W.R. Maki has this typical snow scene in his Guest Gallery, one of our 128 albums depicting life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The title of today's shot can be interpreted several ways.... suburban - as in the vehicle pictured, or suburban - as in a residential area around a city. I can hear a few of you saying, "A suburb in the U.P.?" This could be any one of our Copper Country suburbs... Mohawk, Florida Location, Dodgeville, Toivola... but what gives it away as a U.P. scene, is the Silver Bear Snow Scoop, better known around these parts as a Yooper Scooper!

Morning all. I've put my soapbox away for today!!!! Sounds like you are getting a good ole fashioned Copper Country blizzard today. Is it bad enough to close the schools? You know when we were kids, we used to walk to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill in both directions!!! Those were the good old days.

Don't scoop yet, looks like the plow is on the way...

Ron - All schools in Houghton and Keweenaw are closed today due to the weather and the wind chill!

Wonder how MDOT will cope with this one? Our highways are getting pretty narrow! Wonder if they have a plow with a wing or just underblades??

Kudos to MDOT for doing a fine job. It took a little to adjust to the method and pattern to plow the highways most effectively but they are now doing a good job from what I can tell. 'Tis not an easy task to undertake and become efficient.

Was just checking out John Dee's many web cams. Recent snows sure do have things looking good up there. Especially the trails. I imagine they are getting their fair share of use lately.

Good Morning,Hope all in the U.P. are staying warm. I got home last night and found my Pasties had been delivered and waiting for me at the door.
I couldn't get the oven heated up fast enough. They were, as always DELICIOUS! Thanks again for a fine job Pasty Central.

Please stop talking about pasties! Am on a diet - South Beach - and it is great, but pasties are NOT on the diet. Had no trouble sticking to the diet until all the talk about pasties! Am drooling, fantasizing, dreaming, and ready to kill for a Still Waters pasty. Love this site!

HI MARY I HOPE YOU AND KEITH LIKE SHOVELING. NANCY AND THE BIG GUY WILL BE OUT HERE NEXT WEEK. WHEN YOU TALK TO HER TELL HER I SAID HI.

I agree- MDOT is doing a fine, constant job on the highways. It's often down to concrete instead of the hard white mat. Too bad all the salt causes car cancer! Ah well, can't have everything.

I dont care to much for the grater-plow with the big wing on it--im on the side of the road that the wings on in its first pass thru--I get 3/4 or more of the road snow on my side while neibor across the street gets hardly nothing

Gee, seems the roads have been pretty darn slippery lately. MDOT even putting em in the ditch!!!! I ve heard they ran out of salt already, now what!!!!! Bring back HCRC

I've been watching the Michigan Tech 'sculpture' websites... it looks like there is going to be a new MickeyD's built on campus!

Hi,I live in Peoria,Az and I wanted to know how you us the snow scoop.???Bob

YAHOO! no school today!

Bob: You push it along the ground into the snow till it's full, then push it along the ground to where you'd rather have the snow piled. Like front end loaders except you don't lift anything. Slide the snow in slide the snow out.Waxing the bottom helps. Both sides.

Yoopers in Las Vegas,

I'm sure they are very anxious to get to some warmth! Won't be long and they'll be there with you. The weather here is sooo cold today, and blustery! Good day to make a pot of chicken soup!

Looks like you'll have to keep a bear in the house to keep warm. Nice pictures from the tropical south--Cleveland.

Well, when I got home last night my pasty order was waiting on the porch. After heating them for 40 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees we feasted on the those fresh, savory morsels... (with Ketchup of course) Yum! I'm still smiling... Thank you for the tasty treat! and as I read through the pages of the Mining Gazette that were used for packaging our pasties, I noticed that my cousin Amy Cloutier had a great volley ball game for Lake Linden back in early January! Keep up the good work Amy!

Bob in AZ, if you click on "Silver Bear Snow Scoop", in Mary Drew's message, you will find a video you can watch on that website (www.silverbear.biz).
Hope you don't have to use it in AZ.
Here in lower Michigan, I've had to use it a couple times this year, but not nearly enough. I love going out to scoop snow!

Bob, Silver Bear Snow Scoops has a video clip on their site that shows a scoop being used. Mary supplied a link to their site in the first posting of this page.

To Bob in Ohio - If you live on the downhill side of the street like I do, a snowscoop is one of the wonders of the world. You never have to lift any of the snow, just load the scoop up to overflowing (easy to do lately), push it over to the hillside and let it unload. It is hard to believe how much snow that you are able to move with this piece of equipment. Our house is about 75 feet away from the hill I scoop over and usually by the end of a real winter, I am bouncing snow off the side of it. I am about halfway there right now and we have only gotten about 130-140 inches so far. Truthfully! I always maintain that I walk in the air most of the winter as my snowchute gets longer and longer and I am actually walking out where the periwinkle and daffodils and other flowers are growing in the spring and summer. You would love it up here, at least for the first four or five months of winter.

