A passage from Lon Emerick's Going Back to Central: On the Road in Search of the Past in Michigan's Upper Peninsula:

You can tell a lot about the character of local inhabitants and what they value by what they do with their most precious natural endowment, the lakeshore. I take a short stroll on the village shoreline and am impressed: there is an attractive public park with a marina, boat launch, benches, picnic tables, a walking path and a large new bandshell. A nearby poster lists the scheduled summer performances and I note that White Water, the Premo family band from Amasa, gave a concert here in early August. Dean Premo had encouraged me to talk with Steve and Roy Koski when I went through L'Anse on my pilgrimage and, glancing at my watch, I see that I must hurry over to Indian Country Sports to meet them.

A fact for the trivia contest: Indian Country Sports, located across from the marina and waterfront park, is the only sporting goods business in the United States that is also a working lighthouse. Let me go even further out on a yardarm and make this grandiose claim: it is the only sporting goods store in the entire world that is also a lighthouse. A working lighthouse. The United States Coast Guard certified the Indian Country Sports Light in 1998.

I must confess that I knew nothing about the uniqueness of Steve Koski’s store when I met with him, his father, Roy, and his mother, Eila. People in the Superior Peninsula are invariably friendly and welcoming and the Koskis are no exception. Almost instantly I feel I am among friends and they field my questions without hes­itation or suspicion.

Roy tells me that the Koski forebears came to this region in the 1920s, as did so many people of Finnish heritage, to eke out a living by farming, working in the woods and commercial fishing. The settlers liked the simple outdoor life here and put down roots.

“It’s a great place to raise kids,” Steve says. Roy and Eila nod in agreement.

“There is a sense of community here,” Roy adds. In my travels in the U.P., I heard these comments again and again.

“How have things changed over the years?" I ask. Without a pause, both Steve and Roy respond that wealthy people from outside the area are buying up land, often at inflated prices that raise the local property taxes. The first thing some new­ comers do is put up “No trespassing” signs, blocking the access of longtime residents to hunting and fishing spots that they have used for generations. Then, once the newcomers discover that the wide variety of supplies and services they are accustomed to in more populated areas is not available locally, they clamor for changes. These complaints are heard more frequently throughout the Upper Peninsula. Times they are a-changing and many of us who chose to live here long ago find the values of a simpler life we sought in this isolated region are under siege.

While Steve attends to his customers, I wander around the store with Roy. With the exception of bookstores and bakeries, the only kind of business in which I like to browse is a sporting goods store. I look at hunting bows and backpacks, fishing flies and flotation devices. I love it. Roy then asks casually if I would like to go up into the lighthouse tower. I look at him in astonishment, wondering if he is putting me on.

“No. really." Roy says, "See that metal spiral ladder? Let's go up and I’ll show you around."

Mounting the ladder, I find myself stepping onto a narrow platform in the light chamber. A gull flies past and its raucous laugh seems a response to my incredu­lous stare.

“The tower is forty-four feet high," says Roy, “and it has the classic octagonal shape."

“This is fantastic!" I reply, gazing out at the sweeping view of Keweenaw Bay. When I express my amazement at the workmanship, Roy thanks me and then, soft­ly, almost self-effacingly, he tells me that he built it.

In my dictionary of the regional lexicon, after the Finnish word, SISU, it says, "See Roy Koski.” Patience. Courage. Endurance. It seems that Roy Koski built this amazing structure in part to prove the physicians at Mayo Clinic wrong in their dire predictions about his future. Following extensive surgery for a shoulder injury, Roy was told he would never again be able to use his arm for his beloved carpentry work. What did he do? Sit at home and lament his fate? No. Mr. Roy Koski got out his tools and undertook a major construction job: building a lighthouse tower on his son’s store.

“And you know what?" he says with a twinkle in his eyes, “The shoulder works good.” SISU!

But if you do visit, please don't move here

But if you do, remember this from Lon's epilogue

Imagine loving money so much that you're willing to hand your children over to college professors

Ok, your kids can be plumbers and tow truck drivers. My kids are going to go to university and become affluent lawyers and doctors. I won't deprive you of your working class pride though. Please keep telling yourself that university is gay.

