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The Upper Peninsula of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the northern of the two major land masses that make up the State of Michigan. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is commonly referred to, by those who live there, as simply "the Upper Peninsula", "the U.P.", or "Upper Michigan." You might also hear people call it the land "Above the Bridge". It is sometimes called "Northern Michigan" by non-Michiganders, but to people within the state, that term more commonly refers to the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. To explain the location of the U.P. to those whose familiarity the state is restricted to having seen it on a map, it might be referred to as the "finger," rather than the "glove," which is more of a reference to the Lower Peninsula's glove-like appearance than to the Upper Peninsula's resemblance to a finger.
Lake Superior separates the Upper Peninsula from Minnesota and Canada on the north. The southern boundary of the U.P. is Lake Michigan, which is the principle body of water separating the two peninsulas, and Lake Huron, which divides the peninsulas. At its closest point, the two peninsulas are five miles apart, separated by the Mackinac Straits, and connected only by the Mackinac Bridge, which was built in 1957. To the east, St. Mary's River separates the Upper Peninsula from Canada. The western boundary is the State of Wisconsin.
More than geography separates Michigan's two peninsulas. Often referred to as "Yoopers," much of the population of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan more closely identifies with Wisconsin than with its own Lower Peninsula.
Today, four western U.P. counties (Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron, and Menominee) are in the Central Time Zone, while the rest of Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone, the result of a refusal, on the part of the residents of these counties, to be in a different time zone than Wisconsin. Before the matter was resolved, there was a period during the late 1960s and early 1970s when state and federal agencies within these counties were on one time while nearly everyone else was on another, as individuals, businesses, and even local schools and governments refused to adjust their clocks to the Eastern Time Zone.
When I was growing up in the Upper Peninsula's Menominee County, it was rare to find a local who rooted for a Michigan sports team. The Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Braves were our teams, not the Detroit Lions or the Detroit Tigers.
But then, I lived outside of the small town of Wallace, in Menominee County, very near the Wisconsin border.
People from the Lower Peninsula are sometimes referred to as "trolls," a reference to being from "under the bridge" that separates the two peninsulas.
It is (or at least was) legal for hunters to hunt on land owned by the state in Michigan. In response to the annual influx of trolls during hunting season, it was standard practice for locals to post NO HUNTING, NO TRESPASSING signs throughout the state, regardless of ownership and including state lands. The locals knew where they could hunt and where they couldn't, while the trolls were left confused and frustrated.
There is no love lost between the two peninsulas. However, since the population centers of Michigan are in its Lower Peninsula, the trolls get to decide things for the rest of the state.
I am now living in Northern Maine, where a similar situation exists between the northern and southern halves of the state. In fact, there are occasional, but short-lived, movements to split Maine into two states, along northern-southern boundaries.
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