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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

JUST OUT! A new edition of Hunts' Mapguide to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Over 300 entries, all conveniently located on maps and chosen because we think they are the coolest things to do in the U.P. (No ad tie-ins!) Great choices for restaurants, hikes, shops, adventures, museums, boat trips, waterfalls, vistas, road trips, and much more! To learn more click UP MAP GUIDE

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MARQUETTE
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Downtown Marquette. A major U.P. destination for people who like to shop, nibble, drink coffee, dine, and explore interesting downtowns. Stroll past ornate buildings, a historic hotel, many restaurants, a classic department store, an 1883 saloon ... more

Marquette County History Museum. Choice artifacts, some life-sized exhibits with audio, and a good gift shop make this stand out. See an Ojibwa family group,the Burt survey party, a child-scale street of shops ... more

Peter White Library. A dream library renovated and expanded through community visioning: restored 1904 reading rooms, an exhibit gallery, a children's room designed by kids, a community art gallery and shop, and a café/coffee bar with fresh Greek specialties ... more

Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center . At the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center are exhibits on the various immigrant groups who populated the U.P., an historical look at student life at Northern Michigan University, and the artifacts from the life of philanthropist and business magnate Sam Cohodas. ... more

Greywalls Golf Course. One of Michigan's finest and arguably its visually most dramatic course, Greywalls attracts golfers from across the nation ... more

Ridge and Arch Historic District. A well-maintained neighborhood of historic homes in a variety of late 19th-century styles, and two richly detailed red sandstone churches with unusual stained glass windows, one by Tiffany ... more

Lower Harbor. The beautifully designed focus of the city's Lake Superior waterfront, with a fresh and smoked fish shop, a playground/picnic park next to the marina, a historic lighthouse, a breakwall to walk out on ... more

Marquette Maritime Museum. A colorful museum with lots of great stuff: superb replicas of freighters, three Fresnel lighthouse lenses, hands-on fishing nets and a pilot house, colorful flags from Great Lakes freighters, a miniature reconstruction of a famous WWII naval battle ... more

U.S.S. Darter-Dace Silent Service Memorial. A fascinating computerized, narrated diorama of the Philippine naval battle that crippled the Japanese navy, highlighting the critical role of two subs with U.P. crews and a replica conning tower are part ... more

Marquette Harbor Light. Visitors can now tour this oft-photographed lighthouse on the rocks and take the catwalk 300' out to Lighthouse Point, with great panoramic views of Presque Isle, ore dock, harbor, and town ... more

Lakeside bike path from the Inner Harbor to Presque Isle. You can rent a bike or rollerblades for this beautiful, busy shoreline path from the inner harbor to magical Presque Isle Park, passing a beach and picnic area for students and one for families ... more

Lake Superior & Ishpeming RR Ore Dock. Extending a full quarter mile out into the lake, this huge 75' landmark is where you can watch taconite pellets of iron ore delivered by train and noisily dumped into a waiting ore carrier ... more

The STUDIO Gallery at Presque Isle. Ten respected artists display their paintings, jewelry, and welded garden sculptures, gates, and hangings here at their gallery and working studio ... more

Moosewood Nature Center. Started by science teachers, the enthusiastic young staff offers 20 programs and outings a month for families and has some live native reptiles and amphibians to watch. A paved Bog Walk Trail is outside ... more

Presque Isle Park. One of the coolest city parks anywhere, it's a rocky, wooded peninsula jutting into Lake Superior with great vistas, 5 miles of walking paths, swimming pool and water slide, picnic grounds, bandshell ... more

The Village shopping district on Third Street. Between downtown and campus, Third Street has several popular restaurants; an excellent outdoors shop with stylish and functional outerwear; Scandinavian crystal, jewelry, and textiles ... more

Superior Dome. See the wood framework of the world's largest wood dome, used for athletics and community walking and jogging. Interesting exhibits in its outer corridor feature U.P. minerals, ethnic groups, and Upper Peninsula legends John Voelker, Dominic Jacobetti, Nita Engle, Glenn Seaborg, and Sam Cohodas ... more

DeVos Art Museum at Northern Michigan University. With this facility, the Upper Peninsula has a real art museum, open year-round, with some high-level nationally important exhibits along with local and regional shows ... more

Father Marquette Park/ Chamber of Commerce.. Tourist info with a grand view of a picture-perfect town, harbor, and lighthouse ... more

Marquette County Courthouse. A grand public building from 1902, used with respect. See the impressive courtroom where the Anatomy of a Murder case was tried, the great view from the steps, and the display of Voelker legal memorabilia ... more

