Midway across the Upper Peninsula along Hwy-28, the U.P.’s biggest and, in many ways, most attractive city is Marquette (pop. 23,000), a Lake Superior ore port with a lovely lakeside setting. Blocks of 100-year-old beaux arts–style buildings fill the business district above the heavy industrial harbor, and the presence of government offices and the region’s main college (Northern Michigan University) has given it a lively, prosperous feel.
Other aspects of U.P. life are documented down the road in neighboring Negaunee, 8 miles west along Hwy-28/US-41, where the excellent Iron Industry Museum (daily May–Oct.; free; 906/475-7857) tells the full story of the $48 billion Michigan iron mining industry. Further west, the lighter side of U.P. lifeways is the theme of Yooperland (daily; free; 800/628-9978), aka “Da Yooper Tourist Trap,” a gigantic gift shop-cum-cultural museum along Hwy-28/US-41. (Just look for the “World’s Largest Snowplow” parked out front.) If you’re looking for comic postcards of giant pasties and similar oddities, this is the place to come.
