Beyond Marquette, the land becomes progressively more rough-hewn, culminating in the Keewanaw Peninsula , which juts like a dorsal fin eighty miles out into Lake Superior. Encircled by a dramatic shoreline and enriched by crags and precipices, it's a great place for a short driving tour, with roads winding through forests, past old copper workings and up and down steep hills.

Halfway up the peninsula in the small college town of HOUGHTON on Portage Lake, the College Motel at 1308 College Ave next to the Michigan Tech campus (tel 906/482-2202; $35-50) is good value. The luxury option is the 100-year-old Charleston House Inn B&B , 918 College Ave (tel 906/482-7790, ; $160-200), downtown by the water. The Suomi Home Bakery and Restaurant (tel 906/482-3220), under the covered street downtown, serves cheap pasties and Finnish food. At the northern tip of Keewanaw, best reached along Hwy-26 (the Brockway Mountain Drive) from Eagle River, handsome little COPPER HARBOR was once so rich in minerals that early miners could pick up chunks of pure copper from the lakeshore. Today you can tour the Delaware Mine (tel 906/289-4688, ), ten miles west on US-41. Budget accommodation is available at the Norland Motel (tel 906/289-4815; $35-50), two miles east on US-41, next to Fort Wilkins State Park.

Keewanaw Peninsula

• Keewanaw Peninsula

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