Maybe some of you have noticed from recent posts my wandering eye with regions of the northern US in which to relocate.

Upper midwest has been in the running too, but mostly focused on MN because of our family there. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on the UP of Michigan? It seems to have everything we're looking for: lakes, ski hills, less populated. It does look like it has a lack of Costco problem though, which maybe lends to the former point.

Cool towns? Flying community? Lake access situation for seaplanes?

I know they have a snowfall problem but do they suffer the low temps that Minnesota does?

Thanks, all.

Zane,

I love the UP from my limited experience. Marquette is the big town/small city in the UP. It has pretty much everything you may need.

Yep, lotsa snow but that makes for great snowmobiling, cross country and downhill skiing. I don't think they get the bitter cold northern Minnesota does.

There are lakes in the UP but I think northern Minnesota may be better for floatplane flying but that doesn't mean there isnt any float flying in the UP.

Houghton is a cool place and like Marquette has all the amenities. More hills in that area and Lake Superior is beautiful and NO sharks or salt!

Northern Wisconsin right below the UP may be worth looking at also, more lakes. I have limited knowledge and experience of the UP/northern Wisconsin area but from the limited time I have spent there I could easily live in the area, but keep in mind, I’m a Fairbanks boy at heart. Worth looking into for sure.

Kurt

Zane,
I grew up in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario, I could see Sault Ste. Marie Michigan from my house. I now live just north of the Minnesota border where you seem to go often. the biggest difference I have found between the two areas is the amount of snowfall, the eastern end of the big lake gets buried in the lake effect snow. It is wet and heavy where the western end of the lake gets the much "lighter" snow and a lot less of it on a normal year.

temperatures are colder in the winter west of the lake.... but it's a "dry" cold.... until you've experienced the difference it's hard to explain other than the wet cold stays with you all day regardless of what you do and the dry cold shakes off fairly easily.

as far as float flying south of the borders I can't speak too much to it, north of the border the float flying in northwestern Ontario is alive and well!!! although the area where I grew up north of the UP of Michigan does seem to be gaining some float plane activity.

all of northern Michigan ( the UP and the northern part of the LP) are a lot of fun and there is no shortage of outdoor activities and I love the great lakes. they might be the thing I miss the most about that area.

feel free to reach out if you would like to talk some more, there may not be anywhere in the UP that I have not been over the years of hockey and snowmobile racing!!

I think they are both great choices

Ian

I've only driven through the UP several times, and explored a bit, but I really liked that country! It's hard to find "Wild country" that far east, in my experience, but there's some really pretty wild country thereabouts.

At least it's not Oregon.....just sayin....

MTV

Zane...I grew up in the UP.....Iron Mountain...there’s lots to cover here....PM me and we can set a time to talk...other comments are accurate....closest Costco is Green Bay....if I had to move back I would go to Marquette....let me know.....re Aircaft service it’s Kubick Aviaton In IMT.....pasahow

I used to work with a guy who lives in Houghton. He drives seven hours each way to Chicago to get to work (once a week). He said it was worth it to live in paradise.

mtv wrote:At least it's not Oregon.....just sayin....

MTV

I take a little offense to this, because despite what the news tells you about a small area of downtown Portland, Oregon is an amazing state geographically and I'd live the rest of my days there happily if what I wanted existed there and I could afford it.

Airdave, sent you a PM. Call me.

Nice to hear positive things about the UP. Thanks all.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone move to the UP. Or the northern part of the lower peninsula either for that mater. Lake front property within a few hours drive of Green Bay or half day drive of down state Michigan will still be pricey. There are float planes in the UP but there is just not that much aviation in general as the population density is lower in the UP than most areas you are familiar with As for sharks in Lake Superior it is just that they don't like frozen food, only the young or the brave swim in Lake Superior except for late July early August. Inland lakes warm up sooner and get warmer. As for winter from Marquette east they measure snow fall in feet rather than inches do to the late effect but out of the snow belt not so much. I talked to a friend today who has a cabin in the central UP and ask how the snowmobile season was this year and he said the snow fall was light this year so not as good. Like a lot of places winter is what you make of it, if you choose to participate in the activities that it makes possible it is great and if you don't you will hate it and question every day why you are there. Just to note in the 2010 census Marquette, the largest city in the UP had a population of 21,335


Tim

My family has a place in the U.P. and has spent summers up there for more than 60 years.

