The U.P. town that gets 150 fewer inches of snow than its neighbors is worth the drive

It’s the U.P.’s warm side

Escanaba sits on Little Bay de Noc, an inlet of Lake Michigan on the southern shore of the Upper Peninsula, and it gets a fraction of the snow that buries the rest of the region.

Most of the U.P. sees 200 or more inches each winter. Escanaba gets about 50. Locals call this stretch the “Banana Belt,” and for a place this far north, the name fits.

The name comes from the Ojibwa language, and several Native American groups called this area home, including the Noquet, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Ojibwe.

About 12,450 people live here, making it the U.P.’s third-largest city. But the mild weather is just the start of what pulls people in.

Six ore docks once lined this waterfront

Escanaba started as a shipping port in 1863 after the Peninsula Railroad linked it to the Upper Peninsula’s iron mines.

By 1865, rail lines ran from the Marquette iron range straight to the waterfront, and ore docks went up fast.

At its height, six docks stretched along the shore, and the city earned a nickname: “the iron port of the world.” Lumber moved through here too, and Escanaba timber helped rebuild Chicago after the Great Fire.

The last iron ore shipment left in 2017, closing a chapter that ran more than 150 years.

The lighthouse tower faces the wrong way

The Sand Point Lighthouse went up in 1867 to steer iron ore ships past dangerous sand shoals at the harbor entrance. It held a fourth-order Fresnel lens and now sits on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here’s the odd part: the tower faces the town, not the water, and nobody knows if that was on purpose or a mistake. The first appointed keeper, John Terry, died in April 1868 before the light ever opened.

His wife, Mary Terry, stepped in and became one of the first female lighthouse keepers on the Great Lakes, serving from 1868 to 1886.

A fire took the keeper’s life in 1886

A mysterious fire severely damaged the lighthouse in 1886 and killed Mary Terry.

After that, the Coast Guard changed the building so much you wouldn’t recognize it. They cut ten feet off the tower and wrapped the whole thing in aluminum siding.

It sat abandoned until the Delta County Historical Society took it over in 1986 and began restoring it from the original 1867 plans.

They tracked down a matching lantern room on nearby Poverty Island and got a fourth-order Fresnel lens from the Menominee Pier Light.

The restored lighthouse opened to the public in 1990, and you can climb the tower from Memorial Day through early fall.

A mile of green space along the bay

Ludington Park stretches 120 acres along a full mile of the Little Bay de Noc waterfront. The park dates to the 1890s and carries the name of Nelson Ludington, a lumberman who owned big tracts of U.P. land.

A paved bike path winds through it, leading to a swimming beach and bathhouse. From there, you can cross over to Aronson Island, where you’ll find a boat launch and a barrier-free fishing pier.

The park also has a disc golf course, tennis and sand volleyball courts, a playground, and a picnic pavilion. On summer Wednesday evenings, free concerts play at the Karas Memorial Band Shell.

Walk through 20 buildings in a ghost town

About 25 miles south of Escanaba on the Garden Peninsula, Fayette Historic State Park holds one of the country’s best-kept industrial ghost towns.

Fayette Brown of the Jackson Iron Company founded this iron-smelting community in 1867. At its peak, nearly 500 people lived and worked here, feeding two large blast furnaces that cranked out pig iron.

When the surrounding forests ran out of hardwood and new steelmaking methods took over, the town shut down in 1891.

Michigan bought the site in 1959 and turned it into a state park with more than 20 buildings you can walk through.

Stone blast furnaces still stand at Snail Shell Harbor

The visitor center at Fayette has a large diorama of the townsite and exhibits that walk you through the iron smelting process.

From there, you can take a guided or self-guided tour through the original hotel, company office, machine shop, schoolroom, and several homes.

The massive stone blast furnaces are still standing, and they stop you in your tracks. The townsite buildings open mid-May through mid-October.

Five miles of trails wind through the 711-acre park, and some lead to 90-foot limestone cliffs above Snail Shell Harbor.

Thousands of monarchs rest here before crossing the lake

Every fall, thousands of monarch butterflies gather on the Stonington Peninsula near Escanaba.

They land in the cedar trees near the Peninsula Point Lighthouse and rest before flying roughly 1,900 miles south to Mexico.

Researchers have tagged and tracked monarchs at this spot since 1993, making it one of the oldest monarch data sets in North America. At least 21 tagged butterflies from here have turned up in Mexico.

The Peninsula Point Lighthouse, built in 1865, has a 40-foot tower you can climb for wide-open views of Lake Michigan.

175,000 walleye swim in one bay alone

Big and Little Bays de Noc cover more than 100,000 acres of water at the top of Lake Michigan’s Green Bay, and they draw anglers from across the Midwest.

Little Bay de Noc alone holds an estimated 175,000 adult walleye, based on recent survey data. Professional fishing tournaments run here regularly.

Beyond walleye, you can pull in smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge, perch, and salmon. Fishing stays strong year-round, and in winter, the ice fishing crowd takes over.

A national forest that touches three Great Lakes

The Hiawatha National Forest covers nearly 895,000 acres across the Upper Peninsula and borders Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron.

Forest headquarters sit right in Escanaba, and you can reach the western section by heading north on Highway 41. Inside, you’ll find more than 100 inland lakes, over 700 miles of streams and rivers, and several waterfalls.

Haymeadow Creek Falls is about 30 minutes out, down trails that cut through deep woods and cross wooden bridges. The forest holds six federally designated wilderness areas and five National Wild and Scenic Rivers.

Fall color peaks late September through October.

Victorian downtown and Great Lakes sunrises in one small city

Escanaba works as a base for day trips to some of the Upper Peninsula’s biggest draws, including Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Tahquamenon Falls.

Back in town, the Bonifas Arts Center puts on concerts, plays, and workshops alongside regional art exhibits. The Victorian-era downtown is walkable, lined with shops and locally owned restaurants.

Summer sunrises and sunsets over the Bays de Noc light up the water morning and evening. You get Great Lakes shoreline, more than 150 years of history, and a small-town pace without the tourist crowds.

Explore Escanaba’s waterfront in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

You can reach Escanaba at the crossroads of US-2 and US-41 on the southern shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Delta County Airport runs daily flights to Detroit and Minneapolis.

Once you’re in town, Ludington Park, Sand Point Lighthouse, and the Delta County Historical Museum are all within walking distance of downtown.

Fayette Historic State Park is about a 40-minute drive south on M-183.

The Peninsula Point Lighthouse and the monarch butterfly staging area sit on the Stonington Peninsula, roughly 30 minutes away.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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