Marquette and Gwinn MI

Aug. 25 - Sept.9 2015

After the decision was made to save Munising and The Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore for another time, we had to determine where we'd go next.  There are very few Pass Port America campground in the U.P. but one that intrigued me was the Farquar-Metsa Tourist Park in Gwinn MI. The name alone was interesting.  Who or what was Farquar and Metsa. Shrek and Lord Farquaad comes to mind.  The web site  on the PPA site wasn't much help, referencing the Forsyth Township in Gwinn MI.  I did my usual "fly over" on Google earth with inconclusive results.  Oh well, life's an adventure, we'd give it a try! Besides, it had to be better than our current situation.  After calling to make sure there was a site for us, we headed for the little community of Gwinn MI and the Farquar-Metsa Tourist Park.

We left the Munising area in much the same weather as we arrived, cold drizzly rain. The rout was similar in time and distance to our previous moves, about 48 mi. and 55 minutes. The possibility of making a day trip back to Munising came to mind.  We passed through a number of small... well, I would call them community's, just intersections with a few buildings on the corners.

K I Sawyer Flight line form a bygone era.

 As we got closer to Gwinn, we passed through the community of Sawyer, another former Air Force base similar to Kinross MI.

Open air museum of aircraft that survived at Sawyer

The K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base was closed in November 1994, another victim of the ending of the Cold War. Along with the base closure, 4,600 military and civilian jobs vanished.   Today the Sawyer International Airport is the main air transportation facility for Marquette and the surrounding area.  Sawyer's economic base includes 68 businesses and over 1200 employees. The K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum chronicles the bases history.  Here's a link to a brief history and time line.

The terrain in this part of the U.P. is flat with a spattering of marshes and forest.  We left the rain some ware back toward Munising but it was still cool and overcast.  The entrance to the campground was up a slight incline and at the end of a right hand curve, we almost missed it.  The park has 20 full hookup RV sites.  All sites have gravel pads surrounded by lush grass.  Yes grass, I was never so happy to see grass!  We signed up for our usual 2 nights but right away a longer stay looked promising.

It was still early so we set out on a driving tour of Gwinn MI.  Gwinn is an unincorporated community in Forsyth Township, Marquette County.  It encompass 5.1 sq. miles and has a population of around 2000.  While the rain had stopped, it was still a cold blustery day and there weren't many people about.  It looked almost distorted for a Tuesday afternoon.  Almost all these little communities we've visited have a town museum and we try to visit them to learn some of the local history.  We were in luck, the museum was open from noon to 4:00 Tuesday and Thursdays.

The volunteer on duty was a long time Gwinn resident, transplanted  from New Jersey.  We asked about the history of the area and she told us all about her early years in New Jersey!  She was very helpful, even calling a local mom and pop restaurant to confirm the special of the day.  If interested, here's a brief history of Gwinn and Forsyth Township.

Aug 26

Marquette Michigan welcome center

Today we drove into Marquette, heading up M-553 from Gwinn.  The weather was still a little cool and breezy but no rain.  There's another Michigan welcome center just east of town on US 41.  As usual we came away with lots of information about the area including the local brew pubs.  There's a scenic drive (Lake Shore Blvd., what else) along the shore line through down town past the lower harbor Oar Docks, Elwood A Matson Lower Harbor Park, Light House Point, across Dead River, ending at the Presque Isle Park.

Peter White Dr.

Presque Isle Park (known as Marquette's crown jewel) is a 323 acre forested oval shaped peninsula that juts into Lake Superior at the north tip of the city.  The park has several hiking trails and there's a narrow one lane outer perimeter road (Peter White Dr.) which winds it way around the island. Another attraction is the free-roaming band of white-tailed deer.  At times the band contain albino deer whose snowy white coat dramatically contrasts with the typical brown coloring.

Marquette also has a Tourist Park Campground.  There's a disk golf course across the street and a bike trail runs right through it.  We drive through to checked it out. While it would be much closer to all the amenities the city offers, we decided we liked the Gwinn campground much better. At the end of the day we were excited by all there was to do in Marquette and Gwinn.   We returned to Gwinn and signed up for a week.

