Upper Peninsula

[ZachariahDaMan]

I thought I would make a thread to talk and post pictures of the Upper Peninsula. I've never been there myself but my dad would vacation there when he was younger, he remembers gonig to Copper Harbor and Marquette. For those of you that have been to the U.P., did you like it? And what towns did you vacation to and like?

Here are the 5 most populated cities there:

Marquette- 19,661

Sault Ste. Marie- 16,542

Escanaba- 13,140

Iron Mountain- 8,154 <Steve Mariucci and Tom Izzo are natives of here

Houghton- 7,134

The entire peninsula only has about 91,624 people.

Some of the major attractions in the U.P. are the Soo Locks, Tahquamenon Falls, Copper Harbor, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the Porcupine Mountains, Isle Royale National Park, National Ski Hall of Fame and Mackinac Island (between the peninsulas).

[dtown]

u forgot Menominee, pop 9131...i guess wikipedia forgot to put that on their list, cuz i just looked and its not on there either

[RustTown]

Are you sure the population is that small? I could have sworn it was over 100,000.

[wolverine]

This site has some superb aerial photos of cities in the U/P

My favorite is around Houghton, Hancock, and Calumet. They are unusual in that they built themselves with the intention of being fairly large cities. When the mining industry left, they never continued growing, but you can see in their architecture that they appear larger than they really are.

[Allan]

I've been to every "major" town in the U.P. I'd have to agree with Wolverine...Houghton, Hancock, & Calumet are the best cities to see up that way.

Tahquamenon Falls is nice...as long as it's raining. The rain keeps the mosquitos at bay. Sunny days there can be rather miserable, since you will spend so much time swatting at mosquitos. Pictured Rocks is really cool as long as you are there on a sunny late afternoon (mid-day sun washes out the rocks). The last time I took the boat tour the lake was very calm (calmer than the captain of 30 years could remember seeing), and they took us very close to many of the rock formations, and even inside a few interesting coves that we otherwise would not have been able to see. The last time I was at Pictured Rocks we hiked instead of taking the boat tour. It was interesting, as you got to see a whole other side of things. The Porcupine Mountains & Isle Royale were nice simply because there was nobody around. I went to Mackinac Island once...I tend to avoid that place because it is too touristy for my liking. I can't say that I've ever been to the Soo Locks, though I'm told that I didn't miss much.

[RustTown]

BTW, just did a little research, and the UP is home to 328,000 persons. Still, that's only about 3% of the total population. I also realized that if you take away the UP and the water area counted in Michigan's size, the Lower Peninusla has a density almost that of Ohio in nearly the exact same area.

Totally random fact of the day.

[ZachariahDaMan]

BTW, just did a little research, and the UP is home to 328,000 persons. Still, that's only about 3% of the total population. I also realized that if you take away the UP and the water area counted in Michigan's size, the Lower Peninusla has a density almost that of Ohio in nearly the exact same area.

Totally random fact of the day.

Sorry about my number being so far off, I got it from wikipedia.

[RustTown]

The number you gave is the urbanized population, I believe. It think it said that it's the population of the largest cities over 2,000 or something like that.

[dtown]

I've been to every "major" town in the U.P. I'd have to agree with Wolverine...Houghton, Hancock, & Calumet are the best cities to see up that way.

Tahquamenon Falls is nice...as long as it's raining. The rain keeps the mosquitos at bay. Sunny days there can be rather miserable, since you will spend so much time swatting at mosquitos. Pictured Rocks is really cool as long as you are there on a sunny late afternoon (mid-day sun washes out the rocks). The last time I took the boat tour the lake was very calm (calmer than the captain of 30 years could remember seeing), and they took us very close to many of the rock formations, and even inside a few interesting coves that we otherwise would not have been able to see. The last time I was at Pictured Rocks we hiked instead of taking the boat tour. It was interesting, as you got to see a whole other side of things. The Porcupine Mountains & Isle Royale were nice simply because there was nobody around. I went to Mackinac Island once...I tend to avoid that place because it is too touristy for my liking. I can't say that I've ever been to the Soo Locks, though I'm told that I didn't miss much.

yea the locks are interesting but it takes so long for ships to get through so it get boring quickly

[chgrnative]

The U.P. is great. Every Michigander has to see the bridge in their lifetime. Taquamenon Falls is nice, Fayette is cool-there is a real ghost town there. Soo Locks are boring. I actually love Mackinaw Island. Great history, beutiful on a sunny summer day and using a bike as your main means of transportation is refreshing. I would love to get up to Copper Harbor and Porcupine someday!

