Courtesy of Michigan Travel Ideas * 1997

Docking for Dinner

Tag along with a parade of hungry Michigan boaters and set a course for the Hack-Ma-Tack Inn, along the Cheboygan River at the Lower Peninsula's northern tip.

You can dock just steps from a two-story log restaurant, but it isn't just convenience that bings boaters from across the Great Lakes. Regulars return again and again for Hack-Ma-Tack specialties such as baby spinach salad with almonds, oranges and raspberry vinaigrette dressing, whitefish almandine (the fish arriving fresh daily from Mackinaw City) and slow-cooked prime rib. Everyone saves room for Hack-Ma-Tack pie (vanilla ice cream, crème de cacao and crème de menthe topped with pecans and chocolate sauce).

Detroit natives Mike Redding and his wife, Sue, took over the inn 16 years ago. The building, constructed in 1898 as a hunting and fishing lodge, has a high-ceilinged dining room seating 125. At one end, chefs grill meat and fish. Hunting and fishing memorabilia decorate the walls, and picture windows surround the room for river watching.

Dinners start at $15 ($18 average). Open daily 5 p.m., May through October. Hack-Ma-Tack Inn, 8131 Beebe Rd., Cheboygan, MI 49721 (616/625-2919).