Seney is an unincorporated community in Schoolcraft County in the U.P. The town is built on the outskirts of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was featured in the Ernest Hemingway short story “Big Two-Hearted River”. Seney is the crossroads of M-28 and M-77 next to the Fox River. It’s best known to most vacationers as the starting point of the Seney Stretch, that mind-numbingly monotonous 30 miles of M-28 between Seney and Shingleton. Some people claim that it is actually 50 miles because it is boring. The highway is almost straight as an arrow and flat as a pancake because it’s crossing a swamp. The scraggly, flat, landscape can get burned into a motorist’s brain and mistakenly become representative of the entire U.P. interior.

Seney Stretch

The portion of M-28 between Seney and Shingleton, called the Seney Stretch, is 25 miles (40 km)[16] of “straight-as-an-arrow highway” across the Great Manistique Swamp, “though others claim it’s 50 miles [80 km], only because it seems longer.” The Seney Stretch is the longest such section of highway in the state, and “one of the longest stretches of curveless highway east of the Mississippi.” The highway is often cited as the “state’s most boring route” according to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and Hunts’ Guide. The straightness and flatness over a great distance are given as reasons for the reputation of this stretch as boring.

The road across the swamp was constructed parallel to the line of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway (later the Soo Line Railroad). It was first numbered as a part of M-25 when that designation was used along today’s M-28 east of US 41. The most significant changes made to the stretch since its original construction were the addition of passing relief lanes and a full-scale, year-round rest area in 1999.

Part of the Seney Stretch forms the northern border of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1935, this refuge is a managed wetland in Schoolcraft County. It has an area of 95,212 acres (385 km2), and contains the Strangmoor Bog National Natural Landmark within its boundaries.