[Jasoncw]

yea, I backpacked Pictured Rocks, and it's very beautiful. It was a really extreme experience, since of course you're walking along side a huge cliff, and everything is so nice looking. and because I was being eaten alive by flies the entire time!

Those were someone elses legs in the group, but if you ever plan to go up there, call about the flies first!

[GRDadof3]

Yah, the Soo Locks are somewhat interesting, although a lot more so if you take the boat tour that goes through the locks. At least you get to hear the history. Sault Ste Marie other than that is pretty depressing (visually and economically).

Mackinaw Island is great if you get away from the main drag. Rent a bike and ride around the island

Iron Mountain and Norway are interesting towns, especially with topography, the rushing Menominee River with occasional falls, and the ski jumps. But for a 10 - 12 hour drive, you might as well drive to New York

[hood]

I kind of liked the Soo Locks when I went there to, especially since I got to see one of the 1,000+ ft boats go through. I also like Marquette, the Pictured Rocks and Taquomenon Falls. I've heard that tthe Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains is worth the several mile hike to get there, but I'm not so sure i want to find out.

[JeffM]

Taquamenon Falls is definatley worth a trip to see. I enjoy Mackinac and St. Ignace is a nice town too.

Does anyone know why Mackinac is sometimes spelled with a C at the end and sometimes spelled with a W.

I notice on google maps the city is spelled with the W , but the island is spelled with a C. Does anyone know the history behind this?

[RustTown]

I've always heard that the bridge in spelled with W and the strait and island spelled with a C, but never learned why if there even is a why.

I would suspect that the bridge is spelled with a W because it is famous, and most out-of-staters probably just sounded out the word and that the W went into print outside of the state and just caught on. That's the only thing I can think of.

[Allan]

The variation on the names is because the words were transliterated differently from Native American languages to modern English. Over time, one spelling became the recognized spelling for the city, while the other became the recognized spelling for the island.

Similar situations have occured with other names up there...Keewanau and Keweenaw, for instance.

[hood]

Taquamenon Falls is definatley worth a trip to see. I enjoy Mackinac and St. Ignace is a nice town too.

Does anyone know why Mackinac is sometimes spelled with a C at the end and sometimes spelled with a W.

I notice on google maps the city is spelled with the W , but the island is spelled with a C. Does anyone know the history behind this?

The Mackinac bridge is supposed to use the c:http://www.mackinacbridge.org/

But the city is speled with a w.

Thats weird, I know the origional spelling is with a c, I have no clue why they switched it up for the city.

[RustTown]

Looks like Allan just got to it. It's still odd that they all wouldn't adopt an official spelling so as not to confuse people.

[GR8scott]

The UP always intreges me because of the continuous population loss and the unique charactor. Munising and Manistique are two smaller cities not mentioned that are both buitiful in scenary and buildings

[Michi]

Re: the spelling of Mackinac/aw, the reason there is a difference is because the area was originally settled/discovered by the French who spelled it Mackinac (and pronounced it "aw"). This geographic area of influence was Mackinac Island, Fort Michilimackinac in the Lower Peninsula, and a portion of the Upper Peninsula named Mackinac County.

Once the British came in and took over, they used the same name, left the spelling alone, but made all the new spellings Mackinaw, hence Mackinaw City. I think Mackinaw City is the only MackinAW spelling up that way...but it also reflects the correct way of pronouncing either of the words.

[RustTown]

Interesting! Thanks.

[Michi]

Yer welkom.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the reason the Mackinac Bridge is spelled with a "c" is because the bridge is named after the Straits of Mackinac which is also the French version. If you've ever noticed in some official publications, the name for the Mackinac Bridge is something like "The Mackinac Straits Bridge".

You can always tell and Ohioan or Indianan in Michigan when they mention "Mack-in-ack".

The Straits is one of my most favorite places in the world!

[ZachariahDaMan]

That second picture is gorgeous!

[wolverine]

I'm pissed because I can't find my Calumet photos. I must of misplaced them, or I lost them when I got my new comp. A shame. I had some interesting photos of some abandoned mines too.

[GRDadof3]

My parents are friends with a couple that belong to a group called "Friends of the Mackinac Bridge" or something like that, and they got to climb up inside the towers to the observation platforms at the very top They have photos back at their house, but from 35mm film. Climbing inside the towers is like being in a submarine, my Father said. There are actually tiny little elevators for portions of it, but most of it is all stairs. And the elevators only take one person at a time, so the first person has to go up hundreds of feet and wait alone in the tower while it is swaying and the wind is howling. Yeesh!!