SEEKING ENTERTAINMENT? GO ANYWHERE ELSE

So, during your family trip to the Upper Peninsula, you are hoping to find entertainment to keep the kids from whining and your in-laws from discussing your faults. Don’t even consider coming up here looking for fun. Instead, attend the annual stamp collectors’ convention in Peoria or audition for a reality television show featuring competitive eating. But, since you may already be here, let’s review what dire options await you.

There are, at last counting, 33 museums in the U.P.—if you include the two that display the names and photographs of visitors who were eaten by bears, disappeared in the woods, or thought they could eat two pasties in one sitting. All the museums are located in abandoned mine shafts, rickety old ore boats or decrepit buildings formerly used to house CCC men in the 1930s. The elderly men and women who staff the museums have had to agree that they, too, would be on display as living history.

Although I would strongly advise against it, you could attend one of our quaint local festivals:

— The annual winter outhouse race.
Teams of slightly demented, tipsy participants push decorated outdoor potties down through the icy streets of a small town. After the race, visit the Outhouse Hall of Fame.
— The annual haircut watching fair.
Teams of slightly disturbed, sleepy participants spend an entire day watching patrons receive haircuts in overheated barbershops. Don’t miss the U.P. Barbers and Cosmetologists Hall of Fame.
— The annual pasty throwing con­test. Teams of slightly unstable,
overfed participants gather at Lake Independence and compete to see who can chuck a pasty the furthest. Coming soon, the newest theme park: Pasty World.

The more active tourist may be looking forward to such opportunities as:

Water sports.
One of the tricks which entices people to the visit the U.P. is the promotion of water sports-swimming, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, and boating. And it does look like great family fun. Not mentioned is that for most of the year the lakes and rivers are covered with ice and snow. Truth in advertising compels me to add that the survival time for immersion in any water up here is measured in seconds. And all year round our waters are home to dangerous crea­tures like polar bears, elephant seals, packs of wolves and, some say, sea monsters in the deepest waters.
— Hiking.
No one hikes in the U.P.. Take your cue from the locals-they don’t hike just for the sake of hiking, even through beautiful woods and by rocky shorelines. They scurry from spot to spot to get out of the cold, avoid the bugs and escape other Yoopers hiding out in those woods, playing banjos and pretending to re-enact scary movies.
— Camping.
Come on now, let’s be honest. The people who live up here know that simply living in the Upper Peninsula is camping. Why would they want to go further into the woods?

There are some seedy taverns you might visit. In most every case, the bars up here are overheated, dimly-lit and smell of stale beer and other odors wafting from the back room. The bartender will be a tall, thin character named Leon with long, grimy hair and a tattoo on his right bicep proclaiming “Death before Dishonor.” On the wall behind the bar is a large mural depicting Custer’s Last Stand and a bumper sticker proclaiming "To take away my deer rifle, you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."

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Don’t you think it would be better for you to have a chicken dinner in Frankenmuth or a slice of cherry pie in Traverse City?

Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost. Indeed it is often obvious in battle that one could escape death by throwing away one’s weapons and by turning to supplicate one’s pursuers, and there are many ways to avoid death in every kind of danger if one will venture to do or say anything to avoid it. It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Slow and elderly as I am, I have been caught by the slower pursuer, whereas my accusers, being clever and sharp, have been caught by the quicker, wickedness. I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice. So I maintain my assessment, and they maintain theirs. This perhaps had to happen, and I think it is as it should be.