Ruth Paget: Upper Peninsula

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

The Hidden Culture of Upper Peninsula Michigan - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Hidden Culture of Upper Peninsula Michigan – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Along the way to Mackinac Island, my mother would stop at a restaurant where we could sample some of the history of the Upper Peninsula.

As we spread paper napkins on our laps for lunch, she remarked, “Paper napkins are a paper product from the lumber industry.”

“The Swedes, the Finns, and Cornish from England worked in the iron and copper mines, farming, lumber, and freight ship industries here,” she said.

“Didn’t our ancestors come from Cornwall?” I asked.

“They did, but they did not work in the tin mines of Cornwall or in the iron and copper mines here. There were ship captains, who sometimes sold gin to miners,” she said with a shake to her head.

At almost every diner along the way to Mackinac Island, you can order the following three items in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan:

-Cornish (English) pasties filled with beef, potato, turnips, and onions. The folded over crust has a braided edge and looks like an empanada.

-Finnish keralian pastry made with rye flour crust and filled with potatoes, rice, or carrots

-Swedish cinnamon rolls with confectioner’s sugar frosting

All this can be eaten with mild Vienna roast coffee with cream.

After lunch, we set out for Mackinac (pronounced “Macinaw”) Island. Mackinac Island is located in the Mackinac Straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. You have to take a ferry out to Mackinac Island and leave your car behind; Mackinac is a pedestrian-only vacation spot.

Fort Mackinac has its place in history as an easy victory for the British in the War of 1812 when the 50 soldiers at the Fort faced an army contingent. They surrendered without battle.

Since that time, Mackinac Island has had a decidedly English flair. You can buy tea everywhere, but not coffee, the American beverage.

The 19^th century Biddle House has re-enactments of curing meat for winter, which you had to do to survive Michigan winters. I learned that bacon comes from a pig here.

The freighters that glide from one lake to another form the constant picture show for the Grand Hotel where we went for afternoon tea after visiting the hotel’s carriage museum.

We sat in the lobby and sipped Darjeeling tea that we ate with scones and marmalade jam and clotted cream for the scones.

I knew I was getting deluxe treatment as a kid in this lovely hotel that is still owned by the same family today.

On the way back to the ferry, we bought caramel candy and saltwater taffy. My mom drove across the Mackinac Bridge to the Lower Peninsula and Detroit.

The drive in the UP was a vacation all by itself I felt even as a young girl.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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The Hidden Culture of Upper Peninsula Michigan - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Hidden Culture of Upper Peninsula Michigan - Part 1 -by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When my mother and I would visit our relatives in Wisconsin in fall, she would drive back over the Upper Peninsula to see the fall colors. I was eager to do the “nature” drive since I had seen the aurora borealis dancing in the night sky in yellows, blues, greens, and reds from my grandparents’ house in the “Northwoods” of Wisconsin.

My grandparents lived in a community of descendants of immigrants from Switzerland. Breakfast before the Upper Peninsula tour was half English and half Swiss: eggs and bacon followed by hot chocolate and has browns that resembled Swiss roesti potatoes with sour cream on top.

After breakfast, my mother and I boarded the Thunderbird she drove with an armload of baked goods and magazines for me. As we drove down the driveway, my mom turned on classic rock that she played till she reached the Michigan borders where she began her travel log.

“The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is attached by land to Wisconsin and not the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Politics and business needs created the borders here,” she said.

“How did business get involved?” I asked.

“It all began with the glaciers,” she began rather facetiously.

“Glaciers covered Michigan. When they began to melt and retract they left gouges in the Earth that became the Great Lakes. Water transport is inexpensive compared to overland transport. There are iron and copper mines in the Upper Peninsula that industry needs,” my mom responded as a diligent and knowledgeable person who worked with the advertising department at The Detroit Free Press newspaper.

“Are other things transported on the Great Lakes?” I asked trying to use the same “grown-up” vocabulary she did.

“The Free Press can get newsprint by the Detroit River and over land,” she said.

My mother spent time talking with me, because she knew you can usually get your foot in the door in many industries in sales. The best salesmen know their territory and their product or service very well. I was getting a “territory” lesson on the ride home. Cold, rural places often have trouble finding employees sometimes.

As we drove along inside Michigan, signs likes Ishpeming, Marquette, and Mackinac Island showed up to give some indication about part of the history of the Upper Peninsula.

There were several Native American tribes in this area including the Pottawatomie, Chippewa (Ojibwe), the Sauk, the Foxes, and the Mascoutens. The French came to this frigid area to trap animals for fur used in the fashion industry and set up trading posts.

The English always seem to compete with the French, so they soon followed with trading posts as well. To this day, Canada, which is nearby, is a bilingual English and French country with the province of Québec as its main French-speaking province.

End of Part 1.

To be continued…