Region 10:
Don't miss:
■ the view looking down at Miner's Castle (p. ###)
■ at least a few of the wonderful waterfalls just west of Munising
■ Sand Point Beach in summer
■ Grand Island Scenic Overlook
■ Pictured Rocks Cruises or, even better, try Northern Waters Sea Kayaking
■ Glass Bottom Boat Shipwreck Tour
The Pictured Rock Region stretches well below the shoreline and includes five big territories , all public lands:
■ much of the vast west end of the Hiawatha National Forest
■ the 70,000-acre Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
■ Michigan state forest land south and east of Pictured Rocks
■ the Grand Island National Recreation Area
■ a portion of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.
South of Munising and Au Train is mostly Hiawatha National Forest land, studded with small resorts, trails, national forest campgrounds, lakes and rivers with excellent public access, and wetlands. West of Munising, a beautiful shoreline stretch of M-28 through Au Train to Marquette passes right by big pines and sandy beaches, largely open to the public.
Well before European settlement, going back to the Algonquian Noquet tribe, one of the Upper Peninsula's most important trails connected lakes Michigan and Superior by following the Au Train Basin and the Whitefish River within it. Today the Forest Service has reconstructed much of it as the Grand Island-Bay de Noc Trail for hikers and equestrians.
Several trails on public land are important destinations for cross-country skiers and mountain bikers. The 10.7 kilometer Munising Cross-Country Ski Trail between Munising Falls and Sand Point is especially prized. The artfully laid out Valley Spur Ski Trails are another destination.
A dozen small farm towns are within a triangle only 15 miles on each side, from Chatham to Skandia along M-94, and from Skandia to Trenary along U.S. 41, with Traunik in between. Many of these farming communities were historically ethnic. Swedes arrived as homesteaders in what would become the Chatham and Limestone area, followed by French-Canadians. Carlshend, Skandia, and Sundell were Swedish, too. Traunik was Slovenian. And Finns were, eventually, everywhere. Trenary, incidentally, was an older town with a mix of peoples, settled first by native-born Americans from elsewhere in the Middle West—not particularly Finnish at first.
The original farm families were largely headed by men who had been lumbermen and saved enough to buy small parcels of cutover land from the lumber companies. Here timber had been shipped out by rail on the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic (later the Soo Line). When the timber had all been taken out, the lumber companies removed the rail spurs going to their lumber camps and sold what land they could. Extended immigrant families, sometimes six or more adult siblings, looked for good, high ground and bought land next to their relatives and friends.
What did they raise on these farms? A college English teacher who grew up in Traunik and came back to his father's farm laughs, "The crops they really grew were children. They were diversified subsistence farms—a few pigs and chickens, some potatoes, and big gardens. The emphasis, if any, was on dairy. They milked maybe seven, maybe ten cows, and sold the cream to creameries. The men would work in the woods and come home weekends." Much of the farm work fell to women and children. Today some of those 80-acre parcels, without many trees, have been bought and used by mushers to give their sled dogs workouts.
Today Chatham has an active, sizable co-op grocery in the Finnish-American tradition. Trenary is home to the Trenary Outhouse Classic (see "Events" in "Helpful Visitor Information") and the regionally famous Trenary Home Bakery, makers of the widely available "Trenary Toast"—cinnamon toast, called korpu in Finnish.
In winter the roadbed of the onetime Soo Line through this area becomes the U.P.'s major east-west snowmobile highway—an annoyance to local people who live near the trail in the towns the train once connected. But snowmobilers are a boon for Munising motels and restaurants in a region whose prime summer tourism season (from July 4 weekend to the beginning of school) is pitifully short.
Pictured Rocks/Munising/Au Train
FOR MANY VISITORS to the Upper Peninsula, entering Munising is the first time they see vast, cold, blue Lake Superior. The colorful, 200-foot-high Pictured Rocks are the Munising area's tourism magnet, but they are far from the area's only visitor attraction. The area has 16 beautiful waterfalls to visit. The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has over 40 miles of dramatic rock formations, long beaches, old shipwrecks at times visible from shore, an 1874 lighthouse to tour, huge forests, and the vast, towering Grand Sable Dunes.
