People Were Mining the U.P.’s Copper 7,000 Years Ago, and the 1840s Prospectors Found Their Pits
Native peoples mined the U.P.’s copper as far back as 7,000 years ago, some of the oldest metalworking in the Americas. When the 1840s...
How the U.P. became the U.P.
History & Culture
People, places, traditions, industries, and turning points that shaped Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Keweenaw & Copper Country
40 stories from this part of the U.P.
A Whiskey Smuggler Got Caught in the U.P. After the Crew Drank Too Much of Their Own Cargo
During Prohibition, whiskey poured across the U.P.’s Canadian border, sometimes with the Coast Guard’s help. It starts with a tug called the Arbutus and...
In the U.P., Finnish Families Built the Sauna Before They Built the House
Finnish immigrants in the U.P. often built the sauna before the house and lived in it while they built everything else. Inside the Copper...
Miners in the U.P. Left Part of Their Lunch Underground for the Tommyknockers
A knock in the rock a mile underground meant something to Copper Country miners. It was the tommyknockers, and the Cornish custom of feeding...
A Freighter Vanished Off the U.P. in 1902 and All That Ever Came Back Was One Life Preserver
The SS Bannockburn sailed into a Lake Superior snowstorm in 1902 and vanished with 20 men. The only trace ever found washed up at...
He Started the U.P.’s Copper Rush. Then He Warned Everyone to Stay Away.
The U.P.’s entire copper boom traces back to one man and one report in 1841. What gets left out is that Douglass Houghton spent...
The Feds Seized the U.P.’s Sacred Copper Boulder in 1843. It’s Still in a Smithsonian Storeroom.
The Ontonagon Boulder, a 3,708-pound sacred copper mass that launched the U.P.'s copper boom, was seized in 1843 and hasn't been displayed since 1996.
There’s a Ski Hill on the Tip of the U.P. So Extreme It Has No Beginner Runs
Mount Bohemia on the tip of the Keweenaw is the Midwest's most extreme ski resort: no grooming, no snowmaking, no beginner runs, and the...
The U.P. Has Its Own Snow God, Invented by a Radio DJ to Save a Snowmobile Race
Heikki Lunta is the Upper Peninsula's own snow god, invented in 1970 by a radio DJ to save a snowmobile race. The story behind...
Before the Gold Rush, There Was a Copper Rush, and It Happened Right Here in the U.P.
Years before the forty-niners headed west, a rush for copper built the Keweenaw, and the Quincy Mine still towers over it Everybody knows the...
One of the Most Famous Lines in Sports Came From a Kid Born in the U.P.
You've heard "Win one for the Gipper" your whole life. The Gipper was a Yooper You have heard the line a thousand times. "Win...
He Snowshoed 700 Miles a Winter Across the U.P. Now a Giant Statue Honors Him
If you have ever driven Highway 41 between Baraga and L'Anse, you have probably seen him: a 35-foot figure standing on a bluff over...
There’s a Lighthouse So Far Out in Lake Superior, Keepers Called It the Loneliest Place in North America
Stannard Rock sits 24 miles from the nearest land, took five brutal years to build, and nearly killed the men who kept it The...
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