I must say I miss all that snow. This being my second winter downstate I still keep waiting for winter to start. It's just not the same without snow. :)

Correction - My message was to Bob in Arizona!

Yooper in Iraq I head about the mortar attack on 4th
infantry division in Baquba, which is where you are-
you okay?

I wish I was there all I get is cold weather and rain in VA

Greetings from AZ. I see and hear you are having a good ole winter storm. We received a little rain last night.

from George in Milwaukee. I am a Yooper down here for cancer treatment and love being in touch with th web site It is grreat. Thanks for all the prayers

Hey George, Hope all is well! The Dreamland crew

im just glad for the fact i dont have to push that white stuff anymore belive me when i grew up in copper city i could not wait for the day i didnt have to scoop a hour after the snowplow drove by. anyone remember 78 -79 ?

Woody
I remember 78-79. It was my second year at MTU. It was depressing - it snowed every day for months. I grew up south of Traverse City so I thought I knew what winter was - I was wrong. It's fun now to tell people I was in Houghton the year the snow fall record was set! As a freshman at MTU I was amazed when the first 12 inches fell one night and the frontend loaders and dump trucks woke us up the next morning. What a site. :-)

riggie, wish you were here, ill bring my choppers with me for walking

Woody~
I'm sure I must remember the winter of 78-79. :->

But here's a picture (not very high quality though) from the winter of 76-77, the first year my hubby and I lived in the country. Check out the height of those snowbanks cut off by the County Snowblower. This portion of the road was closed for several days, until they could get it blown open! That was one winter that stuck in my memory.

I can't disagree that HCRC did a fine job on the highway also, it's just that when they were doing the state highways the sideroads were neglected and got downright dangerous. Calls to the HCRC to report dangerous spots were given the same answer every time, "Our priority is the state highways" Kudos to all the snow removal equipment drivers as they do not have an easy task, and for the terrain and weather conditions of the local area, it is amazing a person can pretty much get wherever he or she needs to get whenever they need to get there.

Hey, send Illinois a little of that snow so I can use my cross country skis! I've had them for twenty years and rarely get to use them. Just don't overdo how much snow you send! I hope I don't get blamed if we get a blizzard!
Will the Yooper scooper work on a gravel driveway?

The sun came out in Houghton today. It was a blissful 5 minutes.

Today sure is a good day for a hot pasty on this cold and stormy day. Yesterday I made 15 pasties. I decided to experiment with the crust and I came up with a heart healthy crust. No Crisco with those dangerous trans fatty acids or hydrogenated fats. I was amazed by the wonderfull taste, and was proud of myself that it rolled out beautifully. Now I'm wondering if I should market my idea and keep the recipe a secret. Or should I pass out my idea to those interested in a heart healthy crust?

I can remember back in the U.P. when I was a kid the County would plow out the roads and as they were comeing back into the shed they would open up the driveways so we very seldom had to shovel out the driveway after the plow went by. They also ran two men to a truck. They wouldn't be able to do that today as they haven't the funds or the manpower. Enjoy your snow! All that we have had here is cold and very cold wind.

Man, I can't imagine how anyone could possibly miss 200 to 300 inches of snow a year. Milwaukee averages about 48, and that's too much.

Lowell MO., I remember those days as well. Two men to a plow, a driver and a man controlling the hydraulics for the plow and wing. Same with the SNO-GO. Every kid wanted to be a plow driver.

My Dad grew up in Dodgeville and he once told me that it was always winter with 2 weeks of bad sledding up there. Go figure yoopers.

my uncle Walt used to drive plow for Houghton Cty...
He had a knack of blowing that snow about 200 feet from the highway :)

When we were kids, we used to hear the plow coming and stand out in the yard...the airborn stuff would bury us...great fun...other then the occasional gravel and rocks..

How many snow days off of school in the Copper County so far this year?? Where can I find a picture of an elevated (side)walk on the web like they used to have around Calumet to show someone down here?

Boy do I miss my 200-300 inches of snow! I was there for 78-79.

So far this school year only two shortened days off school and today the first full snow day in the Keweenaw. That was only due to blowing snow and very low wind chill temperatures as the roads seem pretty passable. I am glad I don't drive a school bus though when they cancel school due to snow... The western UP seemed to be hit the hardest as Marquette and the Central UP had school.

Yooper in Alabama,
If you look in the guest gallery, on page 10, there is an album by Sharyn Tormanen. In her nested album, "the eighties", she has a picture of a boardwalk. snowwalk?

