The museum in Kalkaska is a fun place to visit.
They have it all, from a collection of arrow heads to a piece of the Berlin Wall to a section on Grace Gilbert, Barnum and Bailey’s bearded lady.
She was born and raised in Kalkaska before heading to the circus as a teen.
But the biggest attraction is out front and I’m speaking about the trout.
“Kalkaska and that fish are synonymous, says Mary Ellen Waltz of the Kalkaska Museum. “You can go to other towns. They ask where ya from? You say Kalkaska,"oh that’s where the big fish is.”
The big trout to be exact!
A brook trout, Michigan’s state fish.
Though it has no name some affectionately call him Trent the Trout and here is what I found to be the biggest news.
This fish was dedicated in 1966 by a Washington big wig, Dr. Stanley Cain, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior a noted conservationist.
He came to town and gave a speech!
This truly is the national memorial to trout fishing! Washington says so!
“This fish is 17 feet long, 12 feet high and its quite the sight,” says Waltz.
It was designed by Clifford Kimball and over the years it’s been taken down and refurbished, and people wait for its return to its proper pedestal.
In the village of Kalkaska the trout is loved.
Each spring during the trout festival, it’s the center piece and he might be the most photographed fish in the United State!
“Inferably somebody out there posing. Wanting a picture, taking a picture. Like I say we are known for that big fish,” says Waltz.
This trout is known far and wide and now you know his history.
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