The Good Cold / Winter living
Small adventures. Good stories.
Photo missions, local language, field traditions, and tall tales for the ride home.
A camera gives the walk a mission.
Use a phone or a camera. Stay on permitted ground, leave everything where you found it, and never step onto shore ice for a photograph. Check off the frames as you find them.
The five-frame town walk
The seven-frame quiet winter
Local speak.
You do not need to sound local. It helps to know where the pop is.
Party store
A convenience or liquor store, often with snacks and drinks. Usually not a balloon emergency center.
Pop
A carbonated soft drink. “Soda” is understood; you may still get a look.
The U.P.
The Upper Peninsula. Two letters, a very large personality.
Yooper
Someone from the Upper Peninsula. It comes from saying U.P.-er out loud.
Up North
A direction, a feeling, and an argument about where it begins. Ask three people; enjoy four answers.
The Mitten
A nickname for the Lower Peninsula. Your hand may become a map during the conversation.
The Thumb
The thumb-shaped part of the Lower Peninsula, northeast of Detroit.
Ope
A small Midwestern sound for surprise, apology, or squeezing past somebody. Not exclusive to Michigan.
Language reference: A Healthier Michigan, “From Yooper to Mackinac: Understanding Michigan-isms,” and regional usage. Meanings and usage vary.
A tall tale travels well in winter.
Legends are part of the culture. They are stories, not evidence.
Paul Bunyan
The giant lumberjack belongs to the logging lore of Michigan and the wider Great Lakes region. Think outsized strength and impossible exploits, not a biography.
Your turn: Invent the explanation for a snowbank taller than the family car. Make it ridiculous enough that nobody mistakes it for the weather report.
Detroit’s Nain Rouge
A legendary red figure associated with Detroit and stories of misfortune. Different tellings disagree; a good conversation can leave them that way.
Your turn: Find one red detail on a city walk. Use it as the opening line of your own very short winter mystery.
The family version
Every winter seems to produce a storm somebody remembers as twice as deep as everybody else does.
Your turn: Ask each person for their greatest snow-day story. Label your new embellishments “the tall-tale version.”
Reading reference: Sheryl James, Michigan Legends, University of Michigan Press; Michigan Legislature, Getting to Know Michigan. Original prompts by The Good Cold. Indigenous traditions need their own attributed, community-specific context and are not retold here as generic campfire entertainment.
The quieter kind of outside.
Hunting belongs in the winter picture, with its own rules and responsibilities.
Start with the season, not a promise.
Michigan hunting opportunities depend on species, date, location, licensing and land access. This magazine does not publish a season calendar or designate a place as open to hunting.
Go with an experienced, appropriately licensed person and establish permission, legal requirements and equipment before the outing. A nature walk is its own good day; it does not require a hunting plan.
Read: The Hunt Isn’t Always About Hunting ↗