Quirky Grand Marais

Long before 17th century French voyageurs Pierre Esprit Radisson, Medard Chouart and Sieur des Groseilliers traveled Lake Superior’s south shore, the Ojibwa called the region home. According to Radisson, the Native people respected the spirits they believed shaped the spectacularly carved and colored towering sandstone of the Pictured Rocks. Of their journey Radisson said, “We go along the coast, most delightful and wonderful. Nature has made it pleasant to the eye, the spirit and the belly.”

The French name Grand Marais translates to great marsh, but is interpreted here to reference the large, relatively shallow harbor. The natural resources of the area drew fur traders, including an outpost of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. By 1805, the Michigan Territory was established, and earnest exploration of the Upper Peninsula began.

It wasn’t until 1861 that the first permanent settlement, a trading post, was built. Fishing and lumber industries followed, with a few mills shipping wood products and multiple fisheries sending a bounty of trout and whitefish around the lake. Grand Marais experienced modest growth until 1894, when the rail line arrived and logging camps were built to cut the area’s huge tracts of white pine.

It’s hard to imagine today, but in a short time there were 25 saloons, six churches, a dozen or more boarding houses, hotels, drugstores, general and specialty stores, an opera house, a hospital, a school and two newspapers serving the population of about 3,000. Large mills shipped tens of millions of feet of lumber each year. The good times came to an end in 1910, when the pine was exhausted and the logging operations and railway moved on.

With the rail service gone, a road was finally built for a means of reaching Grand Marais by land. The development of Michigan Highway 77 allowed travelers in their new-fangled motor cars to discover the lakeside village. Tourism, along with a resurgence in commercial fishing, became important to the revival of Grand Marais.

Only in Grand Marais

Among the early summer residents of Grand Marais were Chicagoans William Donahey, an illustrator and creator of The Teenie Weenies cartoon strip, and Mary Dickerson Donahey, a children’s book author. William’s Chicago Tribune strip, widely syndicated over a span of 50-plus years, featured 2-inch-tall people who lived in human-sized objects, such as a pickle jar.

In 1926, the creative couple moved into a cottage on Grand Sable Lake that was a 16-foot-tall version of the pickle barrel featured in his popular stories. The cabin had a living room and kitchen on the first floor and bedroom upstairs. But after enduring a decade of fans invading their privacy to see the curiosity, the Donaheys gave up their retreat and the structure was moved into town, where it served as an ice cream stand and information booth. It has since been restored by the Grand Marais Historical Society as a museum, and a glimpse into The Teenie Weenies phenomenon.

The Historical Society also operates the Old Post Office Museum and Lightkeeper’s House Museum, Heritage Center at the library, and beautiful iris and rose gardens.

Rockin’ On

Aptly named Agate Beach, the stretch of Lake Superior shoreline in Grand Marais is a destination for rockhounds in search of the colorful, layered semi-precious gemstone. Karen Brzys, aka The Agate Lady, has written six books on minerals and operates the Agatelady Rock Shop, where she sells specimens and her stained glass art that incorporate slices of agates.

On Fridays throughout the summer months, Brzys delivers her lecture, “Understanding and Finding Agates,” and also conducts custom programs.

“My emphasis is on education,” she says, including a private class identifying different types of rocks and learning to “think like an agate,” with an excursion to the beach to find specimens.

“The interest in rockhounding has gone up significantly,” Brzys says, attributing some of it to people searching for outdoor activities in the COVID era. Whether the pickings include agates or just pretty rocks, she believes the meditative time spent on the Lake Superior shore is time well spent.

Grand Marais is also a popular spot for nighttime hunting of fluorescent sodalite, an ordinary looking gray rock that glows when under a UV light. Local gem and mineral dealer Erik Rintimaki discovered the first specimens several years ago and dubbed them Yooperlites. He conducts guided excursions to help in the hunt.

Note: Be sure when you’re hunting for stones that you’re in an area that allows you to take them home; otherwise, just enjoy the beauty of the rocks and thrill of the hunt, and then leave them where you find them.