Gierke Rd

This is 108 acres in two parcels on Gierke Road in Thompson Township, Schoolcraft County, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, about nine miles southwest of Manistique. The remarks describe a 60-acre parcel on a county-maintained gravel road with hardwoods and conifers, Gierke Creek through it, a trail system, five deer blinds, a base camp with a propane heater and a wood stove and lights run off an included generator, a storage shed, an outhouse and young apple trees, and a second parcel of 48 acres with a spring-fed pond and a small shack. The headline promises deeded Lake Michigan access. The listing’s own aerial puts that access at a beach among the cottages along the shore, and the two parcels far inland behind it. It was listed on September 8, 2026 at $235,000. Redfin’s record for the property shows a sale at $79,500 in 2018 and another at $28,500 in 2020.

There is no street address. The listing carries the land as TBD Gierke Road. That means no mail, no utility service order and no 911 address until the township assigns a number, and lenders and insurers will ask for one before they quote.

The two parcels

The aerials outline an irregular parcel of hardwoods and conifers with the lake on the horizon, and a second, squarer parcel with an open marsh and the pond in the middle. The listing gives 660 feet of road frontage and calls the road gravel. The remarks say the 60 acres sit along a county-maintained road. Nothing says whether the 48 acres touch the road, touch the 60, or are reached across them.

The base camp

The photos show a small gabled building with weathered grey boards on the front, green metal siding on the sides, a white door, two propane cylinders against the wall and a stove pipe through the roof, with a metal storage shed beside it on a mowed yard. Inside, the walls are bare sheathing under fluorescent lights, with bunk beds, two leather sofas, a table and chairs, a television, a wall-mounted propane heater, deer mounts and crossbows on the wall. The remarks say the electric is run to the camp for outlets and lighting and powered by the generator, which is included. A red portable generator is photographed. The outhouse stands at the edge of the yard. The listing’s fields count the buildings as shed, guest house and outhouse.

The land

The photos walk mowed openings in the hardwoods, young apple trees in cages, a dark creek through the brush, sandy and grassed trails, and the blinds: an elevated box on a wooden stand, a black box on a platform in the birches, a tall blind with a ladder, a camouflage blind on legs in the pines and a ground blind beside a trail. The remarks say five blinds, and five distinct blinds appear in the photos. The pond sits in a marsh under a wide sky with lily pads on the water. On the 48-acre parcel a red shack stands on a trailer frame with wheels under it, with a pine-paneled interior, counters and two chairs.

The lake access

Three photos show a mowed lane between cedars to a sand beach with dune grass and the open lake. The listing’s aerial of the shore marks the lake access with an arrow at a spot among the cottages along the water, and marks Parcel 1 and Parcel 2 with arrows at the treeline far inland. The listing’s fields say beach access and Great Lake for waterfront features and Lake Michigan as the body of water, and give the frontage type as road. The parcels are not on the lake.

The facts

What to know before you call

Three parcel numbers and none of them match. The listing says two parcels, 60 and 48 acres. Zillow prints two parcel numbers for it. Redfin prints one, and it is a third number that matches neither. Redfin’s sale history hangs on that third number. So the 108 acres, the split into 60 and 48, and which parcel sold for what are all as the listing states them, with nothing that lines up between the two sites. Ask the Thompson Township assessor for both parcels in the sale by number, with the legal descriptions, the acreage on the roll, whether they adjoin, and whether either was split since 2020. Ask for a survey. On 108 acres a few percent is several acres.

Sold for $28,500 in 2020, asking $235,000 now. Redfin’s record shows a sale at $79,500 in August 2018 and a sale at $28,500 in March 2020, under one parcel number. If the 2020 sale was one of the two parcels, the other came from somewhere else. If it was all of it, the price has gone up eight times in six years. The camp, the blinds, the trails and the apple trees have been added since, but a base camp and a generator do not explain most of $200,000. Ask what sold in 2018, what sold in 2020, and what the seller paid for the piece that did not.

