When you picture a place with 40 bears roaming around, you probably imagine somewhere out in Montana or Alaska. Not a little town in the eastern U.P. But that’s exactly where you’ll find the largest bear-only ranch in the entire country.
Just north of Newberry — about 20 minutes south of Tahquamenon Falls — sits Oswald’s Bear Ranch, home to around 40 American black bears across 240 acres of U.P. woods. And here’s the part that makes it special: every one of them is a rescue.
A Home for Bears That Can’t Go Home
Since Dean and Jewel Oswald opened the ranch in 1997, it’s grown into something genuinely one of a kind. The bears here came from all over the country — orphaned cubs, and bears rescued from abuse, neglect, or situations where they simply couldn’t make it on their own. Because they can’t be released back into the wild, the Oswalds give them a place to live out their natural lives. The ranch doesn’t breed them (that’s illegal in Michigan anyway), and the males and females live in separate habitats.
Four Habitats, Room to Roam
This isn’t a row of cages. The bears live communally across four big natural habitats — the two largest run about a half-mile and a third of a mile around — with trees to climb, running water to swim in, and even a waterfall in the yearlings’ enclosure. Visitors walk dirt trails between the habitats and climb elevated platforms for a bird’s-eye view. Time it right and you can catch feeding, which happens around 4:00 each afternoon.
Yes, There Are Cubs
Rescued cubs come in most years, and they’re the stars of the show — so much so that local kids enter contests to name them. Bring a camera; you can get a photo with the cubs, and watching them grow into 300-pound adults over the seasons is half the reason people keep coming back year after year.
Plan Your Visit
Oswald’s is open seasonally — from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend through October 10 — so it’s open right now for the summer. It’s a walk-about, not a drive-through, so wear comfortable shoes. Admission runs $30 per vehicle (or $15 for a single visitor), active military get in free, and there’s a gift shop stocked with bear everything.
Forty rescued bears, living out their days in the U.P. woods — and most folks downstate have no idea it’s even here.
For more on the spots that make the U.P. one of a kind, check out the rest of Yooper Hub.
Details via Oswald’s Bear Ranch.
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