The Farquar-Metsa Tourist Park is owned by the city of Gwinn and all the maintenance is handled by city workers.  It sits on the Escanaba river with a swimming beach, Pavilion, canoe launch and hiking trail.  The trail makes a loop along the river north of the park then heads south (still along the river) ending at Peter Nordeen Park, a distance of about 2 miles.  For more walking opportunities, there's plenty of residential area with charming little houses and almost no traffic.Gwinn has everything you need, a grocery store, 2 laundromats, a hardware store and various other stores and businesses.

Steve and Sandy are the campground host. They've lived in Guinn all their lives.  Steve is a retired city worker so he knows who to call to get things done.  We struck up a friendship with Steve and Sandy and they helped us find some of the lesser known amenities of the area.  Right away I asked Steve about the possibility of a shuttle to paddle the Escanaba river in the coming days.  He knew exactly where to take us.  We were looking forward to spending some time here and just goofing off.

Aug 27

We spent part of today touring around Gwinn and looking for the river take out Steve told us about. Along the way we noticed these rustic "city gates" seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  These sighs marked the ATV/Snowmobile trails as they passed through the town.  This just emphasizes the importance of the extensive off road trail system in the U.P.  Steve and Sandy told us of trips they would take in the backwoods covering 100 miles with out seeing another soul.  The only limitation was how much gas they could carry.

After we returned to the campground, Steve and Sandy invited us to go out for Pasties.  Now, you might remember we tried or first Pasty back at St. Ignace, just after we crossed into the UP with under whelming results.  This was a chance to try another with some native Michigander who knew where to get good ones.
Our destination was the Crossroads Restaurant and Lounge at the corner of M-553 and Co Rd 480 just south of Marquette.  Not much to look at from the outside, but a pleasant enough on the inside.



A little review, A Pasty is a baked pastry filed with beef, sliced or diced potatoes, rutabaga or turnip,onion, carrots and seasoned with salt and pepper.  The are eaten plan or with ketchup or gravy.

The one we had in St. Ignace was take-out. These were big enough to be a complete meal this and hot out of the oven.  I ordered a side of gravy so I could try all the variations.

They have a Pasty tracker map to track where people come from to try a Pasty at the Crossroads.  Believe it or not, there was no pin in Salt Springs, so we were the first, WHOOPEE!

After dinner Steve and Sandy drove us to the take our we'd be paddling to on the Escambia river.They were eager to show off the natural assets of their little town.

It was still early when we returned to the campground so we took a walk on the trail leading north along the Escampia river. Not far down the trail we came across a wonderful little picnic area over looking a couple of rapids with a pool in the middle.  The sun was going down fast and all the colors were starting to washed out but it was still a beautiful place.  We resolved to come back some afternoon for a picnic lunch.































Aug 27

Steve and Sandy told us about a fun little attraction in a nearby town of Ishpeming MI,  "Da Yooper Tourist Trap".  Now, living in Florida all our lives, we know something about Tourist Traps!  So, we had to check it out.

More to come on Da Yooper Tourist Trap...

On the way we passed through the little town of Jasper Ridge where we found the Jasper Ridge Brewery.

Sep 4

We drove into Marquette early on a Friday afternoon to find something to do.  There's a restaurant just off the Matson Lower Harbor park we'd been wanting to try.  The weekend Blues festival started this evening with a free concert to kick things off.  We figured we'd park in the festival parking lot, walk to the restaurant then come back to check out the music later.  As we were  walking by the festival area we heard the announcer mention there was food available.  Hum, restaurant food or festival food?  The energy of the festival was already starting to draw us in.  I suggested we see what food was available.  Joan spied a sign that said "Gumbo"  I had my eye on a pulled port sandwich with some catchy name like "Big Jake" or "Pork Shabang" or something like that.  And, there was a beer tent!  And, they had my new favorite beer, Widow-maker Dark Ale.  Okay, festival food won out... and I'm sure it was all low cal and healthy, RIGHT!  We walked back to the truck and got our chairs.

More to come about the Blues festival...

After the Blues festival I snuck out of the camper to try on Joan's cool new sunglasses.  Wa-da-ya think?

Yah, you're right, they look much better on her!







More to come ...