Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, a crook of land that sticks out into Lake Superior like God's finger as painted by Michelangelo, was once a thriving mining and lumber region. Silver and copper made cities like Calumet boom
towns, sites of fancy theaters, grand homes, and beautiful churches.
Immigrants, mostly from Finland, but also from Italy, Scandinavia,
etc., came to work and build, mixing with the native Anishinabe populations and the descendants of French and American fur traders.

But
the last copper mine, White Pine, closed more than a decade ago (my
husband worked there). Some say even the big trees are running out. The
Keweenaw has tens of thousands fewer people than it did 100 years ago.
There are abandoned houses and actual ghost towns scattered throughout
the woods and backroads here -- alongside old mining shafts, defunct
railroad beds, and apple orchards gone wild.

But natural beauty,
the Keweenaw has by the buckets. While most of the old growth has been
deforested, there are stands of towering virgin timber in places like
the Porcupine Mountains State Park and Estivant Pines Sanctuary,
and thick woods of birch, hemlock, maple, and poplar have grown up
where loggers once trod. The glacier-formed ridges and valleys yield
vista after vista. Cliffs drop precipitously into the multihued water
of Lake Superior in some places, while elsewhere the land rolls into the
water as gentle white beaches decorated by driftwood sculptures. Rivers crash over red and green rocks in abundant
waterfalls, and inland lakes are fishing paradises. And then there's
Superior herself: the world's biggest lake, vast as an ocean,
mirror-still and gin-clear one day, storm-tossed and deadly the next
(remember the Edmund Fitzgerald?).

For
years, Michigan's Upper Peninsula has been a summer cottage getaway for
downstaters from the lower peninsula (aka trolls, because they live
beneath the Mackinac Bridge), Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. I've
been coming up for 40 years, since my family first moved to Beloit,
Wisconsin. Now I make the trek from Miami every year, and I know people
who come from Alaska, Montreal, Palm Springs, and San Francisco. It's
that kind of place.

With other industries depleted, the UP in
general, and Keweenaw in particular, needs to find its place as a
tourist destination beyond the cottage crowd -- though it needs to do
so in a way that won't, once again, destroy its natural resources.

And
there's no reason that the Keweenaw can't become an ecotourist and
trekker destination. Spots like the Porkies already draw a tuned-in
backpacking crowd. The park has dozens of trails that
offer camping alongside streams and Superior. It has begun adding yurts
to the log cabins that have been there for years. I have to admit: I
stayed in one of those cabins for the first time in my life last
weekend, and while it wasn't glamping, it was an almost perfect nature
experience.

The Section 17 cabin is across the stream from the
Little Carp River Trail and reachable only by a simple plank bridge.
It's a mere 1.4 miles from the trailhead, so easily hiked into, even
with a five-year-old who refuses to carry his own pack. It's stocked
with a wood stove, mattresses, cooking utensils, and, when we arrived,
the complete ingredients for s'mores (left there by a previous camper).

It was a beautiful day. I laid on the bridge and read Jim Harrison's Returning to Earth,
a wonderfully written novel set in the UP, while my husband hooked
brook trout and my son caught polywogs. We cooked brats over a campfire
and, of course, enjoyed the s'mores. Even the bugs weren't bad, and that
night, I did something I never do while lying on the ground in a tent:
I actually slept.

Of course, if you prefer to rough it more,
you can pitch a tent just about anywhere in the Porkies. If you prefer
not to rough it so much, the Union Bay Campground has full hookups for
RVs alongside the lake. There is also a four-bedroom wooden cabin for
rent by the week. If you want a hotel with bar and restaurant, the AmericInn
in Silver City has lovely water views. There are numerous lakefront
cabins and motels along the shore here, between the Porkies and
Ontonagon; Scott's Superior Inn in particular has some gorgeous log homes for rent.

The
Porkies area offers numerous other pleasures. The Presque Isle River
drops into Superior in a series of waterfalls that are hikable. Just
outside the park, between Silver City and White Pine, the Big Iron
River tumbles over rocks into pools. Cole and Bud jumped about 15 feet
into one. We've always known this previously secret spot as Greenwoods
Falls, but now it's marked with a sign calling it Bonanza.

A
group of locals, called the Friends of the Porkies, are helping increase
the region's visibility. They sponsor an artist-in-residence program
and an annual music festival, which is August 22-24 this year.

There
aren't a ton of dining options, but both the Foothills in Silver City
and Syl's in Ontonagon have great breakfasts and decent lunches. Paul's
at AmericInn offers fish and prime rib buffets. Shopping wise, make
sure to stop at my friend Jackie's store, the Great Lakes Trading Company in Silver City, to check out pottery, jewelry, and other crafts by local artisans.

On
Tuesday, I'll write about the other end of the Keweenaw, and the
picturesque towns of Calumet and Copper Harbor. The best overall guide
to the UP is by the Hunts and available in print and online.