Famous Yoopers and Sorta Yoopers

Michigan's Upper Peninsula, currently with about 300,000 people spread over land making up one third of the state, may be small in population, but we can boast a few famous folks that have a connection with our area.  Here's a short list:

George "The Gipper" Gipp - first football All American for Notre Dame University and immortalized by Ronald Reagan in the movie "Knute Rockne: All American", was born in Laurium on the Keweenaw Peninsula.

John Voelker - a Marquette lawyer, judge and Michigan Supreme Court Justice wrote Anatomy of a Murder under the pen name Robert Traver.  The book was made into a movie of the same name starring Jimmy Stewart.

Tom Izzo - from Iron Mountain, is now Michigan State University's head basketball coach.

Steve Mariucci - also from Iron Mountain, starred as a quarterback at Northern University and later coached the San Francisco 49'ers and Detroit Lions.

Lloyd Carr - also played quarterback for NMU and later coached the University of Michigan's football team.

Earnest Hemingway - no, not really a Yooper.  He did spend a lot of time in the Yoop and based some of his famous short stories about fishing, etc. on U.P. locations.

Jim Harrison - no, this author is not a born Yooper either but he did have a place near Grand Marais for a while and, like Hemingway, wrote a lot of material in and about the U.P.

James Tolkan - (*Tolkan* not Tolkien!) This authentic Yooper is from Calumet.  You might recognize him as the bald high school principal from "Back to the Future" and the gritty navy officer in "Top Gun", as well as many other roles in movies and television.

Terry O'Quinn - Another bald actor - this one from Sault St. Marie - is best known as John Locke in the TV series "Lost".

Some other folks that may not be all that famous to the general public, but who have made impressive contributions:

Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson - from Ishpeming.  First leader of the Lockheed Skunkworks team.  A major contributor to the design of famous aircraft: U2, SR-71 Blackbird, the P-38 and 37 other aircraft.

Glenn T. Seaborg - also from Ishpeming, was the only living person to have an element - seaborgium (Sg) named after him.

Spring? We've Heard of That...

"Spring" on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan is a matter of semantics.  "First Day of Spring" looks nice on the calendar.  However, those words are the only thing Spring-like the Keweenaw will see for a while.

As I sit typing this post here in exile near Saginaw, I can hear at least three different kinds of frog's singing to the moon in the nearby pond.  On the Keweenaw, I hear there is still about a four foot base of snow on the ground.  They've gotten about 280 inches of snow this season - most of it since New Year's.  While southeastern Lower Michigan is drowning in heavy rain this Spring, the Keweenaw has gotten 27 inches of new snow.  Holy Wah!

The well used joke is that the Upper Peninsula has just two seasons:  Winter and a few days of bad skiing in July.  Well, its not that extreme.  However, I *have* seen in snow in June on the Keweenaw.  That has it's good side because cold snap at that time of the year can help kill off those tiny demons called black flies.  Don't get me started on them.

Spring will come to the Keweenaw....eventually.  In late April or early May the Yooper snow factory will just stop.  All of a sudden, it will get really sunny and warm and the snow will melt.  And, melt it does.  *Fast!*  For a week or two any snow packed roads will turn into slushy, chunky battle zones that make quick travel impossible.  Water will be running everywhere - in the streets, in the streams, and yup, in basements.  The rivers will rise with all the former snow rushing down out of the hills.  Streams and ponds that don't exist the other fifty weeks of the year suddenly appear and then overflow.  The forests sing with running water, birds and frogs.

And then, its over.  It's Summer.  Right about the same time everyone else in the Midwest has summer.  Our Spring is somewhat late and very short.  It's Winter, two weeks of Spring and then Summer.

The frogs calling frantically outside my window here in mid-April, Mid-Michigan seem anxious to get going with life right now.  Their U.P. cousins are still slumbering beneath inches of snow and ice.  Things can be so different in the U.P. from the rest of Michigan.

