Tag Archives: michigan

Aug9

pasty olympics.

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Historic U.P. town hosting world’s first Pasty Olympics with pasty relay, ‘pasty pull’

 

Pasty Olympics
no competition is too quirky for pasty fest

The annual summer festival, a celebration of the Upper Peninsula’s quintessential cultural cuisine held in the Keweenaw Peninsula village of Calumet, Michigan, is hosting a Pasty Olympics on Aug. 19 from noon to 4 p.m. The zany new competitive event is “probably a world’s first,” according to its website

In addition to the long-running festival’s traditional bake off and pasty eating contest, this year people can vie to win “eternal pasty glory” through an array of Olympic-style competitions that add a strongman-style element to Pasty Fest, “speaking to the history and culture of pasties and the Keweenaw’s copper mining history,” organizers said.

“Expect opening and closing ceremonies and the spirit of competition to prevail!” said Leah Polzien, Main Street Calumet executive director.

One of the new events, the Pasty Relay, involves teams racing to craft a giant pasty — using pool noodles for rolling pins and mops to apply egg wash — with awards for fastest time, most appetizing and best team costumes.

Meanwhile, contestants in the new Pasty Pull are challenged to “harness pure pasty power” in an attempt to pull a truck as fast as possible down a 100-foot track along one of Calumet’s historic streets.

A new Pasty Fest Art Prize competition, featuring two dozen pasty-themed works of art, is already underway. The art includes pasties immortalized in paintings, mixed media, crochet, and even a tiny copper pasty sculpture. Anyone can view the art in the online virtual gallery and vote for their favorites through August 18.

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“the pasty is the yooper burrito of the upper peninsula.”

-daily mining gazette (said by a naval recruiter in the u..p. in the early 90s)

 

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credits: emily bingham, mlive, ann arbor news, – phot0- visit keweenaw
May12

in the wild.

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imagine my delight

 when discovering this spring baby giraffe 

in the woods near my home

i had no idea that they were native to michigan.

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“however much you know giraffes, to see one in the wild for the first time feels prehistoric.”

-jane goodall

 

 

Apr30

rising.

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morning has broken.

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“the sun himself is weak when he first rises,

and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”

– charles dickens

 

 

 

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on glen lake, empire, michigan, usa – april 2023

Apr29

going north.

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headed straight north

 

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“you got to head north. it’s always about going north, you know?

-aaron bruno

s

Feb12

*yoopers.

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I
It took a month to make some of the incredible snow sculptures that were part of the annual Michigan Technological University Winter Carnival. Phi Kappa Tau extended its winning streak to five years with a huge rendition of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. (Photo: Daniel Staelgraeve | Michigan Technological University)
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what you do in the winter (and sometimes in may),
when you go to college in the upper peninsula of michigan
* yooper – a native or inhabitant of the upper peninsula of michigan
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 “i wrote, and sometimes, when i was stuck, i hit the road.
i ate pasties in the upper peninsula and hush puppies in cairo.
i did my best not to write about any place i had not been.”
– neil gaiman
Jan26

naliqqaittuq.

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snow day yesterday at last

 a really good day to stay home from school

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Inuit in Canada’s North have their own unique names for the months of the year. Aseena Mablick, an announcer for CBC Nunavut’s Inuktitut-language radio program Tausunni, has been collecting information on the names of the months in Inuktitut for years.

Mablick says one of the reasons she’s sharing this now is to “keep the language.”The names in Inuktitut are interconnected with the environment and wildlife surrounding the Inuit in Canada’s North.”It’s a truthful and honest calendar for people who are living over here, everyday, like us,” she says. “We just follow mother nature’s ways for naming the calendar.”

Each region in Nunavut has its own unique names for the calendar, and Mablick shared with us just two of the regions she’s looked into — Baffin region (also known as the Qikiqtaaluk Region) and Nunavik (northern Quebec).

January In Nunavik, January is “Naliqqaittuq”, literally meaning “nobody’s able to compete with it,” says Mablick. “It has to do with the coldest weather in that month.”

January is called “Qaummagiaq” in the Baffin region. It means “bright day coming back.”

meanwhile in ann arbor…

Continuing a six-decade tradition,
hundreds participated in a huge snowball fight
at the University of Michigan Diag,
embracing the Michigan snowstorm.

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credits: cbc news (north), aseena mablick, deadline detroit

Jan5

ypsilanti?

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the city of ypsilanti, only 7 miles from ann arbor

home of eastern michigan university

 was named for greek patriot, general demetrus ypsilanti,

a heroic figure in the battle the Greeks were fighting against Turkish tyranny

– a struggle for freedom that many Americans likened to our own.

but there has been another long-fought struggle at work here-

as people have endlessly tried to spell the city’s name correctly

the post office has worked tirelessly to decipher and deliver mail in the city

 i’ll bet even the general has had his name misspelled more than a few times over the years

 

“my spelling is wobbly. It’s good spelling but it wobbles,

and the letters get in the wrong places.”

s.s. milne

 

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source: washtenaw literacy, the daily times archives, 1904

Oct30

go blue day.

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a go blue day in michigan:

morning- governor whitmer and obama (blue state rally)

evening- university of michigan vs. michigan state rivalry football game (go blue!)

“on a good day everybody can beat everybody.”

-chris hughton

 

 

 

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photo credit: michigan stadium, fox sports

Oct10

gichi-gami.

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Ojibwe entering the gichi-gami

(artist unknown)

In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day

City of Ann Arbor Land Acknowledgment: 

Equity and justice are at the center of our city’s critical principles. In that light, we’d like to take a moment to honor the geographic and historic space we share. We acknowledge that the land the City of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg – (including Odawa, Ojibwe and Boodewadomi) and Wyandot peoples. We further acknowledge that our City stands, like almost all property in the United States, on lands obtained, generally in unconscionable ways, from indigenous peoples. The taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. Knowing where we live, work, study, and recreate does not change the past, but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals.

 Lake Michigan is named after the Ojibwe word “mishigami” which means “large water” or “large lake.”

Also known as Michigamme/”mishigamaa” meaning “great water“, also etymology for state of Michigan.

The Great Lakes were called  “gichi-gami” (from Ojibwe gichi “big, large, great”; gami “water, lake, sea”).

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“man belongs to the earth, the earth does not belong to man.”

-ojibwe saying

 

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credits: project.geo.msu.ed, city of ann arbor, ann arbor public libraries

Sep10

perfect face.

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full moon rising and floating

on grand traverse bay

 

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“the moon was but a chin of gold a day or two ago,

and now she turns her perfect face upon the world below.”-

-emily dickinson

 

 

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traverse bay, traverse city, michigan, usa

september 2022