Subscriber Comments for
Michigan's Upper Peninsula – Over the Top

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COMMENT 222899	2011-10-15 10:23 AM
I love reading about Michigan, land of my youth and college years. I had a friend in college (in MI) that loved his pasties with strawberry jam. Of course, he was from Lansing and not a yooper. I had a few friends in college that were from the U.P. They viewed their college education in the lower peninsula as a necessary evil and couldn't wait to go back north. Crazy, crazy...
COMMENT 222901	2011-10-15 10:32 AM
My family was from the Gwinn/Negaunee area and we always ate our pasties with Ketsup and they were yummy!
COMMENT 222911	2011-10-15 10:59 AM
Marquette U., the school with the basketball program of some reknown, is in Milwaukee, Wi. Michigan Tech U. is in Marquette, MI. Most, if not all of the 'industrial' logging in Michigan is of farmed trees, a program Mi. has been supporting for over 50 years. Yes, it snows there, (22 ft the semester I spent at MTU), and being further north it gets cold earlier than the rest of the country, but kriminy, what a poorly informed, bad attitude the author exposes wrt the area. And not getting a look at Lake Superior? With amongst other attributes, some of the most beautiful coastlines in the country? Of so many other really neat places and things in the UP, a waste of the trip, and a seriously deficient 'travelog'.
COMMENT 222925	2011-10-15 11:47 AM
991 -- Jeez, relax. Take your meds.
COMMENT 222928	2011-10-15 11:57 AM
Michigan Tech is in Houghton. Marquette has Northern Michigan University.
COMMENT 222911	2011-10-15 12:05 PM
Thanks 928. Yes, I thought NMU wrote MTU. Attended too many schools... and am too 'relaxed'
ELSPETH	2011-10-15 01:43 PM
The Pasties you describe sound more like the English meat pies, called "Cornish Pasties". They even travelled to Australia, and I met Americans who came back from OZ exclaiming over the wonderful Australian meat pies and the quaint slang expressions that they used. Well, of course, as Australia was initially populated by Brits, some enforced by the government and some of their own free will, I have no doubt that the meat pies were indeed Cornish Pasties, and am certain that the quaint slang expressions were Cockney Slang (of which the Cockneys are rightly proud).
MCSEAS	2011-10-15 04:20 PM
Elspeth: My source in the story, the one who lived in the U.P. for one winter, says the "pasty" thing I mentioned comes from the many Finnish folks who settled in the U.P. I would think what we ate was therefore a Michigan Finnish Pastie, the local version of what you describe. I wonder if Coirnish pasties are as bland???
AQUAHOLIC	2011-10-15 06:32 PM
I just learned this about the U.P. Pasty and copied this from a passage I read online. It explains the reason why they are shaped the way they are.... "And woe betide anyone who take's another person's corner!" There was a superstition among the Cornish miner's that the initial corner should not be eaten, instead it was dropped on the ground for the mining gremlins to eat. These "gremlins" caused mischief in mines, causing accidents and mine collapses, feeding them supposedly kept them out of trouble. There is some truth to this rumor, because the early Cornish tin mines had large amounts of arsenic, by not eating the corner which the miners held, they kept themselves from consuming large amounts of arsenic."
BIG BLOCK	2011-10-15 09:17 PM
Nice article. I'm leaving for Melbourne and the rest of Australia tomorrow. I'll be looking for pasties.
COMMENT 223059	2011-10-16 07:56 AM
The pasites of the U.P. ARE Cornish Pasties. Many cornish came over to the developing iron and copper mines in the U.P. long ago. Many of the residents are of Finnish decent BUT the U.P. has a wide variety of nationalities Finnish being the most prevalent. The author of this article seems to have written the most uninformed drivel about the Upper Peninsula they could imagine. Next time they go there (if ever) perhaps they should stop looking for special things and enjoy what's there in front of them. I lived the first 21 years of my life in the U.P. and am still learning about it's wonders to this day even though I'm not living there anymore. To anyone who wants to visit there and has read this article, please disregard it. It's nonsense and filled with misinformed facts.
GRANNYFRANNY	2011-10-16 09:02 AM
McSeas, I recommend reading some of the novellas of Jim Harrison, Michigan's real claim to literary fame -- forget Papa ... "The Summer He Didn't Die" is so Michigan -- you and your Michigander wife would love it.... Also the newer "True North."
COMMENT 223083	2011-10-16 09:44 AM
I have to agree with the Michiganders and Upers who posted - shame you missed Porcupine Mountains and the big lake (Superior). The UP is rich in beauty, heritage, and lore, which didn't come through in this article. It is also a deeply depressed area of a deeply depressed state, economically, and does have a long history of logging and mining. On the other hand, this is not a paid publication and obviously no editor has a hand in insuring a good read, so we really can't complain.
COMMENT 223120	2011-10-16 12:23 PM
Well said 223059. I had written a post that would have been near the top that basically said the same thing (I was a yooper as well, but only for 5 years) but it didn't get posted somehow. I also think that the OP has no clue about the people that live up there. They may not have a lot of money or material goods, but they are some of the best people around.
BFMOUNTAIN	2011-10-16 12:24 PM
Yes, those are Cornish pasties. My relatives came to the UP from Cornwall as miners in the early 1850's. The Cornish are 'professional miners' from over a thousand years of mining tin in Cornwall. The California Cornish Cousins keep the tradition alive along with other treats like saffron buns and stargazy pie. We are all Cousin Jacks or Cousin Jennys. The pasty was placed in the lunchpail and kept warm by water for tea in the bottom of the pail. A great lunch for a hardworking man.
COMMENT 223205P	2011-10-16 07:54 PM
A few readers seem to enjoy to playing rough with these lightweight travel pieces! Save yourselves some grief. They are personal reactions, not meant to be travel guides. You don't have to like them.

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