Our places are in an area called the Les Cheneaux Islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Cheneaux_Islands

The water is really nice for recreation and float plane operations, though I don't see too may float planes out and about. The boating is top notch! It is a quiet place with vast expanses of thick forest, rivers, marshes and lakes. Real estate is relatively affordable. I can imagine that it would be a tough place to adapt to full time living, after growing accustomed to city life.

If north woods living among a quiet community appeals, it would be a good option.

Might also consider somewhere around Duluth MN for access to the amenities that a city offers without being overwhelmed by metropolis.

Isle Royale and the Apostle Islands are as close to the UP as I've been. When I landed at the Apostle Islands it was after the first frost and was told I was lucky the "black bugs" were done for the season. I do not like bugs so that would be a big consideration for me.

Your get close to Canada there Zzz be careful you might catch a full blown case of Floatplaneits

Zzz wrote:

mtv wrote:At least it's not Oregon.....just sayin....

MTV

I take a little offense to this, because despite what the news tells you about a small area of downtown Portland, Oregon is an amazing state geographically and I'd live the rest of my days there happily if what I wanted existed there and I could afford it.

Airdave, sent you a PM. Call me.

Nice to hear positive things about the UP. Thanks all.

Zane,

I’m old enough to recall when Oregon WAS a fantastic place. Then the Californians moved north, with their own special brand of politics. California and Oregon are both very special places, geographically.......if you can stomach the politics and taxes.

But, I’m glad there are folks who want to live there....lately, many of those have been moving here, and bringing their attitudes with. There are many, many great folks in both states, no doubt,

MTV

mtv wrote:

Zzz wrote:

mtv wrote:At least it's not Oregon.....just sayin....

MTV

I take a little offense to this, because despite what the news tells you about a small area of downtown Portland, Oregon is an amazing state geographically and I'd live the rest of my days there happily if what I wanted existed there and I could afford it.

Airdave, sent you a PM. Call me.

Nice to hear positive things about the UP. Thanks all.

Zane,

I’m old enough to recall when Oregon WAS a fantastic place. Then the Californians moved north, with their own special brand of politics. California and Oregon are both very special places, geographically.......if you can stomach the politics and taxes.

But, I’m glad there are folks who want to live there....lately, many of those have been moving here, and bringing their attitudes with. There are many, many great folks in both states, no doubt,

MTV

I'll second what MTV said. I was born in Portland 1958. Worked for the Portland Fire Bureau for 30 years. I'm a hard core conservative. Very very sad to see what happen to my paradise. Lucky to live east of the city in farm country on 42 acres. My own grass strip. You couldn't pay me enough to live in the city.

For better or worse I'll die here. Family, businesses, life long friends, all here. Luckily this year we bought a winter home in Arizona. Don't need the gray slop November thru March. Arizona is so close I can fly back and forth when ever I feel like seeing family and friends.

ZZZ go where works best for your family. Family first! Cheers...Rob

Assuming that you will need 100LL and you may not, and that you don't want to start your Saturday of flying with a 3 hour round trip drive to get fuel here is a list of airports with fuel. Starting in the west and moving east the following places will have 100LL (Michigan Aeronautics Airport Directory information), Ironwood, Houghton-Handcock, Iron Mountain, Marquette, Munising, Manistique, Newberry, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Ignace, Hessel, and Drummond Island. Of those the ones which have fast enough internet service for you to work at home are probably only Ironwood, Houghton_Handcock, Iron Mountain, Marquettte, and Sault Ste Marie and then only in the city. I am using a cell phone hot spot where I live out in the country. I do not know if any of them have high speed internet to water front areas or even lakes large enough to operate off of close to the city. If I was looking it would be Houghton-Handcock. Beautiful area, home of Michigan Technological University, far enough from metropolitan areas so the summer and weekend influx of tourist is not quite so bad. You might call Isle Royal Seaplanes and ask about the seaplane activity if the area, they are based there.

