As
a vacation destination, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula offers everything
you’d expect—and plenty you wouldn’t.
You won’t be disappointed if you come seeking hiking,
fishing, berry-picking and boating thrills, of course. This wild land
is just teeming with natural settings.
Mountains of music
Even back in the Upper Peninsula’s rough-and-tumble,
mining and logging boom days, UP recreation often meant culture: singers,
musicians, actors and others bringing to camps and towns the civilized
arts. A taste for finer things explains why the Calumet Theatre, a popular
restored venue today, was built back at the turn of the 19th century.
Arts are still a big part of the lives of UP residents
and visitors, and the Calumet Theatre is one of the venues of the Pine
Mountain Music Festival (www.pmmf.org).
This 15-year-old festival celebrates that fact with five
weeks of opera, symphony and chamber music spread across a wide swath
of the western end of the Upper Peninsula, and even sneaking a few miles
into Wisconsin.
The
festival began as a one-week chamber music event, quickly expanding artistically
to include opera. It next spread geographically, so this year there will
be nearly 40 concerts, workshops, demonstrations, master classes and lectures
in four areas: Houghton/Calumet, Marquette, Iron Mountain/Norway and even
Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin.
This land is your land
The western UP is home to the nearly one-million-acre
Ottawa National Forest (www.fs.fed.us/r9/ottawa),
a varied land that rises from an elevation of 600 feet above sea level
at the Lake Superior water’s edge to more than 1,800 feet in the
Sylvania Wilderness. Fifty thousand acres are included in the Sylvania,
McCormick and Sturgeon River Gorge wilderness areas, but nearly all of
the Ottawa is wild land—where you’re about as likely to see
a bear, deer or eagle as another person. ORV and ATV fans may use roads
unless they’re posted against that use.
Make sure your visit includes a stop at the Ottawa Visitor
Center in Watersmeet, where a film presentation shows the north woods
through the seasons, along with exhibits.
For an unforgettable drive, take the 12-mile Black River
National Forest Scenic Byway from Bessemer to Black River Harbor. You’ll
pass waterfalls on the Black River (designated as a National Wild and
Scenic River), stands of old-growth eastern white pine and hemlock stands,
and arrive at historic Black River Harbor Village.
And,
if you just want to settle back and fish, the Ottawa National Forest offers
more than 500 named lakes and nearly 2,000 miles of rivers and streams.
Don’t neglect the Cisco Chain of Lakes, 15 connected
and island-rich lakes with a total of more than 271 miles of scenic shoreline.
These lakes are home to superb fishing for walleyes, northern pike, bass,
panfish and muskies—and locals proudly note that a 45-pound northern
muskellunge caught in Thousand Island Lake in 1980 has stood as Michigan’s
state record for the species for more than 20 years.
In da moonlight?
The Bays de Noc—Big and Little—of Lake Michigan
along the Delta County shoreline are known, and rightly known, as some
of Michigan’s finest walleye fishing waters. But once you’re
in Escanaba (www.deltafun.com),
at the head of Big Bay, fishing is just one choice on a rich menu of vacation
opportunities.
In Little Bay de Noc, for example, Wednesday night is
sailboat racing night, and boat owners are eager to take aboard once-spectators
who want to be—at least for a night—sailing racers. Afterward
there’s a meal and party—all thanks to the Escanaba Yacht Club.
Ashore, visitors can enjoy indoor swimming at the YMCA,
miniature golf, the latest movie, Wednesday night city band concerts,
bowling, or even sporting clays (clay target) shotgun shooting. And if
you’re a water person but neither walleye fishing nor sailing quite
nail it for you, try canoeing on the Escanaba, Ford or Sturgeon rivers
or, during specified times, SCUBA diving in Snail Shell Harbor of historic
Fayette State Park (www.michigan.gov/dnr).
Come August, catch the Upper Peninsula State Fair (www.michigan.gov/mda),
packing them in since 1927. These days, besides exhibits, folks come for
concerts, a rodeo, motorcycle racing, a demolition derby and even lawn-tractor
pulling contests!
Need a paddle primer?
The Upper Peninsula is sprinkled with charming little
communities. For many, a favorite is Grand Marais (www.grandmaraismichigan.com)
on the Lake Superior shoreline, at the eastern edge of Picture Rocks National
Lakeshore.
Grand Marais is also the home of the Great Lakes Sea Kayaking
Symposium (www.glsks.org),
this year entering its third decade. The event is sponsored by the Great
Lakes Sea Kayak Club, and backed by the American Canoe Association, makers
and sellers of sea kayaks, and the town of Grand Marais itself.
The symposium draws some of the best kayaking available,
and offers instruction at several skill levels. The skills are tested
pleasurably on the nearby Lake Superior waters, where paddlers can view
the splendid Pictured Rocks from the water side, then return to port for
a bonfire, wine and cheese, and more. A plus: participants can test out
kayaks of every size and description.
A long links list
Golf? Sure! Eighteen-hole (or more) courses await you
at: Gogebic Country Club in Ironwood, Pictured Rock at Munising, Kincheloe
Memorial at Kinross, Munuscong at Pickford, Sault Ste. Marie Country Club
and Tanglewood Marsh at Sault Ste. Marie, Escanaba Country Club and Terrace
Bluff at Escanaba, Gladstone at Gladstone, Highland at Bark River, Tri
Valley at Garden, Oakcrest at Norway, Pine Grove and TimberStone at Iron
Mountain, Portage Lake at Houghton, George Young at Gaastra, Iron River
at Iron River, Newberry at Newberry, Hessel Ridge at Hessel, St. Ignace
at St. Ignace, Chocolay Downs at Harvey, Red Fox Run at Gwinn, Wawonowin
at Ishpeming, North Shore at Menominee, The Rock at Woodmoor on Drummond
Island, Wild Bluffs at Bay Mills, and The Jewel on Mackinac Island.
Mackinac’s charms
Of course, a golf course named The Jewel is just one more
(great!) reason to visit the island revered by Native Americans for its
resemblance to the sacred turtle, and appreciated by British and American
forces for its offshore safety.
Today, vacationers love it for its charms (www.mackinac.com).
Here, for example, you’ll find what many consider the world’s
shortest highway, and America’s only non-motorized highway. July
Fourth brings a sailboat race around the island, plus the Wilmer T. Rabe
Pro Invitational Stone Skipping Tournament, wrapping up its fourth decade
with five people sharing a tournament record of 24 skips.
The Soo for you?
Sault Ste. Marie is Michigan’s oldest city, but it’s
the site for one of the state’s newest tourism treats—a St.
Marys River Lighthouse Tour from Soo Locks Boat Tours (www.soolocks.com).
The voyage passes through the famous shipping locks, then past some of
Lake Superior’s navigational aids—from lighthouses to buoys—that
guide ships to the locks that bypass the “falls of the St. Marys.”
Get a captain’s-eye-view of the light keeper’s resident at Cedar
Point, the Round Island lighthouse ruins, the restored Point Iroquois
Lighthouse and keeper’s residence, and Gros Cap Reefs Lighthouse.
