from NPR:
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113216252 In Michigan's U.P., Visitors Welcome, Just Don't Stayby Liane Hansen
September 27, 2009
Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Sunday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET
This week, Weekend Edition Sunday is exploring the culture, traditions and economy of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Marquette, Mich., is a place you have to experience twice.
This trip, I packed fleece and tried to bring a jar of thimbleberry jelly back home. Instead, I needed sunblock, and my jelly was confiscated at the airport because it was more than three ounces. Mistake.
Daytime temperatures in downtown Marquette were near record high — low 80s. No wind, calm lake, Yoopers marking territory on the shore of Lake Superior. The summer had been colder than normal. So in the last throes of Daylight Saving Time, it was beach week in Marquette. Got a sunburn.
The last time I visited, it was winter and wicked cold. Brisk gusts of wind slapped my face on the way down to the shore. The cafe patios were closed. The massive iron ore rail troughs stood silent guard over the harbor. Cross-country skis replaced bicycles on the paths hugging the shoreline.
Longtime residents advised me: If you want to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, get an outside hobby.
I like skating.
And if there is one thing that puts Marquette on the map, it is speed skating.
This time, my visit coincided with the Olympic trials for short track — and the stars were out at the Berry Events Center. Apolo Anton Ohno made the team but placed second.
Before the action on the ice, the community wanted to welcome all the visitors. The theater department of North Michigan University was commissioned to put on a show.
On a balcony overlooking the oval, earnest performers in shades of red, black and white presented a pageant of the immigrant experience on the shores of Lake Superior.
The people we met were no-nonsense, hard-working, humorous and welcoming, but wary — similar to residents of other historically isolated places.
New technologies have opened a new vein of ore. Communication is no longer a journey by boat, rail, car or plane — now it's just a click away.
Yoopers want you to know how lucky they are to live in such a beautiful place, how hard it is to do that, how their jokes about themselves are funnier than anything you've heard — and why you shouldn't move there. Just visit. Anytime. Come again. And next time ship the thimbleberry jelly home.
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Often Left Out, U.P. Ducks Michigan's Worst Woesby Liane Hansen
September 27, 2009
If there's a Michigan map in your mind, it probably looks like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula — separated from the rest of the state by the Great Lakes — often gets left off the map entirely.
While that can be irksome, the remote nature of Michigan's northern section can also insulate it from the rest of the state's economic distress.
"You ask anybody from the U.P., 'Have you ever seen a map of the state that cuts out your part of the U.P. or the whole U.P.?" State Rep. Mike Lahti says. "They all would say 'Yes.' "
Lahti stands up for the U.P. in Michigan's Legislature. Earlier this year, Lahti was appalled when a Michigan Economic Development Corp. ad left the Upper Peninsula out.
"There was a MEDC ad that was shown nationwide, with Jeff Daniels, which promotes Michigan as a place to come for good business, good high-tech industries and also some tourist industries," Lahti says. "They finished the ad just showing the Lower Peninsula on it."
Lahti introduced a resolution to require all official maps of Michigan to include the Upper Peninsula, a land mass that makes up 30 percent of the state but only 3 percent of the population. The bill passed this summer.
"It just happens a lot. MEDC does a tremendous job for Michigan promoting business here," Lahti says. "But this is just something that was a chance to make sure that at least the state gets it right and puts us on the map."
While the U.P. now legally shares the map with the rest of Michigan, its economy is decidedly different. For example, it's not as tied to the auto industry as the Lower Peninsula.
Because we're so remote up here, many people have relied on the technology to communicate with people all around the globe.
"We have been somewhat protected from the woes of the Lower Peninsula because we're a more diversified economy," says Tawni Ferrarini, director of the Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship at Northern Michigan University. "But then, we have some interesting issues."
The Upper Peninsula's economy "is struggling, like most economies, especially when you put it in the context of the Michigan economy as a whole. Michigan leads the nation in unemployment," Ferrarini says. "We've got Baraga County, where one out of every four people are unemployed, but then you look at Mackinac County and you see we have about 2 percent there because of the tourism surrounding the island, Mackinac Island, a beautiful place."
Although there are pockets of high unemployment on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the economy there is relatively stable despite the recession. Lahti credits the diversity of industries, including minerals, forestry, tourism and agriculture.
"We've got three good universities — Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan University, Michigan Tech — and private school Finlandia in Hancock," Lahti adds. "So education is big, and because of education we're getting some companies moving in and utilizing the knowledge around the university."