The Lake Michigan access is not on the land. The listing’s own aerial marks the access at a beach among the cottages on the shore and marks both parcels at the treeline behind it. The remarks call the access deeded. Ask to see it on the deed: whether it is an easement over a neighbor’s lot, an interest in a common beach lot in a platted subdivision, or a right that runs with one of these parcels or with the other. Ask whether it can be reached by vehicle or only on foot, whether anything can be left on the beach, whether it is shared with everyone else in the plat, and who maintains the lane between the cedars. Ask whether the access transfers with both parcels or only one, because if it goes with the 48 and you ever sell the 48, the beach goes with it.

Michigan taxes on a transfer. Michigan caps the growth of taxable value each year and uncaps it when the property changes hands, so the first bill after a sale resets to the state equalized value, which is half of market value. The listing’s $2,472 is the seller’s bill under a cap that will not survive the sale. A parcel that sold for $28,500 in 2020 has had a low cap for six years. At half of $235,000 the equalized value would be $117,500, and the bill follows it. Ask the assessor for the taxable and equalized values of both parcels now and figure the bill at the equalized value.

Not in Commercial Forest, and maybe in nothing. Michigan’s Commercial Forest program taxes enrolled land at $1.35 an acre and opens it to public foot access for hunting and fishing. On 108 acres that would be about $146 a year. The listing’s $2,472 says the land is on the regular roll, which also means no one can walk it without permission. The Qualified Forest Program exempts the school operating mills and needs a management plan, and the bill does not show whether either parcel is in it. Ask. Both programs carry withdrawal penalties, and a hunting camp does not qualify as a homestead, so it pays the 18 school operating mills a principal residence does not.

Nothing is on the road. The remarks put the 60 acres along a county-maintained road and the listing gives 660 feet of frontage. Nothing says whether the Schoolcraft County Road Commission plows Gierke Road in winter or how far, or whether the 48 acres have their own frontage. This is the Upper Peninsula. Ask what the drive looks like in January, and ask how the pond parcel is reached if it is not on the road.

No well, no septic, no power. The listing lists water as none, sewer as none and utilities as none. The remarks say electric is available at the street, which means a line to the road, not a service to the camp. The generator is the power. The outhouse is the toilet. Ask the Luce-Mackinac-Alger-Schoolcraft health department what a well and septic would take here, and ask the power company what a service drop from the road to the camp would cost.

Permitted, or not. The listing files the land as unimproved and counts a shed, a guest house and an outhouse. The remarks add a base camp, a small shack and five blinds. Ask Schoolcraft County whether the camp was permitted, whether the county classes it as a dwelling or an accessory building, whether the outhouse is permitted, and what the Resource Production zoning allows for a house if you ever build one. Ask what conveys: the generator is included in writing, and the red shack on wheels is a trailer, not a building, so ask whether it stays, whether it has a title, and whether the blinds and the furniture in the camp stay too.

The pond and the wet ground. The 48-acre parcel’s aerial shows an open marsh through the middle with the pond in it. Michigan regulates wetlands within 500 feet of a lake, pond or stream, and there is a pond on one parcel and a creek through the other. Ask for the National Wetlands Inventory map of both parcels, and ask whether the pond was dug, dammed or natural, because a dug pond needed a permit and a dammed one has a dam.

No national forest, no state land on the line. The remarks do not claim public land on the boundary, and the layers we queried agree: the federal protected areas database, the Forest Service ownership layer and the Hiawatha National Forest proclaimed boundary all show nothing within two and a half kilometers of the coordinates, and the proclaimed boundary layer places the land outside the forest. This land is private on every side, which cuts both ways for a hunter.

Thirty-five photos of 86. Zillow and Redfin carry the same 86 in the same order. We used 35, leaving out four trail camera frames of deer and a turkey, two photographs of children with a turkey, and the near-duplicate trail and field frames. There is no map beyond the drawn outlines on the aerials, and no photo of the road, the frontage or the shed’s interior. Not shown: the creek’s course, the boundaries, and the lane from the road to the camp. Nothing is virtually staged.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. For other Upper Peninsula land we have a log cottage near Lake Michigan with deeded lake access on the Garden Peninsula and a cabin with its own lake inside the Hiawatha National Forest near Wetmore.

To ask about this one, call Samantha Lynts at Grover Real Estate on 906-450-1808, or the office on 906-341-2131, and reference MLS 50221152. Tell them where you saw it.