<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Part 1 of W,W, & O began my attempt to take a personal tour through the weird, wonderful, and obscure places and things mentioned in Kath Usitalo\u2019s book <\/span>Secret Upper Peninsula.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 (Reedy Press – 2019).\u00a0 Even though I promised to keep each segment short, Part 1 still ended up thirty some entries (or about halfway) short of the book\u2019s end.\u00a0 The places that I have not personally encountered have been bypassed (with some noted exceptions).\u00a0 We left Part 1 after discussing\u00a0 Chapter 30 about the A.E. Seaman Mineralogical Museum at MTU.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 31 – The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge – Another place that I had driven by on many occasions.\u00a0 Our good friend Bill and I decided to give the nine hole golf course a try.\u00a0 This August date can be marked by the news we heard on the way home:\u00a0 Elvis had died.\u00a0 I also remember it because it was a rather difficult golf course yet I managed to find more golf balls than I lost.\u00a0 The view of Brockway Mountain Drive from the golf course is worth the green fees.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 32 – US 41 Begins Here sign – Located just beyond the entrance to the Fort Wilkins State Park is a tourist stop marking the northern end of US 41.\u00a0 I have always been fascinated that \u2018our\u2019 US 41 is the same one celebrated in song (by the Allman Brothers in <\/span>Ramblin\u2019 Man<\/span><\/i>) but I have no real desire to see the southern terminus in Florida.\u00a0 My wife and I have been to the actual tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula thanks to a back roads trucking expedition courtesy of our buddy Dan, but not enough people get that far so no commemorative sign has been erected there.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 33 – The Jampot – Very few people make it past The Jampot near Jacob\u2019s Falls on the way to Copper Harbor without stopping.\u00a0 The Monks have truly carved their Monastery out of the wilderness funded initially by their labors making and selling products at their highway side store.\u00a0 They also do a brisk mail order business but in the time of COVID, just about everyone else is, too.\u00a0 Local merchants were skeptical they were a legitimate religious order at first, but over time they have been accepted as another popular tourist draw in Keweenaw County.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 34 – Wilber Salani\u2019s \u2018Kowsit Lots\u2019 road sign on top of Quincy Hill in Hancock.\u00a0 We just couldn\u2019t resist having a student read this sign aloud everytime we passed.\u00a0 Enough said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 38 – The Adventure Mine – When Jack Neff first began running tours in the old Adventure Mine in Greenland, it became a regular stop on our seventh grade adventures around Ontonagon County.\u00a0 When my schedule changed after my twenty-fifth year in the trenches, I went for a number of years teaching only eighth and ninth grade (Geography-Earth Science to the former and Physical Science 9 to the latter).\u00a0 When GES 7 returned to my schedule, the Adventure was between owners.\u00a0 The Adventure had been taken over by new owner Matt Portfleet about the same time the OASD sixth grade students were moved into the Jr-Sr High building.\u00a0 With a change in the State Certification laws, Grade 6 was added to my teaching credentials.\u00a0 Faced with a new curriculum to build, I stopped by to inquire if Mr. Portfleet would be interested in having my new sixth grade students take a mine tour.\u00a0 As the new owner, I can only assume this was new to him as he replied, \u2018Sure.\u00a0 How would we do this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sixth grade the first year I taught them was rather large so we split them into three groups and staggered the tour departure times by fifteen minutes.\u00a0 It worked well the first year and the next year, we added a self guided scavenger hunt in the Maple Grove Cemetery to help kill some of the wait time.\u00a0 Eventually we added a walking tour over some of the trails Portfleet had established on the property that included a visit to the old Powder House.\u00a0 From there, we would continue on the old tote road around the bluff into beautiful downtown Mass City where we would take our lunch and restroom stop at the Greenland Township building.\u00a0 After lunch, we would give the students a brief history of the old and new Mass City schools (the newer one is now used as the Township offices and fire department) before departing for more adventures in the Rockland area.\u00a0 In that this trip usually fell right around (and sometimes on) my birthday, it is one of the things I miss the most since I retired three years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 39 – The NASA rocket site – I have told this story before but have never visited the site.\u00a0 My old buddy and<\/span> NASA In The Schools <\/span><\/i>presenter Ralph Winrich told me the story long before the memorial plaque was installed there in 2000.\u00a0 The first time I asked him about the site, Ralph said, \u201cYes, I have been to the site, but not during a launch.\u00a0 Not much to see there.