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"           I have enjoyed working with our Managing Editor, Ellida Maki, for more than 25 years. Throughout that time, Ellida has entertained all of us at Road &amp;amp;amp; Track with tales of the U.P. \u2014 Michigan&amp;#039;s famed Upper Peninsula that juts off the top of Wisconsin. Following staff meetings, Ellida occasionally would show us a videotape segment from Suomi Kutsuu (Finland Calling), the only Finnish television show in America. And this program is now in its 40th year of broadcasting, with its wonderful host, Carl Pellonpaa. (Finns seem to like to throw vowels around like confetti at New Year&amp;#039;s Eve.)   Somehow or other, I became convinced that we needed to do a road test in the U.P., mostly because I wanted to see this remote and at times forbidding land of the north woods. And having seen a winter episode of Suomi Kutsuu with the snow piled a dozen feet high along the streets of Ishpeming, I wanted to do this in the winter. And so we did.   We made Ellida come with us as our guide/translator, and she enlisted the help of her brother Bill as our official expert on the U.P. Elsewhere in this issue you will find Peter Egan&amp;#039;s with the six vehicles chosen for our winter driving comparison. But there was so much more to the trip. Like driving into the night (of course it was dark by 4:30 p.m.) to get to our hotel in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on our way north and seeing Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, for the first time.   The next day, we crossed the border into the U.P. and made our way to Ishpeming, so we could have lunch with Bill and his wife, Rita. We went to Sherri&amp;#039;s caf\u00E9 where they serve excellent pasties, those substantial Cornish folded meat pies, guaranteed to protect you from the cold. And the next morning we hit the road early, driving west some 60 miles to L&amp;#039;Anse to try the famous cinnamon rolls at the Hilltop Restaurant. Ellida had bragged to us that we would find them overwhelming, and she was correct \u2014 we all buzzed through the day on a sugar high. From there it was on to the north, heading up to Houghton and Hancock, the two cities that straddle the Portage Canal. Houghton is home to Michigan Tech University, while Hancock is the site of Finlandia University, which was known as Suomi College when Ellida and Bill&amp;#039;s father was a student there.   I was determined that we should drive to the end of the road onto the Keweenaw Peninsula that reaches 50 or 60 miles into Lake Superior, as formidable a body of water as I&amp;#039;ve ever seen on a cold winter day. The highway to Copper Harbor is U.S. Highway 41, which goes south all the way to Miami, Florida, about 1990 miles away.   The Upper Peninsula is a fascinating place, full of old iron and copper mines. And Ellida&amp;#039;s hometown, Ishpeming, boasts such landmarks as Suicide Hill ski jump, which was one of the first in the United States, as well as the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame. Winter is an enormous part of life in the U.P., coming early in the autumn and lasting late into the spring. Last winter&amp;#039;s snowfall set a record at 319.8 in., according to Jason Alumbaugh at the National Weather Service office in Negaunee, who also mentioned that the snowiest March on record was 2002&amp;#039;s, with 83.1 in., and the last snow fell on May 24, 0.10 in.   I suppose because I have spent most of my life living in warmer climes, I am fascinated by places that have really severe winter weather. There is an edginess about them, where a sudden blizzard or cold snap might catch you ill-prepared and cause you great harm. And that produces an aura of adventure, especially when combined with the never-ending forests, and knowing there are bears and wolves about.   Hearty people populate such locales, and the Yoopers are among the heartiest. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a9530/from-copper-harbor-to-the-soo/>