Notes from Way Up North:
Emerson Fleury of Big Bay, and his wife, Linda, and three children live in Henry Ford`s long-abandoned sawmill in Big Bay.
”It`s great,” Emerson says. ”Some people think it`s strange, but when we bought the property, the factory was too expensive to tear down, so we live in the power house.”
Strange? What`s strange about a home with a 210-foot stack?
Who needs Vegas? You can lose your money just as easily in Baraga. Baraga is home to the Ojibwa Casino (and bingo hall and motel and spa and restaurant and pool and sauna and bowling alley).
Along an arcing sweep of beach of the western Keweenaw is pretty Eagle Harbor. Spend any time at all in Eagle Harbor and feel the history. A lighthouse has beckoned to ships since 1851. In the Rathbone Schoolhouse, you can get glimpses of life in an early one-room school.
In period furnishings and exhibits, the red-brick lighthouse re-creates the life of the keeper and his family.
It`s the cornerstone of a lakeside museum complex at Eagle Harbor. A summer-long exhibit traces Michigan copper from prehistoric times.
South of Eagle Harbor, past enchanting lake views and the wide sweep of dunes at Great Sand Bay, visit a green-shingled shack called the Jam Pot. Jars of dewberry and blueberry jams fill the shelves; there`s plenty of warm, monk- made bread and a crucifix in the bakeshop. It`s beside Jacob`s Creek Falls.
At Copper Harbor, seekers of cabin-style lodging can choose from lofty
(Keweenaw Mountain Lodge) or the water`s edge (Lake Fanny Hooe Resort).
At the Pines, a pinewood cafe on U.S. Highway 41, Red Twardzik`s buns are famous. She has been serving up humongous cinnamon rolls for 21 years.
”Two people come in and order two,” a server said. ”They don`t know about the size.”
Really. Imagine Mickey Tettleton`s catcher`s mitt, only it`s a cinnamon roll slathered with butter and icing.
Customer Laura Hall guessed that her cinnamon roll would last her and her husband all the way home to Minneapolis.
For lunch or dinner, try the whitefish or German specialties at the Harbor Haus, a waterside outpost with wide windows on the harbor and Lake Superior.
Travel agencies of the far-flung Carlson Travel Network offer Copper Country vacation packages including round-trip air, hotel packages and discounts on dining, shopping and golf.
And by all means stop at Barb Foley`s Country Village shops in Copper Harbor for thimbleberry fudge and sundaes.
For dining in Marquette, try Vierling`s downtown. Sit in pews beside a brass-railed bar. You`ve got to like a place that does whitefish five ways.
The Old West lives in Big Bay! A sign at the Lumberjack Saloon says bad checks go to the sheriff.
Bound for the Land of Pasties? Helpful, toll-free sources are the Upper Peninsula Travel and Recreation Association, 800-562-7134, and the Keweenaw Tourism Council, 800-338-7982.