Ahh !!! 2004 just memory of the way it was/is frozen thumbs, frozen toes, frozen minds just produce those wooden fires that we love the most.

Hey Mike R. in New Berlin Wisc. I can't imagine anyone driving a $25,000 motor vehicle 50 miles a day for a cost of $6,000 /year Must be that your $8,000/year health insurance is paid.

Yooper in Vegas:

Who is Nancy and the Big Guy? Lots of the white stuff here now. Very cold out also.
Mary and Keith

Mary in Lake Linden I think Yooper in Vegas was talking to Mary and Keith in Laurium.

love that snow really miss 9 months of winter and three months of slush

I was in LL the winter of 76-77. It was a hard winter, but we lived. It's very cold down here, but I would still like to go home and see the snow.

Bob, we live in Sun City, Az. and I sure hope we don't have to use the 'snow scoop' here. They maybe could use one up in Prescott or Flag tho hey?! That's why we moved here so we don't have to use a scoop anymore. Snow does look pretty in pictures tho. This is the greatest site to look at every day. Thanks Charlie and all your helpers.

Oft repeated story re snow scoops ....guy upon retiring (and toting a Yooper Scooper with him) said he's not gonna stop heading South until he reaches a place where people start asking "What IS that THING?"

To VM of Laurium,
I think a heart healthy crust is a good idea for those of us to LOVE pasties but refrain from eating them as often as we'd like because of health reasons.

Sure - you can use a yooper scooper on a gravel driveway. That's what we had growing up and that driveway saw a LOT of scoop action! We have a gravel driveway now and I still use the scoop on it.

To VM - are you willing to share your new crust idea? I can't eat pasties to much because the crust does bother me. Would love to hear how you made it.

Yooper scoopers are great tools. I have a snowblower, but I use the scoop when there's only a couple inches of snow (aka, a light dusting) on the driveway. It's much quicker than the snowblower. I can clear my driveway (two pickup truck lengths long and two truck widths wide) in about 5 minutes with the scoop. Scoop, dump, scoop, dump, done. No bending or lifting involved, and the snow doesn't blow back into my face.

With the snowblower, no matter where I aim the chute or which direction the wind's blowing, the snow ALWAYS ends up back in my face. It's like trying to get away from campfire smoke. You just can't avoid it. For this reason alone, the Yooper scooper is wonderful.

I used to live out in New England (go Patriots!), and I was surprised to find Yooper scoopers in New Hampshire. Who let the secret out?

I easily persuaded my wife to let me mail order a Silver Bear snow scoop last year, especially given that the alternatives are a broken back or a smoke-spewing, gas-guzzling, big $$$ snow blower. Down here in West Michigan I get lots of rubberneckers when I'm out clearing my driveway!

CK,
Alot of Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, French Canadians in the New England area - plenty of yooper connections.

A question for all - Who is credited with inventing the snow scoop? and when?

As far as I know, C&H mining came up with the snow scoop idea. However, they made them with wood sides and handles. Glad to hear that many are enjoying the Yooper Scoop as I own the Yooper Scoop company (Silver Bear Mfg).

Ben Halonen, Laurium, MI

WE LIVED IN LAKE LINDEN IN '78/'79 AND I THOUGHT IT WAS GREAT FUN. I REMEMBER HELPING CARRY SUB FLOORING INTO MY FRIENDS NEW CABIN IN BOOTJACK ON THANKSGIVING WEEKEND AND BEING HIND END DEEP IN SNOW. THERE WERE TWO OLDER GUYS (IN THEIR 70'S) WHO LIVED JUST UP THE STREET AND YOU COULD FIND THEM OUT SCOOPING AS LATE AS 1:30 AM MOST NIGHTS. IT WAS A SOCIABLE HOBBY FOR THEM. THIS WAS MOST YEARS, NOT JUST 78/79.

I rember the wing man, two men and a truck. Waited for these guys for hours sometimes, when i was young. They helped our forts out. Anybody else make forts in the banks?

Steve Racine, ABSOLUTELY!!!! Forts in the banks were great. I remember the SNO-GO drivers used to check them all before they went down the streets to make sure no kids were inside!!!!!

Mike R.

YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH SNOW. In downstate MI, we've only got about 10 inches right now. I WANT MORE SSSSSSSSSSSSSSNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!

I bought a snow scoop 18 years ago while visiting my parents in Fulton. It is more than enough for our northern Indiana winters and I can clean my drive faster than my neighbors with blowers.

Last time my husband was in Hancock visiting my mother, he brought me home a yooper scooper as a surprise. I have wanted one for a long time and he finally heard me! Now that we finally got some snow deep enough to scoop, I am using my scooper. The snow down here is nothing like the snow banks I had to climb over to go to school in the 60's,(and remember girls couldn't wear pants back then) but it does give me a taste of home.