A View of the Bay and Half the Pay

"A view of the Bay and half the pay".   That's one I first heard describing wages in the Traverse City, Michigan area.  It works for the Upper Peninsula, too.  It even fits well for the Keweenaw Peninsula, given its location with Keweenaw Bay on the east side.

Yes, it can be hard to make a living in the Upper Peninsula.  Jobs can be hard to find, especially lately.  Often, they don't pay as much as the same jobs downstate.  Partly because the economy might not support the same wages.  Partly, I believe, some employers seem to believe that just living in the U.P. is part of your compensation package.

And, in a way, it is.  To borrow from the old fishing saying, a bad day at work in the U.P. beats the best day at work anywhere else.  It's just plain better to work in the Yoop.  Many jobs are related to the great natural resources - tourism, logging, mining, etc.  Even jobs in K-12 and higher education have some sort of connection to the outdoors.  Even if you have a hard day at work in a cubicle, in the U.P. you can get in your vehicle after work and be out in the wilderness in minutes.

Workers in Upper Michigan do have to contend with the factor of distance from "the rest of the world".  It is a eleven hour drive from the western tip of the U.P. to Detroit if you drive through Michigan.  The closest "big city" to the western Yoop is Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Shipping of goods is challenge.  Networking with colleagues "down below" is more of a challenge.  Air travel is a true odyssey, starting out at small regional airports using feeder airline flights.  Often there are only a few flights in or out of your local airport.  If you even have a local airport with airline service.  If you do, you often only have one airline to choose from.

The curse of distance can also be a blessing for employers and employees alike.  We Yoopers can have one word response when people say: "Oh, you are so far away from everything".  We say "Exactly".  There is a majority of people in the U.P. who *want* to be far away from "everything".  You can have Detroit.  You can have New York City or L.A.  You can even have Saginaw, Grand Rapids, etc.  Too big for us.  Too many people, too much traffic, too much of just about everything.

Yoopers know how to work and have fun in the middle of nowhere.  Hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, climbing, four wheeling, mountain biking, kayaking, mineral collecting - the list goes on and on.  And some of us even get to do one or more of those things for a living.  Sweet.

True we may not make as much money as a Wall Street banker.  We may not have chic places to eat and party after work.  We may even have to work more than one job to make ends meet.  However, like I said, you can have those other things.  We do just fine up here in the Yoop.

There and Back Again: A Trip Home... And Back to Not Home

Hello All,

Hurray!  Hurrah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah?  Sorry, I'm a historian, so I picked that one up from my Civil War studies.

Hurray, etc. because I finally made it up to the Upper Peninsula for a few days.  A few glorious days.  Yes, the drive up was long.  Yes, I had to work like a maniac to get huge amounts of snow off of roofs.  Yes, it was too short of a time.  However, any time - good, mediocre or bad - in the U.P. is better than the best time anywhere else.

Our main purpose in going to our house in Houghton, on the Keweenaw Peninsula, was to maintain the house.  Snow was the biggest problem.  From photos that our neighbor sent us showed what I had heard about - massive amounts of snow on top of our camper and on our porch roof.  The Keweenaw had almost no snow at all when we were there over New Year's weekend.  Since then, however, they have been socked and socked hard.  In January sixty seven inches fell.  In February they got fifty one.  Our daughter had been up in the beginning of March and there had been at least a foot since then.  That's over ten feet of snow in a little over three months.  Holy Wah!

Some people would say to that: "Why would anyone ever want to live in a place where you get so much snow?"  To that, *I* say: "That's exactly why I like to live there."

You see, winter in downstate Michigan is this on again, off again, thirty degrees then forty degrees, snow/rain/ice/mud kind of season.  Most of the time here in the Great Lakes Bay region, you really can't do anything outdoors.   It's just miserable.  I'd rather have some snow to play on - snowshoe, ski, snowmobile, etc.  Fishing can be done through the ice - because we have solid, stable ice on the inland lakes.  If you're going to have winter, let's have a real winter.  Otherwise let's go to Florida or Arizona, eh?

