BARAGA

Region: Keweenaw Peninsula

Highway 41 North

It's hard to believe this is what Baraga's downtown looked like around 1900. Little of that vitality remains.

Tucked at the bottom of a hillside going down to Keweenaw Bay's west shore, the village of Baraga, population 1,285, is located at a natural townsite. It's of those congenial protected spots along the Great Lakes where the French voyageurs in the fur trade liked to camp. Baraga the town and Baraga County are both named after Frederic Baraga, the famous "snowshoe priest" from Slovenia.

Several points have bay views and public areas, beginning with Baraga State Park at the south edge of town, then the terrace by the restaurant at the Best Western Lakeside Inn, and then the grounds and picnic tables by the Baraga County Historical Society. At the foot of Michigan Avenue is the village of Baraga's Municipal Marina with two boat launches. Its American, Canadian, and Finnish flags add an international touch to a down-home place. The marina is mostly rented by the season but the harbormaster tries to accommodate overnighters. The marina office is also the Disney Bait Shop (906-353-8110). Visitors can walk out on the marina's long public pier and be surrounded by beautiful Keweenaw Bay, with views across to L'Anse and the red sandstone bluffs at the end of the bay. It's really one of the area's special places, once you're out there. By the pier parking lot are a simple playground and a few picnic tables.

Father Baraga established his last mission at Assinins, two miles north of here, in 1843. He helped native Ojibwa here get title to their land, and enabled them to stay here rather than being relocated to the Great Plains by the United States government.

Many Ojibwa have lived in the area ever since. Today they are a recognized tribe, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. It owns and runs the Ojibwa Casino and bingo hall, up the hill on M-38 a mile west of U.S. 41. Like other recognized tribes, it is now considered a sovereign nation, which can make for confusion.

To many motorists, Baraga is a confusing blur on the highway. With a good map, it makes more sense. The village of Baraga is a spread-out patchwork of tribal and private land, more so than any other Michigan community. Tribal land is under tribal jurisdiction, with its own laws. The KBIC police force is several times the size of the village's.

Just behind the casino off Beartown Road is the large tribal center, akin in its functions to city hall for a city with lots of services, but with the extra department of gaming compliance. Next to the tribal center is the Ojibwa Community College, opened in 2004. It houses the KBIC library, open to the general public.

Legal gambling on Indian reservations, begun in Michigan right here in Fred Dakota's garage, has turned the tribe and its Ojibwa Casino into one of the few economic powerhouses in this small county of only 9,000 people. (The other large employers are the Baraga State Prison outside of town just west of the state park; Pettibone, maker of large forklift-type trucks, on Baraga's south side; and the BPB ceiling tile plant in L'Anse.)

KBIC also has a substantial fish and wildlife component to its environmental department, including a hatchery. The natural resources department collaborates with other governmental entities. It was instrumental in helping the village of Eagle Harbor on a wastewater project.

The tribe owns other businesses in addition to the Baraga casino and adjacent hotel: the Four Seasons Motel, a casino east of Marquette, a construction company and the Pines gas station and party store on U.S. 41 north of town.

KBIC owns two 50,000-watt FM radio stations, WGLI FM 98.5 (Rockin' Eagle; wglifm.com) and WCUP FM 105.7 (Eagle Country; wcupfm.com) hosts "Indigenous Insights," a blend of Native American music, stories, and history, on Sundays from 7 to 9 p.m. And it features Dick Storm, a U.P. radio legend. He had been a longtime Houghton radio station owner and an outstanding news director. He's also a devout fan of classic country music. His "Music Hall of Country Stars" is on WCUP from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, repeated from 7 to 9 a.m. Sunday. And "Keep It in the U.P."with general manager Ed Lamasse is on WGLI at 11 a.m. weekdays.

A visit to the tribe's web site, kbic-nsn.gov, indicates the breadth of tribal activities. It has a downloadable newsletter.

To be enrolled as a tribal member, a person needs to be at least quarter blood — one grandparent or two great-grandparents — and descended from people listed on the 19th-century allotment rolls.

Tribal businesses don't have to pay sales tax or other state or federal taxes, resulting in lower prices for gasoline and alcohol. Sales of fireworks, strictly regulated in most places, are not regulated here, so Morin Fireworks (906-353-6650) on U.S. 41 a mile north of town can sell skyrockets and roman candles. Pete Morin also orchestrates professional fireworks shows.

Baraga's commercial area is mostly along U.S. 41 and Keweenaw Bay. The traditional downtown, never much to begin with, is along Superior Avenue south of M-38/Michigan Avenue. On the southern extension of Beartown Road, the second big employer, the Baraga Super-Maximum Correctional Facility, spreads out, mostly behind barbed wire. It employs over 400.

Baraga also has sizable manufacturers. In the late 1940s, a local man, Phil LaTendresse, invented the prototype Cary-Lift, a kind of specialized forklift. that could lift heavy loads of steel and timber on uneven ground. He sold the rights to Pettibone materials handling manufacturers in 1951, with the stipulation that manufacturing remain in Baraga County. An early Cary-Lift is on the lawn by the historical museum.

The Extendo, made in Baraga by Pettibone. Sold worldwide, it can lift a 10,000-pound 56 feet high.

See pettibone.com for dramatic videos of the Cary-Lift in action, accompanied by rock music, aimed at the operators of heavy equipment. In the early 1970s, the Tele-handler with extended forward reach enabled the Extendo to pick up 6,000 to 10,000 pounds on contstruction sites and be able to move them beneath an 8' door. The Pettibone plant, just south of downtown on Superior, visible from U.S. 41, also makes a $90,000 telescopic boom that can lift pallets of building materials as high as five stories. Today only a small proportion of sales are for use in logging. More are for lumber mills and contruction sites. Dealers are across the U.P. and around the world. Terex, a rival company founded in 1984, also makes extendable-boom forklifts for rough terrain.

Baraga is also home to one of the dozen or so large U.P. sawmills, Besse Forest Products. Its employees can saw six million board feet of hardwood a year, 65% of it hard maple. Furniture makers buy its top grades, leaving the rest for pallet manufacturers.

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