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."

"There are some seedy taverns you might visit. In most every case, the bars up here are overheated, dimly-lit and smell of stale beer and other odors wafting from the back room. The bartender will be a tall, thin character named Leon with long, grimy hair and a tattoo on his right bicep proclaiming “Death before Dishonor.” On the wall behind the bar is a large mural depicting Custer’s Last Stand and a bumper sticker proclaiming To take away my deer rifle, you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."

"Even the Founding Fathers knew a dismal, god-for-saken place when they heard about it.

Shortly after the American Revolutionary War, rumors circulated about the immense mineral wealth in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. But most lawmakers expressed doubt that the Lake Superior region would ever be developed. Patrick Henry, he of the “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, was especially caustic. “The entire region,” Henry stated, “is beyond the most distant wilderness and remote as the moon.” Old Pat got it right, eh?

The U.P. is a forbidding place-dark,
endless winters, gloomy forests, hordes of biting insects, fearsome wildlife and desperate human inhabitants. Visiting the Upper Peninsula will be one of the worst mistakes of your life. I can guarantee that once you get here, your entire energy will be devoted to how to flee.

The local residents know all this but cannot or will not leave because they are addicted to suffering. Just consider these names of only a few locations in the U.P.: Misery Bay, Dismal Seepage, Germfask, Pine Stump Junction, Hog Island. Don’t those names conjure up beauty and tranquility? Paraphrasing Gertrude Stein, there is no here, here. Why would you want to visit 16,347 square miles of desolation?

The Upper Peninsula is beyond the end of the road. It is far away from any modern civilization, and the residents don’t like to follow any of your usual rules. If you want to have a good time on your vacation, don’t expect it up here-head for the Wisconsin Dells or Disney World instead."

You probably think I’m exaggerating. Well, let me tell you about what happened last deer season at the Kernow Hunting Camp in Big Bay.

The members of the Kernow Camp are all getting a bit long in the tooth and most of them are nursing various ailments. Instead of hunting alone, they decided to pair up so that if someone had a problem, his partner could summon help. Old Bernie Medlyn, who had been through some heart troubles, was paired with his good buddy, Harvey Treloar, and on opening day they went up to a new deer blind on the Salmon Trout River.

It was almost dark when Harvey struggled back into camp dragging a beautiful eight-point buck. All the old guys ran out of the cabin to admire Harvey’s deer. It was the best whitetail buck taken at Kernow Camp in many years and Harvey basked in all the praise and awe. When the excitement had settled down, Alex Pentreath asked, “Say, Harvey, where’s Bernie?”

Harvey looked down at his deer and then up at the circle of his longtime hunting buddies. “Well, guys, Bernie got real sick after lunch... and he died,” Harvey said. There was a collective audible sigh of shock and disbelief.

“But Harvey,” Alex said incredulously, “you dragged this here buck back to camp and left Bernie in the woods?” Harvey took off his blaze orange Stormy Kromer hat, looked down admiringly at his eight-point buck and replied, “No one’s going to steal Bernie.” The men looked at each other, nodded in agreement and filed back into the camp to have a celebratory drink to Harvey’s successful hunt."

"My friend, Keith Dunstan, leads woods walks and bird watching outings; he always tells the participants up front about his stringent criteria for cancellation, I quote from Keith’s directive:

“There is a huge logging chain fastened to an oak tree in my backyard. When the wind is so strong it blows the chain out horizontal to the ground AND lightning is striking the chain links-then we stay home.”"

"Whenever the annual snowfall reaches 300 inches-which happens most every year in these parts-[Ray Bullock] hosts a huge party; all the Yoopers celebrate by cutting a hole in the ice on Teal Lake in Negaunee and plunging into the frigid water. I’ve told you before that people are weird up here."

"Now, really, can’t you see why you wouldn’t like it here—not for a visit or, most certainly, not as a place to call home. Those who do live here know that the Upper Peninsula is a dismal region of forbiddingly frigid weather, dark gloomy forests, hordes of biting insects, dangerous wild animals and somewhat quirky human residents.

Oh, sure, on first impression during your brief vacation the land may seem like a paradise, the perfect respite from your city life, and we may seem normal, even a bit friendly. But we have our own brand of misery from being cold and isolated too long. Don’t expect us to give you welcoming bouquets or, despite what you may have heard, sing quaint shanty songs for your amusement.

...

Keep in mind that we live here in the wilds far away from any organized law enforcement and we don’t follow the usual norms of human interaction. So, don’t get too friendly or trusting. Everyone up here seems normal until you get to know them.

The quirks emerge in full blown adoles­ cent humor, especially when we are forced to go “down below.” Even persons with college degrees and responsible jobs have difficulty controlling their inner adolescent:

The Dismal Seepage Community School District sent Ron Tresedder down to the lower Peninsula one summer to update his teaching credentials. Ron had been assigned to teach a new course on human reproduction for high school students in the fall.

Held at Michigan State University, the summer workshop was taught by Dr. Harold Gordon, physiologist and expert on the topic of sex education. Perhaps to emphasize his expertise, Dr. Gordon always wore a long white lab coat, unbut­toned, over his street clothes.

On the first day of class, Dr. Gordon strode purposefully into the lecture hall holding aloft a clear glass bottle with an object immersed in liquid. Walking close to the front row of students he held the specimen even higher.

Ron noted that the professor’s left hand was in the pocket of his trousers. Clearing his throat for attention, Dr. Gordon pronounced “In my hand I hold a diseased penis.” The class was momentarily transfixed until Ron, unable to inhibit his inner adolescent, called out from his seat in the back row, “What ya got in the bottle, Doc?”

A quaint shanty song, you say? You just don't find that sort of thing up here

"One other thing: Don’t tell Yoopers to have a nice day. They know what kind of miserable day they are bound to have, the same they have endured all their lives. Cheery advice to experience anything “nice” in the U.P. just rubs salt in ancient wounds."