Reindeer a Tourist Draw

Image Gallery Dave Hoxsie exchanges a friendly greeting with Prancer, one of four reindeer who delight young winter visitors at Antler Ridge Farm just east of Traverse City. For the past 26 winters, the Hoxsies have conducted weekend sleigh rides on their century-old fruit farm. (Other photos, including sleigh ride pictures, are available on request. Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau

Reindeer mystique is only part of the magic found at Antler Ridge Farm, east of Traverse City, Michigan. Owners Dave and Sandy Hoxsie turn their century-old fruit orchard into a cold-weather tourist attraction, offering horse-drawn sleigh rides over the snowy hills and through dark cedar forests. Visiting the reindeer is a favorite part of the experience for children and grown-ups alike.

This year, the Hoxsies will offer sleigh rides as an attraction at the annual Cherry Capital Winter Wonderfest, February 15-18.

“Don’t worry,” says Dave Hoxsie, opening the gate to the reindeer pen and stepping inside. “They’re as tame as dogs.”

The four stocky animals certainly act gentle as they nose up against Hoxsie and snuffle at his pockets in search of treats. But it’s hard to ignore the impressive load of cutlery they carry on their heads, or to avoid thoughts of being snagged – quite accidentally, of course – on those complicated antlers.

“It’s all part of the fun,” says Dave Hoxsie, a fifth-generation fruit grower who’s been taking groups through his farm for 26 years. “It isn’t only the children who find them fascinating. I’ve had grown people tell me they’d never realized there were such animals – they thought it was just a legend.”

In good winters, when the snow is deep and thick, hundreds of visitors stop in at Antler Ridge Farm to ride the big 12-passenger sleigh out to a clearing in the forest where they roast marshmallows, drink hot cocoa and swap tales. The trip takes a bit less than an hour, thanks to Hoxsie’s team of huge draft horses – jet-black Percherons with muscles as thick as steel cables.

It was the horses that got this whole enterprise started, in fact. The Hoxsie family has been raising cherries on this upland farm since the end of the Civil War, when one of Dave’s ancestors received the property as a reward for serving in the Union Army. It’s been a good living over the years, but when Dave bought his first draft horse back in the 1970s he knew he couldn’t simply keep it as a pet.

“Once I realized how much food these guys eat, I knew I was going to have to find them a job,” he says.

Fortunately, there was plenty for them to do. Antler Ridge Farm lies just south of the sprawling Grand Traverse Resort and Spa, and the Hoxsies soon found themselves running sleigh rides – and summer hayrides – for the resort’s visitors.