“When I was a student at the University of Michigan, I made it a habit of visiting almost every park of any size in the City of Ann Arbor,” writes Monroe blogger The Erie Hiker. “The amazing thing is that even after four years of exploration, I was still finding new trails, routes and cool parks. The city parks are just that good.”
Ann Arbor has an abundance of natural areas, but it takes that kind of systematic effort to know them all well—many are hidden away in the middle of neighborhoods, known to locals but mostly ignored by those who zip by on arterial roads. One of these is First Sister Lake off Jackson, part of Dolph Park in the Lakewood school district.
The little lake seems miles away from the freeway and the busy road it abuts. Formed along with its two sisters by, as Robert Frost put it, “the chisel work of an enormous glacier that braced his feet against the Arctic pole,” First Sister Lake is an oasis of nature amid the car culture. Houses along Parklake overlook it, and the whole neigborhood is just a few minutes’ walk away. There’s a little dock among the reeds from which you might observe a good deal of avian life. And you can even launch a small boat and fish—something not possible at many places in Ann Arbor. Says hookandbullet.com: “Fishermen will find a variety of fish including pumpkinseed sunfish, bream, bluegill, largemouth bass and bullhead here.” (For licenses, see Individual Sports / Fishing).