Went to my town's information center earlier today and bought a newly released dual copy for TDP followers. Every single follower will gain access to this forbidden knowledge. Even if they don't read it, it will seep into their brains through the internet.

Reading through this again tonight. I'll post a few pages that catch my attention:

"If you seek a polar climate, have a need to make yourself miserable or if you need to atone for a life of sin, then maybe you’re a candidate for our glacier-land."

"We have so much snow that it causes the locals to go bonkers every year. Bad weather takes on moral implications—the interminable white season is our cross to bear. A clear, warm day is greeted with alarm: There will be some terrible climatic calamity in payback for the brief respite. “We’re going to pay for this later,” oldtimers utter, in tones of conviction and resignation."

"Just beneath the skin of every Yooper is a layer of permafrost; the ice chills all normal human attributes. The technical medical diagnosis for this condition is hypothermia of the spirit. The local residents have never really gotten warm.

...

We are suspicious of outsiders. Why do they want to come here when we know very well how miserable it is? Are they fools? Are they coming to view us quaint local yokels, have some laughs and then go home and tell jokes about the primitive life forms in the far north?

Don’t try to get to know the locals. After all, we know that visitors, after leaving this country, will return to warmer climes and stimulating cities, and look forward to good, balanced meals that don’t involve pasties and venison."

"So, how should one interact with Yoopers? It’s best not to interact at all if you can avoid it. We settled here in the far north long ago because no one else wanted it; we revel in our distinctive way of life and wish to be left alone.

It’s best to simply do the typical tourist things: buy a small pillow filled with balsam needles; eat a pasty (be sure to pronounce it “paste-ee”); get a souvenir baseball cap with a deer turd encased in plastic on the brim; and spend most of your time indoors at the casino.

Don’t try to buy gas, order a meal or find a motel room on November 15, or the last Saturday in April. Those are High Holy Days—the opening of deer hunting season and the start of trout fishing season—and U.P. National Holidays.

Whatever you do, don’t try to fit in with the locals. We resent it; we think you are patronizing us because we know what wretched lives we lead.

Don’t tell any jokes about poaching deer, eating road kill or things you have observed which prove that Yoopers are examples of evolutionary cul-de-sacs. In some circles, it’s also best not to mention the movie Escanaba in Da Moonlight.

It’s better to ask dumb questions because it gives us a little rush to feel superior.

Ask questions like:

"Have you lived here all your life?” There will be a long pause—then a laconic Yooper response: “Not yet.”

Ask for directions—one of the rare pleasures we have is getting visitors lost in the vast forests.

Old Eddie Uren is a master at getting tourists lost. He seems so deliberate and sincere when he gives elaborate instructions how to get to a particular location, right down to telling his victims to look for the dead elm tree with a patch of moss on the north side. His favorite place to send people is off to the Sands Plains where it is very easy to get confused and disoriented by the web of woods roads radiating in all directions.

But Eddie always ends his complex directions with a wave of his arm and a caveat that tourists never hear correctly. As a visitor returns to his car, Eddie calls out after him, “You can miss it!”

Ask about using an outhouse. That question can lead to all sorts of fun for the locals.

My Uncle Bill Rosemergy is held in regional awe for the most outrageous outhouse stunt. Before an elderly maiden relative from Detroit came to visit, Bill, an electrician by trade, wired his outhouse. He installed a speaker under the seat platform and a remote control microphone in his cabin. Aunt Lucille delayed using the outdoor facility until she could wait no longer. Just when she got nicely settled down on the seat, Uncle Bill turned on the speaker and said, “Hey, lady, I’m working down here. You’re blocking my light!”

I read somewhere that 97% of U.P. households have one or more television sets, but only 89% have indoor plumbing. Does this mean that there is more crap coming into the homes than is going out?

Under no circumstances should you ask questions like these:

"Where can I find a good blueberry patch?” “Where can I fish for brook trout?” "Where’s a good spot to pick mushrooms?”

Almost without exception, a resident will stare at you for a minute or so—one of the rare times a Yooper makes eye contact— and then reply, "I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He may smile a bit when he says it, but he is “dead” serious."