The U.S. Built Only Three Steel Dams. One Is in the Keweenaw — and the Wooden Dam It Replaced Outlasted It.
The Redridge Steel Dam is one of only three steel dams ever built in the United States. In 1979 crews cut holes in it,...
Land, water, weather, and the road there
Outdoors & Travel
Upper Peninsula wild places, practical travel context, outdoor traditions, and the stories behind the view.
Keweenaw & Copper Country
15 stories from this part of the U.P.
Michigan’s Tallest Waterfall Was Off-Limits for Years. The State Finally Built a Way In.
Houghton-Douglass Falls drops 110 feet, the tallest in Michigan. After years of fatal accidents and a locked gate, the DNR has opened a trail...
An Ordinary Roadside Park on US-41 Hides a Slate Canyon. The Real One Is Further In Than Anyone Walks.
Canyon Falls drops into a box gorge the Sturgeon River cut through slate. The stretch that actually earns the Grand Canyon of Michigan nickname...
Locals Call It Copper Island. One Bridge Is the Only Way On — and It’s the Heaviest of Its Kind on Earth.
A ship canal finished in 1874 cut the northern Keweenaw off from the rest of Michigan, and the Portage Lake Lift Bridge is the...
There’s a 30-Foot Ruler Standing Beside US-41 in the Keweenaw. One Winter, the Snow Nearly Topped It.
The Keweenaw snow thermometer north of Mohawk marks a 390.4-inch winter. The stranger part is how that number is measured, and why the real...
Michigan’s Highest Point Keeps Getting Dethroned by Inches. The Latest Culprit May Be Hikers’ Boots.
Mount Arvon took the crown from Mount Curwood by 11 inches in 1982. A modern resurvey just handed it back by about five, and...
Michigan’s First Rocket to Reach Space Didn’t Launch From Florida. It Launched From the End of a Dirt Road Past Copper Harbor.
From 1964 to 1971, NASA and the University of Michigan fired research rockets off the very tip of the Keweenaw, mostly in winter, over...
Michigan’s Official Gem Is Found Nowhere on Earth but the U.P., and Its Namesake Island Is Off-Limits
Chlorastrolite, the Isle Royale greenstone, exists only on Isle Royale and the Keweenaw. Collecting on the island is illegal, a senator compared it to...
Copper Harbor’s Giant Pines Were Sold to Loggers. The Neighbors Bought Them Back.
Copper Harbor’s giant white pines were sold to loggers, until a 1970 newspaper column sparked a Save the Pines campaign. Neighbors and even schoolkids...
Michigan’s Prettiest Waterfall Never Runs Dry. A Power Company Keeps the Tap On.
Bond Falls near Paulding may be Michigan's prettiest waterfall, and its famously steady flow has a secret: a power company dam keeps the tap...
The Rocks Yoopers Hunt on Lake Superior Beaches Are a Billion Years Old
Lake Superior agates are the U.P.'s favorite beach treasure, banded stones about a billion years old. How they formed, and how to spot one...
Are There Mountain Lions in the Upper Peninsula? The DNR Just Confirmed Cubs for the First Time
For the first time in over a century, a mother cougar and two cubs are living in the U.P. — and 2025 just set...
Isle Royale Is Michigan’s Only National Park, and the Least-Visited One in the Lower 48
An island wilderness of wolves and moose, with no roads and a lake on it that has its own island. And it's the least-visited...
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