Mar 23 – time out to reassess (recess)

Yesterday my disgruntled feelings disturbed me enough to take a step back (2,000 miles from here) & take another look at what I’m doing … or at least how I’m doing it.  In my exercising, I go into a timeless, mindless trance, since there’s no pleasant scenery available.  And in my virtual travel, I plop down in my designated stopover place & take a look around.  I try to get a street-level view of what this particular place is like.  The early photos that I chose were roadside cafes, the road stretching toward the Cascade Mountains, & mountain tunnels. 

My first real shock was when I posted pictures for Monarch, Alberta (Dec 6, 2015).  It was a declining town, and the only pictures I found were of abandoned buildings.  I felt that I was doing a disservice to the town to focus on those & disregard the living residence.  That’s when I started doing some research into each place to be able to provide a little more balanced view of what I saw from my virtual roadside.

I don’t want to be unhappy with a place for not offering what I had hoped for.  I thought that I would do well to “arrive” without expectations.  But I still carried expectations of making serendipitous discoveries.  And I have!  But now I will also add another level of regional research.  I think that if I get a general view of the region I’m entering, then I can look for specific examples in each specific place.  Then my specific discoveries will add up to my own general view of each region.

proposed state

I’m taking a look at the Upper Peninsula of Michigan & the neighboring area of Wisconsin, which some people have said should be a separate state (bombastically named “Superior”).  Residents became known as U.P.-ers, which turned into “Yoopers”.  Many of them feel that they have a stronger connection with the peninsula and its 2 Great Lakes than with the people in the southern mainland parts of their designated states. 

The peninsula is divided between the steep, rugged western half, called the Superior Upland, and the flat, swampy areas in the east.  The rock in the western portion is the result of volcanic eruptions and contains the region's iron and copper ore resources.

In 1837, when Michigan’s two peninsulas officially became a state, the land in the Upper Peninsula was described in a federal report as a "sterile region on the shores of Lake Superior destined by soil and climate to remain forever a wilderness."

ice-strewn shore of Lake Superior

Lake Superior has the greatest effect on the area, especially the northern and western parts.  Winters are long and harsh.  Lake-effect snow causes many areas to get more than 100–250 inches of snow per year, making the western U.P. a part of the Midwestern snow belt.  I guess that spring is in the air, because in the coming week, both snow and rain are predicted.

old Michigan copper mine works

Because of the long harsh winters, the land and climate are not very suitable for agriculture.  Abundant iron and copper deposits were discovered in the 1840s, and the Upper Peninsula's mines produced more mineral wealth than the California Gold Rush.  

small log truck

The land is heavily forested and the economy has been based on mining and logging, but mining has been in decline since the 1920s.  Logging remains a major industry, and outdoor tourism flourishes.  About one third of the peninsula is government-owned recreational forest land, including the Ottawa National Forest and Hiawatha National Forest. 

In some areas, the population has declined more than in others, with the six westernmost counties having lost about half their population since 1920.  Some ghost towns exist in the region.

Large numbers of French Canadian, Finnish, Swedish, Cornish, and Italian immigrants came to the Upper Peninsula to work in the mines and logging camps.  Yoopers speak a dialect influenced by Scandinavian and French-Canadian speech.  The peninsula includes the only counties in the United States where a plurality of residents claim Finnish ancestry. 

Cornish pasty ("pass-tee")

And there's interesting food to try out!  Before I discovered recipes for Saskatchewan & Manitoba, I forgot to look for distinctive regional food.  In Minnesota, I discovered and experimented with hotdish.  On the Upper Peninsula, I’ll be on the lookout for distinctive local cuisine.  Because I’m “intolerant” of dairy foods, I thought that I couldn’t appreciate the cheesiness of mainland Wisconsin & Michigan specialties.  But the U.P. offers an interesting variety of foods.  The immigrant miners from Cornwall brought with them the pasty, a hand-held meat turnover.  I’ll also be looking for “potato sausage”, a Finnish ring-bologna sausage, and cudighi (a spicy Italian meat).  Finnish immigrants contributed a cardamom-flavored sweet bread (nisu), a custardy pancake (pannukakku), and hard slices of toasted cinnamon bread dipped in coffee (korppu).  

thimbleberries

The Seattle area, where I physically live, has a strong Scandinavian ethnic presence, so I may be able to find some of these items in specialty shops here.  I can look for U.P. restaurants with these foods on the menu, but it might be more satisfying to search the internet for recipes, and try to make some myself.  It should come as no surprise to find that maple syrup is produced in this area.  And fresh Great Lakes fish, such as the lake trout, whitefish, and spring smelt are widely eaten.  I had heard of chokecherry, although the name never tempted me to try it.  And what is a thimbleberry?  As obscure and locally specific as our Pacific Northwest salmonberry, I expect.

Wisconsin and the four western Michigan counties bordering it are in the Central Time zone, but most of the Upper Peninsula observes Eastern Time.  That takes me by surprise.  Crossing into Eastern Time will feel like a milestone on my journey. 

info:  Wikipedia.com

images:  Google Images