■ the view looking down at Miner's Castle (p. ###)
■ at least a few of the wonderful waterfalls just west of Munising
■ Sand Point Beach in summer
■ Grand Island Scenic Overlook
■ Pictured Rocks Cruises or, even better, try Northern Waters Sea Kayaking
■ Glass Bottom Boat Shipwreck Tour
The Pictured Rock Region stretches well below the shoreline and includes five big territories , all public lands:
■ much of the vast west end of the Hiawatha National Forest
■ the 70,000-acre Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
■ Michigan state forest land south and east of Pictured Rocks
■ the Grand Island National Recreation Area
■ a portion of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.
South of Munising and Au Train is mostly Hiawatha National Forest land, studded with small resorts, trails, national forest campgrounds, lakes and rivers with excellent public access, and wetlands. West of Munising, a beautiful shoreline stretch of M-28 through Au Train to Marquette passes right by big pines and sandy beaches, largely open to the public.
Well before European settlement, going back to the Algonquian Noquet tribe, one of the Upper Peninsula's most important trails connected lakes Michigan and Superior by following the Au Train Basin and the Whitefish River within it. Today the Forest Service has reconstructed much of it as the Grand Island-Bay de Noc Trail for hikers and equestrians.
Several trails on public land are important destinations for cross-country skiers and mountain bikers. The 10.7 kilometer Munising Cross-Country Ski Trail between Munising Falls and Sand Point is especially prized. The artfully laid out Valley Spur Ski Trails are another destination.
A dozen small farm towns are within a triangle only 15 miles on each side, from Chatham to Skandia along M-94, and from Skandia to Trenary along U.S. 41, with Traunik in between. Many of these farming communities were historically ethnic. Swedes arrived as homesteaders in what would become the Chatham and Limestone area, followed by French-Canadians. Carlshend, Skandia, and Sundell were Swedish, too. Traunik was Slovenian. And Finns were, eventually, everywhere. Trenary, incidentally, was an older town with a mix of peoples, settled first by native-born Americans from elsewhere in the Middle West—not particularly Finnish at first.
The original farm families were largely headed by men who had been lumbermen and saved enough to buy small parcels of cutover land from the lumber companies. Here timber had been shipped out by rail on the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic (later the Soo Line). When the timber had all been taken out, the lumber companies removed the rail spurs going to their lumber camps and sold what land they could. Extended immigrant families, sometimes six or more adult siblings, looked for good, high ground and bought land next to their relatives and friends.
What did they raise on these farms? A college English teacher who grew up in Traunik and came back to his father's farm laughs, "The crops they really grew were children. They were diversified subsistence farms—a few pigs and chickens, some potatoes, and big gardens. The emphasis, if any, was on dairy. They milked maybe seven, maybe ten cows, and sold the cream to creameries. The men would work in the woods and come home weekends." Much of the farm work fell to women and children. Today some of those 80-acre parcels, without many trees, have been bought and used by mushers to give their sled dogs workouts.
Today Chatham has an active, sizable co-op grocery in the Finnish-American tradition. Trenary is home to the Trenary Outhouse Classic (see "Events" in "Helpful Visitor Information") and the regionally famous Trenary Home Bakery, makers of the widely available "Trenary Toast"—cinnamon toast, called korpu in Finnish.
In winter the roadbed of the onetime Soo Line through this area becomes the U.P.'s major east-west snowmobile highway—an annoyance to local people who live near the trail in the towns the train once connected. But snowmobilers are a boon for Munising motels and restaurants in a region whose prime summer tourism season (from July 4 weekend to the beginning of school) is pitifully short.
Return to Home/Guide to Upper Peninsula Regions
For everything from finding Pictured Rocks/Munising/Au Train picnic spots & fishing guides to renting
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PICTURED ROCKS/MUNISING/AU TRAIN: THE TOP ATTRACTIONS (to locate, see MAP)
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Hunt's Map Guide to the Upper Peninsula
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