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irregularly-shaped Grand Island with its ancient light-house and
steep bluffs. Tucked just out of sight along the shoreline to the
east is one of Michigan’s most famous sights: the
Pictured Rocks.
Going west from the sprawl, the highway passes the main downtown
avenue, Elm Street, as it follows Lake Superior all the way to
Marquette. Turn toward the water and you’ll find the
attractive new marina and Bayshore Park near the docks to the
Pictured Rocks Boat Cruises. The park's picnic tables and
benches are a good place to take a break and enjoy the often
sub-lime view of the harbor, Grand Island, and the often misty
interplay of light, clouds, and water.
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Munising has been steadily losing
population; it was over 3,000 in 1980, 2,783 in 1990 and 2,539 in
2000. It is finally making some strides in refocusing itself
with Bayfront Park, a point of civic pride. Like Ontonagon, L'Ance,
Cheboygan, and Alpena, it has seen itself as an industrial town,
with tourism an undependable extra. Historically towns like it have
had a hard time making civic decisions based on scenery and
appearances, and choice bay front land has been taken up by uses that
don't relate to the water or the view. The century-old buildings at
M-28/Munising Avenue and Elm, a block up from the harbor drive, have
been refurbished with a sense of history. Unfortunately two off the
four are presently empty.
Munising's superb harbor is protect-ed from Lake Superior's storms by
13,000-acre Grand Island. Long a private hunting retreat, Grand Island
is now a national recreational area well suited to mountain biking and
kayaking, The Grand Island ferry is off M-28 four' miles northwest of
town. For a great view of the island, harbor, and the city, there’s a
Grand Island scenic lookout on a mainland hilltop due south of the
island west of Munising.
The scenic sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks and Grand Island
contributed to the large number of ship wrecks here. Winds off the
cliffs some-times caused ships to sink or run aground, often as they
sought refuge in Munising's safe harbor. The waters off Munising
are now the Alger Underwater Preserve, with eight major wrecks with in
the 113 square miles. A worthwhile shipwreck cruise enables sightseers
to visit three of them. Divers who enjoy exploring these wrecks take
boats from “ Munising.
Groups of Ojibwa long made use of the sheltered
Munising Bay as a favorite summer camping grounds. The WPA guide
to Michigan recounts, "The splendor of [Pictured Rocks] cliffs and the
thunder of waves in the caverns filled the Indians with awe; the
Chippewa, who controlled most of the Upper Peninsula and camped here
each summer believed that the gods of thunder and lightning lurked in
the resounding caverns. They believed that Paupukkeewis lived
among the crags in the form of an eagle; and that many of the cliffs
housed evil spirits that had to be propitiated at stated intervals.
Hiawatha, their hero, hunted in these woods, stalked game along these
cliffs, and waded past the palisades, indenting them frequently with his
fist in its magic mitten."
The area’s first important settlement was Grand Island, long used by
Native Americans and later also as a fur-trading outpost, steamship
fueling station, and destination for adventurous
tourists. An iron blast furnace attracted permanent settlers to Munising
in the1870s. Sawmills, a tannery, and the Munising Woodenware Company,
whose wide array of household products are represented in the local
museum, furthered the town’s growth. Today the Alger Maximum Security
Prison, one of the U.P.’s many state prisons, is south of town. Built in
1990, it has a staff of 406
and can hold 532 prisoners. Sizable plants using U.P. timber are an even
bigger part of the local economy. The old paper mill, started in 1903,
dominates the shoreline just east of downtown. It's now owned by
Kimberly Clark. With 460 workers, the plant uses U.P. hardwoods to make
special papers such as the brown patch on the back of Levi’s Jeans, the
little label on Chiquita bananas, and the labels on Elmer's glue
bottles.
A big sawmill now owned by Oregon’s Timber Products operates on M-28 six
miles east of Munising. Fifty workers saw 70,000 board feet of maple
day. The best of the lumber is used by furniture and cabinetmakers,
while pallet makers buy the lower grades. Next to the sawmill Timber's
planer mill has another 30 workers and a veneer mill has 140 workers who
take top-grade maple, beech, and birch and peel off strips 1/36 of an
inch at a time.
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