Tim

Thanks Tim. Good info.

Had a great conversation with Airdave100 on the phone today. Maybe you're next. Do you fly floats?

One thing I'll add to the conversation, having made the mistake myself... Be sure wherever you go, you check out the Internet services that are available. I moved to a very rural area NE of Dallas, and had seen a bunch of signs advertising high-speed Internet services in the area. I foolishly assumed we would have some decent options. Ha!

It was an early warning sign that the situation was so desperate that a dozen companies offering different "line-of-sight" solutions sprang into existence to address it. Every Bubba that could spell "Internet" began offering service, and the vast majority of them could only tell you if their solution would work for you by installing it at your location and trying it out. Of course, you have to pre-pay for the installation, but they refund you the equipment costs if they can't make it work. I've had at least a 1/2 dozen of them come onsite (to the tune of around $200 each time) to see if their solution would work for us, and the answer has always been "Nope - sorry about that."

The only workable option for us was AT&T DSL service, though "workable" is a relative term... They only offer 1.5Mbps downloads, and 128Kbps uploads. It's too slow to stream video at more than 480 resolution, and God help you if your computer starts downloading a security update... Or if your wife starts looking at Facebook... There were days when we would literally drive to the nearest town, go to McDonald's and buy some coffee so we could use their free Wi-Fi...

But at least our AT&T DSL service compensate for being so slow by being highly UNreliable (sigh). We've been down for 30+ consecutive days three times over the past 18 months, and every time we get a big rainstorm in our area (which is often!), we lose service for a few more days. The technician who comes out here to fix it (always the same guy, because he's the only one left in the local office who knows how) told me this last time that "corporate" AT&T was trying to shut down all the remaining "copper" DSL sites (which is what we have here - being well off the main roads and population centers where fiber is viable) because they are no longer getting replacement parts for the equipment. They cannibalize from sites they are decommissioning to keep sites like ours running. Last time around, our local tech had to wait for a "copper" DSL site in PA to be replaced with "fiber" site hub so they could ship that PA unit here for him to strip parts out of it to repair ours...

And before someone asks the question: Yes, I've tried to sign up StarLink, but they're not in our area yet. Late 2021, they tell me... Sigh.

Zane I sent you my phone number in a pm. I do have a float rating I got several years ago and a grand total of 7 or 8 hours. I know this is sacrilege but just not my thing. I am pretty familiar with what is going on float plane wise as a friend of mine, Derek Deruiter operates Northwoods Aviation in Cadillac where I base my 170. He does seaplane instruction with a Husky on amphibs, soon to be replaced with a very nice PA12 on st floats, plus has a part 135 185 on amphibian floats. His dad Don, also a friend of mine, started flying floats commercially in the area in the 1960's and when he retired Derek bought the business. I could rent Derek's PA12 or Don's personal J3 anytime I wanted to, just having to much fun on grass strips with my 170. Between Northwoods and Joe Sprauge at Cadillac Aircraft Services they probably do a dozen or so float changes each spring and fall and an additional 5 or 6 float planes over winter in the big community hanger. Somewhere I have a photo of 5 Aeronca Sedans on floats that Joe was taking care of parked on the edge of the ramp in a row. Most lakes in Michigan with public access are open to float planes. Some of the areas in the UP are closed to motor vehicles, the Seney National Wildlife Refuse comes to mind so you would not be able to operate on the lakes there. The vast wild areas are owned by a combination of State and National Forest, State Parks, the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore and private paper companies. I am not sure but I think you are ok in the forest and the paper companies allow snowmobile and atv use on trails as long as it doesn't interfere with logging operations.

Tim