\u00a0 The better view was from the observation platform they set up higher on the ridge, back from the lake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 40 – The USS Kearsarge – this is the rock boat everyone drives past when traveling US 41 as it winds through the community of the same name.\u00a0 It was built in 1933-34 by workers in the Civilian Works Administration, the forerunner of the WPA.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 41 – The Yooper Tourist Trap – Located between Ishpeming and the Westwood location, it is the most visible manifestation of that renowned group of U.P. musicians, The Yoopers.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t stopped in at the Trap, but I have heard many stories from my son-in-law\u2019s father who grew up with The Yoopers founding drummer, Jim DeCaire.\u00a0 Back in high school, I bought my first microphone from a guy who played in The Joe Arkansas Band.\u00a0 He told us that on really slow nights, they would mess around by singing some of their songs with a thick UP-Finnish accent.\u00a0 He also mentioned they had started writing some of their own songs and could now fill an hour with that schtick if they wanted to.\u00a0 This turned out to be the beginnings of what would become the best Yooper band in the land.\u00a0 With the addition of the \u2018reggae-shottish\u2019 band, Conga Se Menna, we now boast two very popular yet different U.P. based bands.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 43 – The Superior Dome – Okay, everyone still calls it \u2018The Yooper Dome\u2019, but it is still a marvel.\u00a0 What better place to put a domed facility than in the snowy U.P.?\u00a0 When it opened in 1991, we took our entire flag football program to see an NMU game there and I still try to get to at least one game a year when the schedule fits.\u00a0 It is great that the 8-Man Finals are now held there.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 44 – The Teddy Roosevelt Libel Trial – this entry speaks about Teddy visiting Marquette in 1913 after being libeled in the press.\u00a0 Having spent a semester walking the halls of this grand old courthouse during my Urban Planning Internship, it is still fun to watch <\/span>Anatomy of a Murder<\/span><\/i> and see places the where it was filmed.\u00a0 In one scene, Jimmy Stewart opens a door on a stairwell landing to talk to his research man working in the \u2018law library\u2019.\u00a0 I remember this door opening into a men\u2019s restroom.\u00a0 Ah, the wonders of Hollywood film editing!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 46 – Trenary Toast – Yoopers drink coffee – Yoopers dunk TT.\u00a0 It has been that way since the bakery was founded in 1928.\u00a0 They, too, have a thriving mail order business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 48 – Rich Branstrom\u2019s Found Object Art – I have one piece inspired by Rich in my garage.\u00a0 It was created by our son Daniel when he was a student in Branstrom\u2019s class at NMU.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 49 –\u00a0 Anatomy of a Murder – Besides my experiences noted in Chapter 44, I remember the semi truck rumbling down Lincoln Avenue with \u201cOtto Preminger presents Anatomy of a Murder\u201d\u00a0 emblazoned on the side.\u00a0 It premiered in 1959 when I was in first grade, so it took my mother some explaining to fill me in about why this Otto guy had such a big truck.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 50 – Fox River – our daughter Elizabeth was thrilled when she found out I had fished on the Fox River north of Seney.\u00a0 She was in grad school and teaching a segment about Hemingway.\u00a0 She liked the part about Hemingway writing about <\/span>The Big Two-Hearted River<\/span><\/i> because he didn\u2019t want people to know he actually liked to fish on the Fox.\u00a0 Even Papa H was a true fisherman – never tell them where you catch the big ones!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 56 – Cudighi – It is usually a little spicy for me (not so for son-in-law Todd), but I have found that it isn\u2019t the only great food served at Ralph\u2019s Deli on the outskirts of Ishpeming.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 59 – Brockway Mountain Drive – The first time I drove my mother-in-law Ruth\u2019s car over Brockway on a little family adventure, she commented, \u201cMy car doesn\u2019t like this.\u201d\u00a0 Imagine how the bus drivers we directed to take this same route felt on our many field trips to Copper Harbor.\u00a0 The little gift shop at the top is now gone, but I think the lady who worked there all those years looked forward to our little mob visiting her each October.\u00a0 My dad and his partner out of the L\u2019Anse State Police Post buried their cruiser in a snow filled dip in the road one spring.\u00a0 They were on the way to investigate a car accident, but apparently the car in the accident had come up from the Copper Harbor side of the Mountain and not the end they were driving up.\u00a0 It took some digging to get out of this swale and dad said he never drove into a situation like that again.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 61 – The Kingston Plains – I spent two summers rambling the plains while taking classes at NMU\u2019s field station at Cusino Lake.