In Marquette, home to Northern Michigan University, a drive through town shows more open signs than closed on the doors of local businesses. There are unique shops, too, including a bingo supply store and a historical photography place. Ferrarini says the remoteness of the U.P. has helped these sorts of mom-and-pop shops to survive.
"Because we're so remote up here, many people have relied on the technology to communicate with people all around the globe," she says. "So you'll find, not so much with the bingo store, but the historical photos, trophies or even safety shops — the Internet is our friend. And so we're able to market not only to the people who reside in the area, but people who live outside the United States as well as in different parts of the U.S."
Joe Esbrook is one of the people promoting that aspect of the U.P. economy. He's the director of business and community development for a work force development program called Michigan Works.
"If you look at the Upper Peninsula, even though we are a sticks-and-stones economy — sticks meaning logging and stones meaning mining — we do have a lot of hidden secrets up here," Esbrook says. "One of them is that we're probably one of the most wired rural regions in the United States."
Esbrook agrees that the U.P. is also more diversified than its lower neighbor, and says that's one of the issues in Michigan. "The Lower Peninsula gets all the excitement, and it's bad excitement right now because of the auto industry and all the pain and suffering that's going on there," he says. "But we do have an independent organization up here of forward thinkers that are coming together and becoming more regional. We realize that's probably the way we're going to combat the global economy and everything that's going on outside the Unites States."
But while high-tech developments and creative use of computers are essential to the economic survival of the Upper Peninsula, at heart, this is still a mining community.
"We've had mining there since 1847, a couple years before the gold rush," Lahti says. He says the area boomed around 1900, when thousands worked the copper and iron mines around Marquette, Hancock and Houghton. And mining still has prospects today, he says.
Economically speaking, however, Ferrarini says the mining industry doesn't contribute all that much to the Upper Peninsula's economy. "Surprisingly, it only accounts across the entire peninsula for about 4.5 percent of the total jobs here," she says. "But we have to take that within the context of the history of the U.P., because mining basically created the fabric on which all of us are moving today."
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Pasties: The Meaty Center Of 'Yooper' Foodby Liane Hansen
September 27, 2009
This week, Weekend Edition Sunday is exploring the culture, traditions and economy of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Miners have hearty appetites. They work hard during cold Michigan mornings. So, when the whistle blows for lunch, it's time for a pasty.
The meat turnover was brought to Michigan's Upper Peninsula by immigrant miners from Cornwall, England, and "Yoopers" — the local population — are very opinionated about them. A pasty is a small circle of pie crust filled with meat, potatoes, onions and spices. Some have carrots. The pasty at Lawry's Pasty Shop in Marquette — voted best by the local newspaper — has rutabaga.
Brothers Peter and Mike Lawry run the three-generation family business, which has been in the area since 1946. Their ancestors worked the local mines around the turn of the century.
"I started making pasties, my brother and my sister and I started making pasties, in about third grade in the summertimes with our grandma," Peter Lawry says. "When we'd made our first couple pasties, we'd go spend the night at Grandma's house and eat our pasties and show our grandpa how we did."
Sometimes they would help their grandmother make pasties for the shop.
To demonstrate, the brothers mix meat, onions, potatoes and rutabaga in a tub. Mike Lawry shakes in spices. The mixture is scooped — or "gobbed" — into the dough. Mike folds the crust over the stuffing, then shows off his special technique to seal the pasty up.
"When I'm teaching people, I like to say it's kind of like a wave," he says. "You roll the top over the bottom — it's like a wave rolling in on shore." The braid-like crust is the part that people like to break off and dip into ketchup, Mike says.
Not too long after the pasties are pushed into the oven, a wondrous smell of onion, beef and pie crust fills the room. "It's wonderful in the morning when you're hungry," Peter says. "When you go home in the afternoon and your wife says, 'Oh, ya smell like a pasty again,' it's a little different."
"Sometimes it's funny," Mike adds, "when you go to the bank with our deposits in the morning, the ladies in there will tell us that our money smells like pasties and it makes them hungry."
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Lawry's Pasty Recipe
Makes four pasties
Crust
2 cups flour
2/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup water
Dash salt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut shortening into flour and salt, add water and knead until well blended. Form into four balls and chill. Coat with plenty of flour and roll into circles.
Filling
3/4 pound ground chuck or cubed steak
3 cups diced potatoes
1/2 cup each of diced onion and rutabaga
2 tablesthingys dried parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Divide into four equal portions and place in center of each crust. Fold over and seal edges. Bake at 400 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes.
