Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: News

Media Credit: John Ehlke Iron Mountain sophomore Daron Erickson waits for his shot while his roommate gets ready at the "Yooper House" Thursday night. The northern Michigan students have a house on the corner of High and Douglas streets. [Click to enlarge]

The house at the corner of Douglas and High streets has electricity, cable and indoor plumbing.

This might not seem surprising for a house in Mount Pleasant, but 805 Douglas St. is home to a group often stereotyped as rustic and from the "back woods" - Yoopers.

"People think we're a little behind the times," said Billy Jo Galeazzi, Iron Mountain junior and resident of what many students know as the "Yooper House."

Galeazzi said eight of the nine residents in the Yooper House are from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Most of them are from the Iron Mountain and Kingsford areas and were friends before coming to Central Michigan University.

Some of this year's residents are following in the footsteps of their older siblings who previously lived in a Yooper House, Galeazzi said.

Galeazzi said he heard of there being a "Yooper House" since the 1980s, but it has never been permanent. The actual house has changed several times, and last year there wasn't a house. Whether there will be a Yooper House next year, Galeazzi doesn't know.

"Hopefully there will be," he said. "We'll see."

Some students agree people from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan have a few differences, but said not all of them are as extreme as some people may think.

Marquette sophomore Emily Edwards said she has met people who think all Yoopers live in cottages without electricity and snowmobiles are their main transportation. There are even people from out of state who think the UP is part of Canada, she said.

But other than the weather, Edwards doesn't think the UP is much different from the rest of Michigan.

"It's the same state, just a bit colder," she said.

Edwards said she considers temperatures higher than 65 degrees to be warm and has been taken aback by some of the warmer fall days Mount Pleasant has.

Kingsford senior Scott Reddinger said Yoopers do speak a little differently than people from the rest of the state, and the difference tends to be obvious.

Reddinger said people realize soon after meeting him that he is from the UP and will joke about his dialect.

"As soon as I talk someone asks, "'Oh yah, eh?'" he said.

But Reddinger refuses to let the jokes bother him. Most of them are from people who have never been to the UP and have no idea what it is like, he said.

Reddinger is a frequent visitor to the Yooper House, and hopes it is a tradition that will continue.

"Being from the UP is something that we're proud of," he said. "We all support each other."


news@cm-life.com

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