What Da Heck Is A Yooper?
The people that live in the Upper Peninsula or the U.P.
are called "Yoopers" and are proud of it. The people that live under the
bridge are called "trolls." The song "I'm a Troll Man" was written about
them. Lots of trolls from down below dream about moving to da U.P., but
there's no work here. So we let them come up to relax, enjoy and spend
their cash, but they gotta go home afterwards.
Where is Yooperland?
From Da Yoopers School For Da Truly Ungifted
Yooperland Geography 1034
The state of Michigan is broken up into two peninsulas
- the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula. They are connected together
by the Mackinac Bridge.
Adapted from John Hinde Inc. Distributed by Antigo
Card Service
Yooper names for the Mackinac Bridge - Da Crossing,
Da Bridge, Big Mac, Troll Turnpike.
Yooper names for the Upper Peninsula - Yooperland,
Da U.P., Da Yoop, Yoopsconsin.
Yooper names for the Lower Peninsula (Michigan, Da
Mitten, Troll Land, Detroit)
Da band Da Yoopers all reside in the County of Marquette.
Here is some trivia on their beloved peninsula.
-Yooperland in Quotes-
"It's an edgy place. I mean, in the sense that it still
hangs on out there like a rawhide flap of the old frontier, outposted from
the swirl of mainstream America. The U.P. is a hard place. A person has
to want to hurt a lot to live there".
---- John G. Mitchell, Audubon Magazine, November 1981---
"In winter we shovel snow and in summer we swat mosquitoes. During the
spring and fall we rest up for swatting and shoveling".
---Peter Oikarinen's reply to the often-asked question of Yoopers, "What
do you people do up there?" 1987---
"The best thing that could happen to the U.P. would be for someone to bomb
the bridge".
---John Voelker, former Michigan Supreme Court Justice and the author of
Anatomy
of a Murder and Yooper resident---
"I wish the media downstate would stop referring to the top of the mitten
(Cadillac, Houghton Lake, Grayling, Traverse City areas) as Northern Michigan.
A Yooper considers that area Central Michigan. This is one of the reasons
the U.P. wants to become its own country. Those trolls down there still
consider the U.P. a picker on the "Mitten of Mitchagan"
---Glen Adams, Yooperland resident---
"Why would anyone build the most spectacular bridge in the world at the
top of Michigan instead of at Detroit where everyone could see it?"
---letter from an irate "troll" taxpayer to the Governor of Lower Michigan,
1980---
"Will someone inform the Gazette what earthly use the Lower Peninsula
is to the Upper Peninsula, geographically, or otherwise?"
---Portage Lake Mining Gazette, 1871---
"That land of wonderful wilderness".
---Edwin Way Teale, Journey Into Summer, 1960
"Nowhere, probably on the continent, is fall foliage more beautiful in
brilliancy or contrasting colors".
---George Shiras, National Geographic, August 1921
"It is one of the prettiest places in the world".
---Henry Ford, 1920's---
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