Compass Land Consultants - Grand Marais MI Area
What’s Special About Grand Marais?
Wandering around the village, I stop by the impressive West Bay Diner & Delicatessen to get an afternoon coffee and meet the extremely busy, amazingly efficient, cute superwoman who co-owns the restaurant with her husband and writes books on the side. Sensing my afternoon slump, she starts a fresh pot brewing and invites me to look around. There are fun things to purchase – like homemade baked goods (including the largest cinnamon roll I’ve ever seen), jams and jellies, honey (guessing it’s from her personal hives), fresh eggs (again … proprietary and confirmed by one of the author’s books nearby) plus all manner of practical and artistic creations.
I read Ellen Airgood’s (a.k.a. Superwoman’s) book South of Superior a half dozen years ago when it first came out and remember being impressed by the story. Now having seen Ellen in action, I’ve gone back and reviewed her history. My suspicions are correct; she works WAY harder than I do.
After meeting some other town members, I’m certain this personality type is emblematic of the folks who live here- and elsewhere – in the Upper Peninsula. The local Finns call it “Sisu,” which roughly translates to “gritty,” or “hardy.” Its’ a town whose history begins with the Chippewa Indians, moves through commercial fishing, lumber, and into present day tourism. With the paving of H58 in 2010 – the county highway running between Munising and Grand Marais – the town’s future is on firm footing.
Happily strolling in the sunshine, I stop to chat with two local gentlemen outside of the Superior Shores Market and explain that we are making a video of the Grand Marais area to use on our website. I ask them what they would include if they were making the video. One replies, “Don’t take pictures. What Grand Marais offers you can’t capture in photos. Write about the people instead. Write how we are all here for each other and anyone who might need a hand.”
There’s a glorious freedom, beauty, and yes – isolation, to the West Bay and greater Lake Superior shoreline here in Grand Marais. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore ( and Grand Sable Dunes lie to the immediate west. There are critical dunes and a protected Piping Plover nesting area ( to the east, with the Lake Superior State Forest Campground and Muskallonge Lake State Park close by.
My favorite siting of the afternoon is a modified SUV parked outside the local brew pub, The Dunes Saloon & Lake Superior Brewing Company. Someone carefully built a permanent canoe-hitch and fenders (front and back) out of driftwood for this vehicle. There’s raucous laughter emanating from the windows of the establishment. The sun’s shining, tulips are blooming, my coffee is delicious – it’s the perfect time to take a tour of Grand Marais’s four museums: the Pickle Barrel House, the Lightkeeper’s House, the Old Post Office, and the Gitche Gumee Agate and History Museum (
I’ll save my impressions of the museums so I don’t spoil the fun for future visitors. However, I do want to share what I learned about the Burt Township School system. As you would expect, it’s small but offers some unique opportunities to its students. For example, it manages its own 1,300-acre forest. What a phenomenal opportunity to teach about forest ecosystems, silviculture, and conservation! Add to that an education on alternative energy as the school has its own wind turbine. And although there are only 28 students in this K-12 school, they participate in the Northern Lights League and compete in co-ed soccer, and boy’s and girls’ basketball. (
This is their stated mission:
Burt Township School believes that creating a diverse and dynamic, environmentally focused, technologically superior school serves as a catalyst to prepare our students to compete in the local and global community. Burt Township School strives to facilitate learning through a maximum of course offerings and learning environments to lend way toward productive, engaged citizenship in the technological, global economy.
My report wouldn’t be complete without a shout out to the local snowmobile club, Grand Marais Sno-Trails, home of “Da Crazy 8s.” This club maintains trails number 8, 88, and 888 and operates three groomers to keep the trails in top winter condition. After navigating the forest area between Grand Marais and Newberry this spring, I appreciate the simplicity and fun of getting to a destination speedily by snowmobiling. You can read more about this club on Grand Marais’s Clubs and Organizations page (
Dragnet: Brick-Bat Slayer / Tom Laval / Second-Hand Killer
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from an actual police term, a dragnet, meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Dragnet debuted inauspiciously. The first several months were bumpy, as Webb and company worked out the program's format and eventually became comfortable with their characters (Friday was originally portrayed as more brash and forceful than his later usually relaxed demeanor). Gradually, Friday's deadpan, fast-talking persona emerged, described by John Dunning as a cop's cop, tough but not hard, conservative but caring. (Dunning, 210) Friday's first partner was Sergeant Ben Romero, portrayed by Barton Yarborough, a longtime radio actor. After Yarborough's death in 1951 (and therefore Romero's, who also died of a heart attack, as acknowledged on the December 27, 1951 episode The Big Sorrow), Friday was partnered with Sergeant Ed Jacobs (December 27, 1951 - April 10, 1952, subsequently transferred to the Police Academy as an instructor), played by Barney Phillips; Officer Bill Lockwood (Ben Romero's nephew, April 17, 1952 - May 8, 1952), played by Martin Milner (with Ken Peters taking the role for the June 12, 1952 episode The Big Donation); and finally Frank Smith, played first by Herb Ellis (1952), then Ben Alexander (September 21, 1952-1959). Raymond Burr was on board to play the Chief of Detectives. When Dragnet hit its stride, it became one of radio's top-rated shows.
Webb insisted on realism in every aspect of the show. The dialogue was clipped, understated and sparse, influenced by the hardboiled school of crime fiction. Scripts were fast moving but didn't seem rushed. Every aspect of police work was chronicled, step by step: From patrols and paperwork, to crime scene investigation, lab work and questioning witnesses or suspects. The detectives' personal lives were mentioned but rarely took center stage. (Friday was a bachelor who lived with his mother; Romero, a Mexican-American from Texas, was an ever fretful husband and father.) Underplaying is still acting, Webb told Time. We try to make it as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee. (Dunning, 209) Los Angeles police chiefs C.B. Horrall, William A. Worton, and (later) William H. Parker were credited as consultants, and many police officers were fans.
Most of the later episodes were entitled The Big _____, where the key word denoted a person or thing in the plot. In numerous episodes, this would the principal suspect, victim, or physical target of the crime, but in others was often a seemingly inconsequential detail eventually revealed to be key evidence in solving the crime. For example, in The Big Streetcar the background noise of a passing streetcar helps to establish the location of a phone booth used by the suspect.
Throughout the series' radio years, one can find interesting glimpses of pre-renewal Downtown L.A., still full of working class residents and the cheap bars, cafes, hotels and boarding houses which served them. At the climax of the early episode James Vickers, the chase leads to the Subway Terminal Building, where the robber flees into one of the tunnels only to be killed by an oncoming train. Meanwhile, by contrast, in other episodes set in outlying areas, it is clear that the locations in question are far less built up than they are today. Today, the Imperial Highway, extending 40 miles east from El Segundo to Anaheim, is a heavily used boulevard lined almost entirely with low-rise commercial development. In an early Dragnet episode scenes along the Highway, at the road to San Pedro, clearly indicate that it still retained much the character of a country highway at that time.