Yes with great opportunity can come great challenges.  I had to carve out a cube of snow from our driveway about equivalent to our mid-size Honda Element.  The snowplows had piled up about five feet of snow in the mouth of our driveway.  And I needed to do that excavation before the end of the day we got there because you are not allowed to park on the street overnight in the City of Houghton.  The plows don't like dodging around vehicles as they work at night.  However, the driveway adventure was do-able.  That's what snow blowers and good shovels are for.

The next day was doing some "you've got to be there in person" kind of banking and also for clearing about two feet of snow off of the top of our camper.  Also found time to get some good food.

Saturday we took the dogs up to the Delaware Mine, just south of Copper Harbor, to go snowshoeing.  It looked dicey for my wife and our elderly dogs as there was about four feet of snow on the ground with no snowmobile tracks to pave the way for us.  However, Intrepid Jim was able to break a trail through the drifts and fun was had for all.

Sunday called for climbing out the second story bedroom window out to the porch roof.  Three to four foot drifts were up there threatening to do harm to the porch structure.  All in a day's work.  A Yooper day's work, eh?

Add in some good Keweenaw food and some great Keweenaw beer and it was a very good trip.  My wife had some much needed R&R after organizing and leading a huge fundraising event for the foundation she directs.  I got some much needed time away from school, work and family illnesses.  We even survived with little or no Internet access and sometimes limited cell phone service.

On the nine hour trip back we worked on plans for getting us back up to the Keweenaw for good.  It could happen.

In closing, I'll note that as I write this the Keweenaw has a winter storm warning with 12-17 inches of new snow possible.  Holy Wah!

Hanging On. None Too Soon.

As I look up from the computer tonight I can see the full moon bathing the earth with it's ghostly glorious light.  It is so clear and close that I can see the craters and seas even though I am peering through the slats of the window blinds. Beautiful.  Heart wrenching.

It is heart wrenching because this kind of massive moon makes me think of the Keweenaw Peninsula.  That is where the moon and I have shared some private moments.  Moments where its just us.  Just the two of us.

You see, at this time in my life I could really use some of those heart to heart conversations with a Keweenaw moon.  College (again?!). Drone job. Offspring struggling to find themselves.  Standing beside a spouse whose mother is facing a showdown with Mr Grim.  Watching my own mother slide farther and farther adrift in the cognitive ocean.  Wondering what in the hell I am to do when I grow up.  All this has me wanting to run off to the where the wild things are.  I am intensely Yearning for the U.P.

I won't run off.  I will stand here.  At least for now.  Hanging on.  That is what I will do.  What I must do.

There must be others who have known the Yoop that feel this way.  Yearning for those woods.  Those rocks.  Those streams.  The Big Lake.  All the while stuck in some other thing, some other where, some other how.  Cut off from the land that gives them strength.  The land that gives them shelter.  The land.

Is there something wrong with me that I have such an attachment to some bits of wood, rock and H2O?  I don't know.

And I don't know if anyone will ever see this besides my instructor.  This classwork spawned blog has not exactly been burning up the Internet.  Ah, ......well.

If anyone who is also Yearning for the U.P. does see this, now you know you are not the only one.  Look forward to when you can at least visit your heart land.  Myself, I will be visiting in mid-March.  None too soon.

Beautiful Day in the Keweenaw

Hi,

A quick post.

I just had to share this photo of Houghton, MI (not Houghton Lake for my confused Lowper readers).  This cam is located in Hancock, just across the Portage Waterway from Houghton.  That is the Portage Lift Bridge - the only way to get north up the Keweenaw Peninsula from Houghton on land.  The Portage Waterway cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula.  If this cam was scootched over just a bit to the right you could see my house about halfway up the hill in West Houghton.

To see the live version of this webcam go to this link.

Winter Carnival in the Keweenaw!

Trivia question for you: What is the northernmost university in the state of Michigan?  Michigan Technological University in Houghton?  (wrong answer buzzer).  Nope, it's Finlandia University in Hancock.  True its just about 100 yards or so farther north than Michigan Tech, but it is farther north.