St. Peter Cathedral and Baraga Archives. In the cathedral, stained glass windows of saints and scenes from Jesus's life. Next door, the papers of the snowshoe priest from Slovenia involved with the early history of many Michigan communities ... more

Upper Peninsula Children's Museum. Low-tech, free wheeling, imaginative fun in a whacky micro city, a recyclatorium, and a great gift shop. Kids learn about microbiology after sliding down a toilet, fly in a real fuselage cockpit ... more

Marquette Food Co-op. Cheerful one-stop shopping with good produce and more trail mixes, energy bars, soy milk and juices for travelers in the attractive new location downtown ... more

Park Cemetery. Download WMOT deejay Jim Koski's chatty Park Cemetery walking tour and a stroll through this hilly, wooded cemetery becomes a guided tour of the graves of Marquette's founding elite ... more

Jilbert's Dairy. An ice cream parlor is the centerpiece of this headquarters complex of the U.P.'s premier dairy, where you can see milk being processed, picnic next to a giant cow, and shop for various U.P. foods and knick-knacks ... more

Brewmaster's Castle Home. The exterior is exotic, but get a look at what's inside ... more

Mount Marquette Scenic Lookout. A rocky summit provides a glorious views of the city, the bay, and the vast expanse of Lake Superior beyond ... more

Marquette Branch Prison. The 1889 part of the prison that looks like it's out of Victorian England, with pretty inmate-tended flower gardens out front ... more

U.S. 41 road cut with ancient algal stromatolites. Looming above Highway 41, this rocky cliff reveals eroded remains of ancient (2 billion-year-old) mountains once far higher than today's Rockies ... more

Michigan Welcome Center. The picnic area provides a striking view of Marquette Bay and the distant city of Marquette, with helpful tourist info in the log Welcome Center ... more

Blueberry Ridge Cross-Country Ski Trail/Escanaba River State Forest. 12K of trails, 1.7 miles of them lighted, are groomed for ski-skating and diagonal stride ... more

Lakenenland. One of the U.P.'s most unusual roadside attractions, a pipefitter's quirky sculpture park. Part political, part fanciful, done just for fun. No fee, nothing to buy. ... more

MARQUETTE

Marquette Harbor Light

Perched picturesquely on the high red rocks at the entrance to Marquette Harbor, this bright red lighthouse is one of the most photographed on the Great Lakes. Now it is open for public tours as part of the Marquette Maritime Museum next door. Until 1997 the Coast Guard used it as housing. The jaunty red color was mandated by a Coast Guard decision in the 1950s that every lighthouse on the right entrance to harbors be painted red. Unfortunately, hard epoxy paint was used, which trapped moisture within the porous brick and destroyed it. Now lighthouse preservation groups must deal with the expensive consequences of that disastrously thoughtless paint decision.

The original light here, erected in 1853, was one of the first on Lake Superior because the Marquette Harbor became so busy with vessels shipping iron ore from the Marquette Range. This tower and keeper's house date from 1866. The house was enlarged with a second story in 1906.

The museum gives a guided tour of the lighthouse and grounds, including the history of lightkeeping and Marquette Harbor. It lasts from half an hour to 45 minutes. First-floor exhibits deal with shipwrecks, navigation, and lighthouse memorabilia and art. Fred Stonehouse, a museum board member involved with the displays, is quite an authority on Great Lakes shipwrecks. Some day the second floor will be restored and furnished according to its appearance as the keeper's dwelling when it was added in 1906. Meanwhile, visitors can see how the Coast Guard crew lived in recent decades, complete with shag carpeting and a surprisingly pink toilet in the bathroom.

Visitors are then escorted out on the six-foot-high catwalk extending a hundred yards out to the tip of Lighthouse Point. (Because of the bluffs, visitors cannot walk the grounds unescorted.) The panoramic view of the city and its environs is the best anywhere, all the way from Presque Isle and the Superior Dome to the prison, including the Lower Harbor, part of downtown, the courthouse, and St. Peter's Cathedral in between. McCarty's Cove and other popular swimming beaches just north of the lighthouse look particularly inviting, juxtaposing sandy crescents and red rock.

The active Coast Guard station next to the lighthouse is responsible for search and rescue from Big Bay Point to Pictured Rocks. Its other mission is law enforcement: checking vessels to make sure they comply with laws about life jackets, fire extinguishers, etc.

300 Lakeshore Blvd. at the foot of Ridge, at the east end of the Lower Harbor. Open daily from 10 to 5 from mid-May thru mid-October. (906) 226-2006. Fee for lighthouse tour: $4/adult, $3/children 5-12. $7 and $5: admission to both museum and lighthouse. Wheelchair-accessible: not really. 50 steps into lighthouse.

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