After a late night thrilling to the view of the Milky Way along the dark shores of Lake Superior, I climbed into bed prepared for a long sleep and a morning reveling in the experience.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, I awoke at daybreak to a saturated sky alight with color. Stepping outside my rental cabin a few feet from the lake, I was immersed in the colors: blazing orange, searing yellow and a brilliant white line at the horizon. The water glistened as the sun began to emerge, calm waters quietly tapping the shore where aspen and birch leaves rippled in the crisp September morning. It nearly took my breath away.
This panoramic sunrise was like none I had ever seen, and it moved me in ways that are hard to explain. I had come to Michigan’s wild and wondrous Upper Peninsula hoping to find transformative experiences that would soothe a pandemic-weary soul. I wanted to mark these strange times with something stunning, instead of only crisis and tragedy. So I headed north and let the stars guide my way.
The skies were clear and it was a little before midnight when my friends and I drove to Whitefish Point to look for the Milky Way. We climbed the wooden deck on the Lake Superior shore, near where the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975.
In front of us, above the black water, the stars shone like diamonds spilled on a velvet cloth. Behind us, rising high above the Whitefish Point Light, we saw the Milky Way, looking like chalk smearing the dark sky.
We had come to the Paradise area in the peninsula’s eastern region to try some night sky photography, and we did. But the moments without the camera were the best, taking in billions of stars painting the sky above, wind and waves enveloping us in sound as people looking for rocks walked the shoreline, somehow, impossibly oblivious to the grand show overhead.
The entire state of Michigan is filled with natural wonders, but the Upper Peninsula (uptravel.com) might be a shock to folks who think the Midwest is all flat land and farm fields.
This is a Midwest with mountains and waterfalls and virgin hardwood forests. There’s about 1,700 miles of sometimes rugged shoreline along three Great Lakes, bodies of water so big they are known as inland seas. It’s a Midwest with bears and moose and eagles. It’s a Midwest with skies dark enough to regularly see the Milky Way — and sometimes even the northern lights.
We began our trip in early September, on the west side of the Upper Peninsula. We focused on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Munising and Paradise (who, after all, could pass up a chance at paradise?).
I wanted to see the migrating Monarch butterflies that congregate here for a few days near Escanaba before beginning their seemingly impossible 2,000-mile winter journey to Mexico. I missed them by a few days, but seeing a handful of them at the Stonington Peninsula let me share in their journey.
There are more than 300 waterfalls scattered across the 15 counties that make up the Upper Peninsula. The biggest waterfall is in one of the finest state parks I’ve ever seen: Tahquamenon Falls State Park, in Paradise. North of Mackinaw City, the park is 46,179 acres of mostly undeveloped woodland. The Upper Falls is more than 200 feet across with a 48-foot drop.
You could spend weeks in the U.P. just visiting waterfalls. The moisture in the air, combined with the sound and movement of the water, make for an energizing experience. When the waterfall is at the end of a calming hike through the quiet forest, it’s like finding a treasure.
Just under five hours west of Paradise, we saw two falls in Keweenaw: Jacob’s Falls, just a few feet off the road, and Douglass Houghton Falls outside Calumet. While the latter is not yet open to the public and is difficult to get to, it is Michigan’s tallest waterfall at 110 feet high. Near Munising, located between Keweenaw and Paradise, we saw falls from the boat ride at Pictured Rocks and also Munising Falls and Wagner Falls, both easy to get to and worth a visit.
We started our trip on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the furthest north spot in the Upper Peninsula. We made our base at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge (keweenawmountainlodge.com) in Copper Harbor. It’s a place of rustic elegance with a snazzy bar and fine food, in a spot that’s great for exploring the whole peninsula.
The main lodge is a design icon that seamlessly incorporates modern elements into the historic building. The main dining room is here, as is the breakfast restaurant, multiple indoor and outdoor seating spots and a stunning bar. The individual cabins are rustic but comfortable, with their own fireplaces and retro touches. The one-, two- and three-bedroom cabins have mini-fridges and microwaves, but no kitchens or televisions. Wi-Fi can be spotty, which is true of much of the peninsula wilderness.
A historic resort built in 1934 as part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, the lodge is applying for International Dark-Sky Association designation — a measure to prevent light pollution through a nonprofit organization — and offers regular night-sky viewing and photography sessions.
The open skies over the lodge’s golf course gave me my first good view of the Milky Way in the U.P. Standing in the dark, gazing at the spots of brilliance that have traveled so many lightyears through time and space to paint the sky is magical. And humbling.
There are so many must-dos on any Upper Peninsula trip, but you really can’t leave without a boat ride around the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (nps.gov/piro) in Munising.
Pictured Rocks’ sandstone cliffs are a natural wonder more than 15 miles long, a geologic history sculpted by wind and water into amazing rock formations that are best seen from the water. There’s so much to do here — hiking, swimming, kayaking, more waterfalls — that I wished we had a week just for this part of the U.P.
That seemed to be a constant refrain: We need more time here.
Our last two-night leg of the trip was at that Paradise rental cabin. From the dark of night to the brilliance of daybreak, Paradise lived up to its name. It’s where I saw that magnetic sunrise, the Milky Way hovering above the Great Lakes, and where the night sky over Tahquamenon Falls was mesmerizing.
I missed out on a few things I had wanted to see. But that randomness of Mother Nature’s bounty is what gave me the sunrise that delivered me from all the woes of the world. That’s what I had come to find. I was joyous, exuberant and calm all at the same time, moved by the magnificent natural wonder enveloping me.
I had been searching for this, but it had found me.
Terri Colby is a freelance writer.