However, Tech *is* Michigan's most northern *public* university.  And, this week is one of Michigan Tech's and the Keweenaw's coolest events - The MTU Winter Carnival.

From snow sculpture creations to broomball tournaments, the Tech Winter Carnival has something for everyone.  Students, faculty, visitors and the whole community pull together to put on a wild winter shindig.

One of the neato things I ran across this year is MTU's webcams for the broomball tournaments.  You can actually watch them play broomball live - and you get to stay warm while you watch.

My meager blog post this time can't really portray this ultra-cool (cold?) event the way it should be done.  However, check out some of the links and you'll get a taste of what the Carnival is like.

And, if you jump in your car soon, you might catch the judging of the snow statue competition that starts on Thursday morning.  Come, on - its only about a nine hour drive from the Saginaw/Bay City area.  I can do that in my sleep (and sometimes have).  ;-)

My Copper Country Song

I heard James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind" on the speakers at work today and I could not get it out of my head.  He sings about being homesick for his North Carolina home.  If you are not familiar with it, here is a link to a video of a recent version.  It made me sort of homesick for the Copper Country/Keweenaw Peninsula where we still own our house.

It occurred to me that "Copper Country" and "Carolina" are similar syllable-wise, etc.  So I wondered if I could write Copper Country themed lyrics based on J.T.'s work.  I've never written lyrics before, but hey, I never Tweeted before a few weeks ago either.  So, why not?

My apologies to Mr. Taylor and I hope I have not violated some copyright law or something.  I don't at this time intend to make any money on this and would pursue getting permission if I did.  Technically this whole blog site is a school project, so maybe I won't have storm troopers busting down my door tomorrow morning.

Let me know what you think and if you have any change suggestions.  If you are a singer and want to do a cover of this I would really like to hear it.  You *really* don't want *me* to sing it.

Anyway, here it is:

Copper Country In My Mind

Lyrics by Jim Curtis

Based on “Carolina In My Mind” by James Taylor

In my mind I’m gone to Copper Country
Can’t you see the sunshine?
Can’t you just feel the moonshine?
That Keweenaw’s a friend of mine
Her voice is wild and kind
Oh I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

Quincy she’s a copper mine
The sun comes out and watch her shine
Watch her watch the towns below
A silver tear appearing now I’m crying ain’t I?
I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

There ain’t no doubt in no-one’s mind
That land’s the finest land around
Whispering wind in the pines
Northern Lights the sky’s on fire and I’m dying, ain’t I?
I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

In my mind I’m gone to Copper Country
Can’t you see the Big Lake?
Can’t you just feel your toes ache?
The white water waves break
Rock art left behind
And I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

Dark and silent late last night
Think I might have heard the owls a’calling
Geese that honk and hawks in flight.
And signs that might be omens say I’m goin’, I’m goin’
I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

Now with crowds of people bustlin’ all around me
Feelin’ stuck on the dark side of the moon
And it looks like it goes on like this forever
You must forgive me

If I’m up and gone to Copper Country in my mind

In my mind I’m gone to Copper Country
Can’t you see the snow fall?
Can’t you just feel the wind howl?
And ain’t the drifts ten feet tall?
You gaze until you’re blind
Oh I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

Oh I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

I’m already gone

I’m gone

Say nice things about me

I’m gone

You’ll have to carry on without me

I’m gone
Oh I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind

I’m gone

Yes, I’m gone to Copper Country in my mind.

Yooper Critters!

"...we got some of da best hunting and fishing in da whole world.  Bear as tall as Norway Pines!  We got wolf, moose, beaver, wild turkey, quail, rabbit, fox and, ah course: da bucks.  Holy Wah do we got bucks - big as Buicks!  You can slice da venison off a one Superior State buck and feed da whole state of Wisconsin!"
- Albert Soady (played by Harve Presnell) in "Escanaba in da Moonlight" (2001)

Yes, as Albert says in the Jeff Daniels mystical off the wall comedy film, the Upper Peninsula sure does have critters.  All kinds of critters.

