MUNISING

Region: Pictured Rocks/Munising/Au Train

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Munising, with Grand Island in the background.

To better see the grand view, turn north at Elm (the main downtown intersection at the temperature/time sign). This also leads to the Pictured Rocks Boat Tour dock. Just beyond Munising Bay looms huge, irregularly-shaped Grand Island with its ancient lighthouse and dramatic bluffs. Tucked just out of sight along the shoreline to the east is one of Michigan's most famous sights: the Pictured Rocks. The picnic tables and benches here at Bayshore Park, up from the marina, are a good place to take a break and enjoy the often sublime view of the harbor, Grand Island, and the misty interplay of light, clouds, and water.

Dramatic Munising Falls in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is a short way east of the town of Munising.

Grand Island helps protect Munising's splendid harbor from Lake Superior storms. From the early 20th century until 1953 most of the island was a hunting retreat and the pet project of William Gwinn Mather, head of Cleveland Cliffs Iron in Ishpeming and Cleveland. The 13,000-acre island is now, a federally protected national recreational area well suited to beach-lounging, hiking, mountain biking and kayaking. Only a few privately-owned summer homes remain.

The Grand Island ferry is off M-28 four miles northwest of town. For a great view of the island, there's a Grand Island scenic lookout on a mainland hilltop off M-28 just west of Munising.

Grand Island was the area's first important settlement, the home of Grand Island Band of Ojibwa and of other people before them. Groups of Ojibwa long made use of sheltered Munising Bay as a favorite summer camping grounds. The 1940 Writers' Project Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State recounts, "The splendor of [the Pictured Rocks] cliffs and the thunder of the waves in the caverns filled the Indians with awe; the Chippewa, who controlled most of the Upper Peninsula and camped here each summer, believed that the gods of thunder and lightning lurked in the resounding caverns. They believed that Paupukkeewis lived among the crags in the form of an eagle; and that many of the cliffs housed evil spirits that had to be propitiated at stated intervals. Hiawatha, their hero, hunted in these woods, stalked game along these cliffs, and waded past the palisades, indenting them frequently with his fist in its magic mitten."

In a small, stable town like Munising, Ojibwa history is alive and told by descendants, who may be bankers and lawyers, paper mill workers and casino employees. Before Munising was settled on the mainland, Grand Island became a fur-trading outpost, steamship fueling station, and destination for adventurous tourists. Abraham Williams and family, the area's first white settlers, ran a hotel on Grand Island along with supplying cordwood to steamships and many other money-making activities. An iron blast furnace attracted permanent settlers to Munising in the 1870s. The town's growth was furthered by sawmills, a tannery, a paper mill, and after 1911 the Munising Woodenware Company. Its wide array of household products are displayed in the local museum.

The scenic sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks and Grand Island contributed to the large number of shipwrecks here. Winds off the cliffs sometimes caused ships to sink or run aground, often as they sought refuge in Munising's safe harbor. The waters off Munising are now the Alger Underwater Preserve, with eight major wrecks within the 113 square miles. Unusually clear waters and eroded underwater "caves" are other diving attractions. Contact the Alger Chamber of Commerce (906-387-2138) for a dive brochure,or visit exploringthenorth.com/alger/algerhtml. Dives are easily arranged through Captain Pete Lindquist's Munising-based Grand Island Charters (906-387-4477.) His shipwreck cruise enables sightseers to peer down through glass windows at three of them.

Like most Michigan towns, Munising has been steadily losing population; it was over 4,400 in 1940, 3,000 in 1980, 2,783 in 1990, and about 2,400 in 2005. (Alger County, however, after shrinking to 8,972 in 1990, grew to 9,862 in 2000.)

Munising has begun refocus itself on its natural beauty with Bayfront Park, a point of civic pride, even more improved in 2008. Downtown has been spiffed up. But it's hard to compete as a place to live and shop with Marquette just 45 minutes away.
As in other Michigan paper mill towns, Munising voters had viewed their city as an industrial town, with tourism an undependable extra. Hence, the waterfront had been largely blocked instead of zoning it to enhance choice bayfront land and views. But government-citizen efforts are changing that. Some day hike/bike paths will connect many parts of town, lead to neighborhood streets going to Sand Point, and even lead into the bluffs that rim town.

A big boost to the local economy occurred in 1990 when the Alger Maximum Security Prison or "Supermax, "courted by civic leaders, was built south of town. It has a staff of some 400 and can hold over 500 prisoners. The Kewadin Casino in Christmas has become a major employer.

Sizable industrial plants using Upper Peninsula timber are an even bigger part of the local economy. The big paper mill was started in 1903. Kimberly Clark, a later owner, sold it to Neenah Paper in 2004. The mill dominates the shoreline just east of downtown. Take a good look and you can see the original limestone building, now part of the mill complex. With hundreds of employees, the plant uses U.P. hardwoods to make special papers such as the brown patch on the back of Levi's jeans, the little label on Chiquita bananas, and the labels on Elmer's glue bottles.

There's a big sawmill now owned by Oregon-based Timber Products on M-28 six miles east of Munising, with some 200 employees. Its site, timberproducts.com, calls Munising's Hardwood Lumber Division "the Maple King of the industry," while touting its full range of hardwood lumber: hard and soft maple, cherry, ash, beech, basswood, red oak, and birch in all grades. Furniture- and cabinet-makers use its top grades, while pallet makers buy the lower grades. Timber Products says its high-tech computerized dry grading and sorting system is a big plus in grading. The Munising hardwood veneer facility is a major U.S. manufacturer of maple veneer and maple-faced hardwood plywood. The site shows how precision veneer machines peel off 1/36" strips from top-grade hardwoods.

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