Yoopers have special kinship with Michigan and Wisconsin

Yoopers are fiercely proud, tough and independent. By and large, they are mostly rural folks who scratch out a living in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, known simply as the UP. 

It’s easy to figure, UPers become Yoopers. 

What do they call their fellow Michiganders who live in the Lower Peninsula? Everyone knows that people who live “below the bridge” are “trolls.” 

(Yoopers think that’s pretty funny, although the term Loopers or Lowpers would be hilarious.) 

The bridge reference here, of course, is the magnificent and mighty Mackinac Bridge, which is almost 5 miles long and opened in 1957. 

The bridge provided a connectivity between Michigan’s “uppers and lowers” and has been beneficial in creating unity within the state. 

Most of Michigan’s UP was carved out of the new Wisconsin Territory in 1836 – about 9,000 square miles – and gifted to Michigan. It was part of a deal that enabled Michigan to become a state in 1837. 

In exchange for statehood, Michigan had to cede its rights to land along the Maumee River at the mouth of Lake Erie and let Ohio have Toledo. 

Initially, Michigan thought it got the short end of the stick, said Robert Myers of the Historical Society of Michigan. The prevailing opinion at the time was: “The Upper Peninsula doesn’t have anything but ice and rock and trees.” 

Time would tell. The UP had some of the most valuable timber, iron and copper country in America, proving to be a bonanza for Michigan. 

“We gained immense mineral wealth as well as fortune from logging and vast natural beauty and rustic land,” Myers said. 

The largest market in the UP is Marquette on Lake Superior, with a population of about 22,000. It is the home of Northern Michigan University (with an enrollment of about 8,000). Nearby are the cities of Ishpeming and Negaunee. 

The Michigan-Wisconsin boundary line runs in a southeastern direction from Oronto Bay in Lake Superior following the Montreal River and then connecting to the Brule and Menominee rivers that flow into Green Bay and Lake Michigan, between Menominee, Mich., and Marinette, Wis. 

The City of Green Bay, Wis., with about 105,000 people, is only about 55 miles south of Menominee. 

When it comes to professional football and shopping, Green Bay is the “capital of Yoop-sconsin.” 

Green Bay is closer to just about anywhere in the UP than Detroit is. And the Green Bay Packers always beat the Detroit Lions, or so it seems. 

The Yooper year has four seasons, but winter is the longest – about six months. 

That’s why just about everyone has a Stormy Kromer domer, a stylish wool-blend cap with a pull-down ear-band. The cap was invented in 1903 by Ida Kromer for her husband George “Stormy” Kromer, a railroad engineer. They started the Stormy Kromer Mercantile. 

Bob Jacquart revived the company in 2001, absorbing production into Jacquart Fabric Products Inc., in Ironwood, Mich., located on the Montreal River and bordering Hurley, Wis. 

If you’re going to Ironwood, visit Joe’s Pasty Shop. The pasty (rhymes with “nasty”) is a traditional workingman’s meal that has been perfected in the UP. 

Joe’s Pasty Shop has been serving up pasties since 1946, with the main menu offering being: “Tender beef, diced fresh potatoes and onions, wrapped in a delicate crust, then baked till golden brown. Top with a little ketchup, salsa or butter. Delicious! (Almost 3/4 of a lb.)” 

The favorite Yooper seven-course meal is: One pasty and a six-pack of brewskis. Imagine that, ehh?