BRUCE CROSSING

Region: Porcupine Mountains and Ontonagon

It's great to see a traditional Finnish co-op like Settlers still thriving. The key is probably scale: it dwarfs all other U.P. co-ops.

A substantial village has developed at this major Upper Peninsula crossroads, where M-28 heads east from Ironwood and U.S. 45 goes south from Ontonagon to Watersmeet and Eagle River, Wisconsin. (For a bit more on the beginnings of U.S. 45 as the 1840s Military Road from Copper Harbor to Green Bay, see Paulding and the Mystery Light in the Watersmeet region.) After the area's timber was cut, many, many Finns started small farms in the area, and their influence is obvious. Most local residents now work in logging and at Smurfit-Stone Container in Ontonagon.

Dilapidated, long-abandoned farmsteads are a common U.P. sight, testimony to the difficulty of making it agriculturally in this northern clime. The one above, on Highway 45 a few miles north of Bruce Crossing, is an especially poignant portrait of faded hopes.

Bruce Crossing has three restaurants, two motels, three bars, and a funeral home. The hub of town is the big SETTLER'S CO-OP SUPERMARKET (906-827-3515) at the corner of U.S. 45 and M-28. It's still run cooperatively, a true vestige of the Finnish-American cooperative movement of the early 20th century. Settler's Co-op not only has a deli, bakery, bank, and other extras expected of large grocery stores, it carries hardware, sporting goods, livestock feed - and offers fishing licenses.

Grandma Grooter's Restaurant, a local landmark destroyed in a midwinter fire in 2003, has not been rebuilt. A log transfer station is now on the site.

Return to Porcupine Mountains and Ontonagon