\u00a0 Some of these adventures have already been discussed in past FTVs and there are a few more that will make it to print one day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 62 – The Mackinac Bridge – This I crossed the first time on a school bus when we traveled to march in two Traverse City Cherry Festival parades in the summer of 1970.\u00a0 One hasn\u2019t lived until you look over those tiny guard rails from the windows high up in a bus.\u00a0 Having now made two bus trips and seven car crossings of Big Mac, I haven\u2019t been to the LP in at least thirty years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 64 – Mackinac Island Fudge – They have been making it since 1887 and I have a new appreciation of it now that it has been used in the greatest ice cream flavor ever!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 66 – Yooperlight – The true name is \u2018syenite clast containing fluorescent sodalite\u2019 and it was discovered by accident in 2017 by gem hunter Erik Rintamaki.\u00a0 He was using a blacklight to try and find certain types of agates when he stumbled upon this new specimen.\u00a0 When I saw him on one of those \u2018weird things\u2019 TV shows, I was disappointed that they pronounced his last name as<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Rint a mocky\u2019.\u00a0 Tsk Tsk.\u00a0 \u2018RINT a mackey\u2019 as all good U.P. Finlanders would say it.\u00a0 Maybe I am just sensitive about it because our second house in Marquette was built by a Finnish carpenter named, you guessed it, Rintamaki.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 71 – The Tower of History – When my buddy Wayne got married in Sault Ste. Marie, we had a couple of hours to kill between the wedding and the reception.\u00a0 We got some funny looks being dressed to impress for the wedding, but we wandered over and took the elevator ride to the top.\u00a0 There was a cold, brisk wind coming off the lake that summer day and we would have been happy to have our gloves and chooks on as well.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 75 – The Newberry Tablet – this is another artifact that I learned about from Fred Rydholm.\u00a0 When TV investigator Scott Wolter went in search of it for his show, he was sent via the Yoopers Tourist Trap to a museum in St. Ignace where the (now) badly eroded stone is housed.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, more details can be found in Fred\u2019s <\/span>Michigan Copper – The Untold Story<\/span><\/i> book.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapter 86 – Tahquamenon Falls – I have only been there once and it was more of a \u2018oh, as long as we are here\u2019 visit.\u00a0 A class I was taking at NMU\u2019s Field Station was scheduled to take a canoe paddle on Betsy Lake to see how the DNR managed this wildlife area.\u00a0 It was so windy that day the two to three foot swells on Betsy Lake put the kibosh on that expedition.\u00a0 As a consolation prize, we went to see the falls instead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We drove across a swampy area on a narrow causeway to the Betsy Lake parking lot.\u00a0 We were going to pick up our gear there before canoeing on Betsy Lake.\u00a0 The truck toting the canoes ended up slipping off the edge of the causeway nearly blocking the road we had to take out to the main road.\u00a0 Our professor was worried he would put the university van into the swamp trying to\u00a0 squeeze by the truck which was half on and half off the causeway. The DNR guys weren\u2019t about to volunteer so it was suggested I drive the van out.\u00a0 As the student manager of the NMU Field Station that summer, I had a chauffeur’s license which allowed me to drive university vehicles.\u00a0 Perhaps he figured it would be better if I rolled the van into the swamp instead of him, but at least Dr. Niemi asked politely if I would do it.\u00a0 The rest of the class were losing patience and all but demanded that I do it.\u00a0 I pulled in the driver\u2019s side mirror and with a little help from a fellow student (who kept holding his fingers a couple of inches apart to show me how close I was to the edge), we made it past the obstruction and were off to see Tahquamenon Falls.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There you have it, my brief tour of the places mentioned in Kath Usitalo\u2019s book, <\/span>Secret Upper Peninsula<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 As always, there are more tales to tell about some of these places than room allows, so those will need to be told another day.\u00a0 If you are finding yourself a little shack happy as we start moving on from the COVID-19 restrictions, try a few day trips around the U.P. – there are plenty of interesting places to visit.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 We are talking about rambling, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Part 1 of W,W, & O began my attempt to take a personal tour through the weird, wonderful, and obscure places and things mentioned in Kath Usitalo\u2019s book Secret Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 (Reedy Press – 2019).\u00a0 Even though I promised to keep each segment short, Part 1 still ended up thirty some entries (or about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2208,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/2208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}