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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

Peter White Library

Marquette's newly expanded library and arts center is the envy of readers and culture consumers throughout the Upper Peninsula. As the long winter sets in and many cultural institutions shut down, it's just about heaven having a big, bright, plush, multifaceted space to come to, with books and videos from the Upper Peninsula's biggest collection to take home. An extra plus: it's next to an interesting downtown, and within walking distance of varied central-city neighborhoods.

The public library's lower level is leased to MARQUETTE ARTS & CULTURE CENTER, the city-supported arts organization. Its gallery shop features art by local artists in many media (jewelry, copper, pottery, book art) plus children's books and some gifts from lines that sell nationally to art museum shops. Its gallery mounts rotating monthly exhibits. Check online for one-day workshops in its adjacent classroom space at www.mqtcty.org/departments/arts . Enter from rear parking lot and go down. Or enter from Front Street and go to back stairs and elevator. (906) 228-0472. Exhibit galleries are open during library hours: Mon-Thurs 9-9, Fri 9-6, Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5. Shop hours are Mon-Thurs noon-9, Fri noon-8, Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5. Handicap accessible.

Also on the lower level is a small café included in the library's original plan, with tables in an open area. It's now occupied by Aza Economides' tasty Greek caf' and coffee bar, TU KALUTHIA ("too kuh-LOOTH-ia" or "little cookie"). It's Aza's husband who's Greek-American. See restaurant listing for details of the menu of soups, salads, sandwiches, and some Greek favorites. It's open library hours except that it closes at 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Upstairs on the upper floor of the new addition visitors may enjoy seeing the colorful children's room, designed by children with a Lake Superior theme. Various other displays and art works are throughout the library, including mementoes of Marquette's sister cities (Kajaani, Finland and Higashiomi, Japan) in the front reading room and by the rear entrance an enchantingly realistic model of a rural Upper Peninsula general store on long-term loan.

Changing monthly exhibits are in the HURON MOUNTAIN CLUB GALLERY. It was funded with a $50,000 gift from the extremely wealthy summer people at the exclusive and controversial enclave north of Big Bay, in its effort to be part of the community while at the same time being completely separate in its own gated, guarded world.

Renovating and expanding the 1904 library building was the focus of community brainstorming sessions that resulted in an unusual partnership between the library and the city arts organization. In 1996 voters approved a $4.5 million bond issue, to be matched by a $4.5 million capital campaign. Marquette's well-organized arts, culture, and philanthropic constituencies made good use of challenge grants from the Kresge Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities to raise the money, and the beautiful new library opened in 2000. The decision process is detailed in a section of www.coolcities.com , Governor Jennifer Granholm's program to encourage Michigan towns and cities to do more to attract young adults and entrepreneurial endeavors. (Outmigration of young people is an acknowledged problem in Michigan, long dependent on large industrial employers, with decentralized urban areas that young people find boring.)

The original library, a grand Beaux Arts building, opened in 1904. The library board defied local building traditions in choosing as a building material smooth white Indiana limestone, made fashionable during the Chicago world's fair of 1893. That architectural choice marked the demise of local red sandstone that now makes historic Marquette seem so handsome, earthy, and distinctive. The local newspaper noted in 1904 that the "beautiful whiteness. . . has a distinctive air that would have been hopelessly lost had Lake Superior sandstone been used." —8/2010

217 N. Front at Arch. Free surface parking and rear entrance (most used) are off Ridge west of Front. (906) 228-9510. Library events online: pwpl.info Hours: Mon-Thurs 9-9, Fri 9-6, Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5 but not in summer. Wheelchair access: rear entrance, take elevator up or down.

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