I was thinking about that this morning after I saw a pair of bald eagles while driving to school.  No, I wasn't in the U.P., I was in the Lowp, as I call the Lower Peninsula.  I was not even in the northern part of the Lowp.  I was at the intersection of Tittabawasee Road and and M-47 near Freeland, MI just after the bridge over the Tittabawasee River.  As I crossed M-47 a bird with a huge wingspan leaped off a branch of a tree and flew off.  As I sped by I could clearly see the second massive bird with the distinctive white head sitting on a nearby branch.  I was surprised because I usually don't see many bald eagles in the Saginaw area, although I do know a few are around.  They must have been attracted by the open water on the river.

This eagle was photographed at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the central U.P.

Well, the U.P. sure has eagles.  Tons of them.  I love 'em.  They are one of my totem creatures.  My heart jumps a little every time I see them.  On the Keweenaw Peninsula in the northwest of Upper Michigan, there are raptor migrations in the spring where you can see hundreds of bald eagles, golden eagles and thousands of other birds as they travel north.  I almost need a heart defibrillator when I see that many in one area.

Albert left out a few critters besides eagles: sandhill cranes; owls; canada geese; hawks of all kinds; trout; salmon; whitefish (my favorite),.....

Usually what I picture whitefish as looking like.  I hear they are a silver fish.

...pike and many other water breathers; moose; mink; weasels; porcupines; fishers (they eat porcupines); bobcat; lynx; coyotes; and many miscellaneous little critters the predators love to eat.

And yes, we have cougars.  After hundreds of sightings and tracks reported over the years, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has finally admitted that there are cougars in the Upper Peninsula.  Well, we Yoopers are used to Lansing taking its time when it comes to things regarding the U.P.

I'm sure I may have left off a few from Yooper critter list.  There are so many, I lose track.  Remind me, please.

You don't have to be a hunter or fisher (the non-porkie eating kind) to appreciate Yooper critters.  Lots of folks from the U.P. or just visiting love to wander around the two tracks through the woods just to look at critters.  You don't have to eat them and/or put them on your wall to appreciate them.

What's your favorite Yooper critter?  Why?  Which Yooper critter would you like to see but have not yet?  Drop me a line and let me know.

Well, Here Goes......

Hello and Welcome to Yearning for the Yoop!

This blog is for people who love the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - da Yoop- and for one reason or another aren't there right now.  Call us Yooper Exiles, Yooper Ex-Pats, Yooper Fans, whatever.

This blog can also be for people who are currently in the U.P. and perhaps want to be in another part of the U.P.  Maybe you had to move from your Yooper home to another place in the Yoop for work.  Maybe you are traveling around the Yoop.  Maybe the law in your end of the Yoop is looking for you and you're hiding out in the other end (if so, I recommend that you don't post anything on this blog, eh?).

Or, maybe you'd just like to learn more about Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  The Yoop??? What's that?  Why do they call it that? I give you some edumacation on the Yoop in later posts.  For now you can go to this Wikipedia link about the U.P.

I'd like to use Yearning for the Yoop to find out why people leave the U.P., where they went and what plans, dreams, or schemes they have to get back there.

What do you love about the Yoop?  What do you hate about the Yoop?  Why do you want to go back there despite what you don't like about it?

I'd also like us to share what parts of the Yoop are your favorites and why.  Let's share stories, recommendations, photos, links, etc.  The Yoop is a huge chunk of territory with many very different places in it.  What one person calls the best part of the U.P. may be different than the next person's.

Myself, I am a big fan of the Copper Country on the Keweenaw Peninsula.  My home is there.  I've spent the most time there.  However, I know there are some other great places around the Yoop and I'd like to learn about more places.

So, grab a pasty and a KBC and sit with your computer and let's have a chat about da Yoop.  I'll try to keep my homesick sobbing as quiet as I can dere, eh?