The upper peninsula of Michigan, notably know as the U.P., is the land of Gitche Gumee – the big water of lake Superior – and home to big boats and Yoopers.

Yoopers, are those folks born and raised in the U.P. Now if you are a Yooper you spend a lot of time, hunting, fishing, snow shooing and splitting wood. You can become an honorary Yooper by marrying a real Yooper or relocating to the U.P.

Many Americans don’t even know where the U.P. is or that the state of Michigan is actually two separate peninsulas separated by the Straights of Mackinaw. If you reside in the lower peninsula you live in the mitt and are a Looper. When you meet a Michigander she will hold up a hand, in the shape of a mitt, and point to the exact location where she is from.

I love the iconic sights, sounds and tastes of Yooperlandia – white pines, timber logging, shoreline beaches, waysides, pasties, cranberry bogs, smoked whitefish, wild rice, fresh berry jam, lakeside cabins, lake freighters, ship wrecks and Tradeo on the radio.

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee.”
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy. ”
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot – 1976