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The world's largest bronze wildlife sculpture, depicting two 20-foot-tall fighting grizzly bears, weighing in at a mere 17,000-pound greets you on arrival at Cabela's, Dundee, MI store [30 miles south of Detroit]. This massive 225,000-square-foot shop, contains a two storey, 40' high mountain, with waterfalls and 60' stream, featuring wild game trophies in their habitats. At the end of the stream is a stocked trout pond. |
Besides the mountain, there is a 65,000-gallon, walk-through aquarium stocked with freshwater fish, two dioramas containing dozens of African wildlife mounts, an art gallery, a restaurant, and a laser shooting gallery [great fun when you hit a target].
The mountain animals include black, brown, grizzly and polar bears, Alaska Yukon, Wyoming and Canada moose, goats, mountain lion, caribou, bison, antelope, coyote, American elk, wolverines, wolves, musk ox, mule deer and whitetail deer. Smaller North American animals include bobcat, fox, otters, beaver, muskrat, badger, and a variety of grouse and quail.
The store seems to be as much of a tourist attraction, as a place to go and buy your outdoor, hunting, fishing, boating gear etc. People were taking numerous photographs, so I joined in. Only intending to stay around 20 minutes, I emerged 2 ½ hours later, a few pennies poorer. There were plenty of shoppers walking out with bags and bags of gear, along with the 'visitors'. The store opened at the end of August 2000, and is expected to draw 6 million visitors a year to become Michigan's top tourist attraction. Perhaps one isn't supposed to actually buy anything? There is a gift shop, with the usual glasses, T-shirts, magnets etc. The 'outdoor' gear was all good quality and very reasonably priced too. Visit Cabela's Dundee official website
