient and broad marshy bends support waterfowl and other wetland species. Resident fish include walleye, perch, suckers, and bullheads, with seasonal runs of steelhead in spring and salmon in fall near the Lake Superior mouth. Within the regional context, the Au Train is among the larger Lake Superior tributary watersheds of the eastern Upper Peninsula.
Recreation
The Au Train River is a popular flatwater paddle. The Forest Service describes a 4–6 hour trip from the Au Train Lake Campground boat launch to Lake Superior, with numerous side sloughs and wildlife viewing opportunities. Access to the river and mouth area is via local roads near Au Train Bay and M-28 west of Munising.