Photo courtesy of the Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival.

In 1875, eight sportsmen bought 2,000 acres of Lake Erie marsh and started one of the most prestigious hunting clubs in North America. It now hosts one of the oldest waterfowl festivals in the country, nearly 80 years running.

The Origin of Pointe Mouillee

French fur traders had been working this stretch of Lake Erie since the 1600s. As the market for beaver hats in Europe grew, French traders pushed deeper into the Great Lakes region to keep up with demand as the East Coast got trapped out. In 1701, Detroit was founded as a fur trade hub, well positioned to connect Lake Erie and Lake Huron and control the flow of pelts through the region.

Once Detroit became central to the Great Lakes fur trade, the surrounding wetlands, including Pointe Mouillee, played an instrumental role in supplying beaver and muskrat. The marshland was thick with fur-bearing animals and sat directly on the water route in and out of Detroit. In 1749, the French began referring to the area as “mouillée,” meaning wet or moist, so it became known as “wet point.”

From Hunting Club to Public Game Area

Those eight sportsmen who bought the marsh in 1875 called their club the Big 8 Shooting Club. Four years later, in 1879, it was renamed the Pointe Mouillee Shooting Club. It remained one of the most prestigious hunting clubs in North America until 1945, when the State of Michigan purchased 2,600 acres from the club using Pittman-Robertson federal excise tax funds and the state Game and Fish Protection Fund, opening the land to the public for the first time.

The marsh eroded badly over the following decades as Lake Erie’s fluctuating water levels wore down the natural barrier island protecting it. In the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needed a disposal site for material dredged from shipping channels. They built a 700-acre, 1,400-foot-wide, 3.5-mile-long confined disposal facility shaped like the original barrier island. The facility was nicknamed “The Banana” and became one of the largest freshwater marsh restoration projects in the world.

Why Pointe Mouillee Is a Top Birding Destination in the Midwest

Part of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge system, a rare cross-border area, Pointe Mouillee offers over 4,000 acres of managed habitat. It was recognized as an International Shorebird Importance Area in 2001, with 10,000 to 20,000 shorebirds using the marsh. Notable species include bald eagles, black-crowned night herons, osprey, glossy ibis, black-necked stilts, and whimbrels.

Pointe Mouillee sits at the meeting point of two major flyways, the Mississippi and the Atlantic. The Mississippi Flyway is one of four major bird migration corridors in North America, used by around 40 percent of all North American migratory waterfowl and shorebirds and more than 325 species total, moving between northern breeding grounds and southern wintering grounds twice a year. The Atlantic Flyway runs along the eastern seaboard from Maine down through the Caribbean, used by more than 500 bird species. Lower Great Lakes sites, including Magee Marsh just across the water in Ohio, are generally considered part of the Atlantic Flyway rather than the Mississippi, which puts Pointe Mouillee right in the seam between the two.

Due to development and shoreline change on Lake Erie, Pointe Mouillee is one of the last significant chunks of wetland left sitting at that meeting point, making it a critical rest stop for birds moving through the region on both flyways.

The Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival

The festival was founded in 1947 and is one of the longest-running waterfowl festivals in the country. Events include the Lake Erie Championship Layout Shoot, duck calling contest, dog jump, muck run, and Michigan Duck Hunters Tournament. Over 100 exhibitor booths make up what regulars call the “Greatest Outdoor Trading Post,” alongside a wildlife art and craft show. Admission is free, with over 12,000 attendees every year. All proceeds raised at the event go straight back into habitat restoration on the game area where the festival is held.

This is part of what sets Pointe Mouillee apart from other regional festivals built around the same idea. Maryland’s Waterfowl Festival in Easton, one of the better-known events of its kind, was still a year shy of its 50th anniversary as of a few years ago, roughly three decades younger than Pointe Mouillee. Few waterfowl festivals in the country can point to a run this long, and fewer still are tied this directly to a working restoration project on a flyway crossing point instead of a general celebration of the season.

Plan Your Visit

The Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival takes place this year on September 19 and 20 at the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area in Michigan, just south of Detroit. Admission is free, though a few of the contests and the trading post booths do carry their own costs. It’s recommended to bring cash for the vendors, boots if you’re planning to watch the Muck Run, and plan on staying for both days if you can. For a full event schedule, check ptemouilleewaterfowlfestival.org.

Special thanks to the Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival for reviewing and verifying the historical details in this article.

Curious about the dogs that make Great Lakes hunting traditions what they are? Read our history of pointing dogs in the north woods.

Sources

• Pointe Mouillee Marsh Historical Marker, Michigan Department of State Bureau of History — https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=170942
• “Hy Dahlka and Pointe Mouillee,” Monroe Memories and More — https://monroemichigan.wordpress.com/2016/11/19/hy-dahlka-and-pointe-mouillee/
• “Pointe Mouillee a waterfowl mecca,” Michigan Wildlife Council — https://hereformioutdoors.org/stories/2016/09/28/pointe-mouillee-waterfowl-mecca/
• Pointe Mouillee State Game Area profile, Michigan Trail Maps — https://www.michigantrailmaps.com/member-detail/pointe-mouillee-state-game-area/
• “Fur Trading Foundations,” Monroe Memories and More — https://monroemichigan.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/fur-trading-foundations/
• “The Fur Trade,” French Heritage Corridor — https://www.frenchheritagecorridor.org/french-history/the-fur-trade/
• “Fur Industry in Detroit,” Dittrich Furs — https://dittrichfurs.com/about-us/fur-industry-in-detroit/
• Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, Michigan DNR — https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/things-to-do/hunting/where/wetland-wonders/pointe-mouillee-sga
• “Five Public Land Hotspots in the Mississippi Flyway for 2021,” Ducks Unlimited — https://www.ducks.org/hunting/waterfowl-hunting-destinations/five-public-land-hotspots-in-the-mississippi-flyway-for-2021
• Erie Marsh Preserve, The Nature Conservancy in Michigan — https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/erie-marsh-preserve/
• “A Tale of Two Flyways,” The Nature Conservancy — https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/michigan/stories-in-michigan/migratory-birds-flyways/
• “Avian Superhighways: The Four Flyways of North America,” American Bird Conservancy — https://abcbirds.org/news/four-flyways-of-north-america/
• “Understanding Waterfowl: The Flyways,” Ducks Unlimited — https://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/understanding-waterfowl-the-flyways
• “A Critical Sanctuary Along the Atlantic Flyway,” Audubon Pine Island Sanctuary — https://pineisland.audubon.org/landingbirds/critical-sanctuary-along-atlantic-flyway
• Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival, official site — https://ptemouilleewaterfowlfestival.org/
• “Pointe Mouillee Waterfowl Festival Sept. 13-14 celebrates world-class migratory bird destination,” Michigan DNR — https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/about/newsroom/releases/2025/09/09/pointe-mouillee-waterfowl-festival-sept-13-14
• “Annual Waterfowl Festival Returns to Pointe Mouillee,” The Outdoor Wire — https://www.theoutdoorwire.com/releases/9cf8c7ed-07da-4306-ac4a-42a33d4f7d9d
• Point Mouillee Waterfowl Festival, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — https://www.fws.gov/event/point-mouilee-waterfowl-festival