From Houghton County Memorial Airport in Houghton, you are never far from the action, with copper country, Lake Superior, and the Keweenaw Peninsula within easy reach. Houghton and Hancock face each other across the Portage Lake ship canal, linked by a double-deck lift bridge, with Michigan Tech students on one side and old mining money on the other. This is the far north of Michigan, where winters bring 200 inches of snow and summers are short, bright, and cool.

Standout experiences around Houghton: - Ride the cog-rail tram into the Quincy Mine shaft house in Hancock and tour the copper workings - Take the Ranger III ferry from Houghton to Isle Royale National Park for a day or a week - Explore Calumet's sandstone downtown and the Keweenaw National Historical Park - Order a pasty, the miners' meat-and-rutabaga hand pie, from a local bakery - Drive Brockway Mountain Drive near Copper Harbor for a view over Lake Superior - Mountain bike the trails of Copper Harbor, one of the best systems in the Midwest - Ski the ungroomed steeps of Mount Bohemia in winter - Pick up thimbleberry jam from the monks at the Jampot in Eagle River

Houghton is the gateway to the whole Keweenaw, and the peninsula narrows into pure scenery the farther north you go. Calumet is 15 minutes up the road, Copper Harbor and its lighthouse are about an hour, and the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness is roughly an hour and a half southwest. Marquette is about an hour and 45 minutes east. Finnish heritage shows up in saunas and cardamom bread. Pack a fleece even in July and let Houghton show you a quieter, colder, more rugged Michigan.