The Upper Peninsula is mostly rural. Though there are small towns everywhere, and a few larger more urban areas, much of it is woods and water. That’s why I like it so much.
But as I travel around I always notice the old homesteads. The places where people once lived but have abandoned. Nature is gradually taking back what was always hers.
I think about the people that used to live here. I wonder what happened to make them leave. I wonder what dreams they had when they first built, moved in, worked the land or at the neighborhood store. I wonder when and why they gave up on their dreams.
Maybe they haven’t left at all, maybe they’re around the next corner, maybe they just built a bigger, stronger house somewhere.
But it doesn’t usually feel that way.
Change Is Hard 
September 27, 2021 at 10:59 am
” I wonder when and why they gave up on their dreams.” I wonder the same things when I see old abandoned homes – but then I think perhaps they didn’t give up on their dreams. Perhaps they lived their dreams, and then they found new dreams to live elsewhere. Because as time passes, we change and our dreams change – and sometimes, just sometimes, change is not hard.
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September 28, 2021 at 3:33 pm
I hope that’s the case. It’s a hard life, in the UP, so I hope they all found something easier. I think we can learn to let change not be hard, but it’s so often scary, even then.
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September 27, 2021 at 11:17 am
I search out old homes like this, but they mostly break my heart. ‘Someone cared enough to paint the trim’…oh, gosh. That is such a lovely thing to say, Dawn.
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September 28, 2021 at 3:33 pm
Sometimes it makes me sad when I notice little things that tell me it was, indeed, a home.
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September 27, 2021 at 1:13 pm
Reminds me of parts of rural Maine, where people have left because good jobs are scarce and supporting a family is very difficult. Sanford Phippen, a Maine writer from Down East once asked if beauty was enough. That question has stayed with me.
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September 27, 2021 at 1:25 pm
I know. I loved living up there, it was sooooo beautiful (I lived in the peninsula at the top of the UP) but after awhile, 6 years, I got lonely and needed my family who all lived down state, or further south, and some normal shopping. Still, it gets in your blood, and these days, retired, I wonder if beauty isn’t really enough.
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September 27, 2021 at 1:42 pm
Good points, Dawn, and you’ve got some pretty (though obviously abandoned) homesteads here. I imagine the remoteness — especially during long, bitterly cold winter months — might nudge some of them to move on. Sad, but there’s a big part of me that likes to think Nature can expand without all that civilization!
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September 28, 2021 at 3:34 pm
There’s so little employment near these places as well. Lots of people moved ‘downstate’ to find work.
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September 27, 2021 at 2:25 pm
I love those old ramshackle barns and houses too, and often wonder who lived there. Where did you visit this time in the UP? Did you get over to the Western end? I am going to go look at your other posts.
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September 28, 2021 at 3:35 pm
I was pretty much up and down 77. I am hoping to get to the western end next camping season. So much to see, so little time!
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September 27, 2021 at 6:28 pm
Awesome images Dawn. You are really knocking it out of the park, there were barns and now old homesteads… Wonderful!
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September 28, 2021 at 3:35 pm
Thanks, Mike. I like all old falling down stuff.
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September 28, 2021 at 11:31 am
Nice little parallel jaunt to old houses from old barns. I still think we need to send you back on another architectural excursion to Detroit. I loved all those pics you took back then. How many years ago was that anyway?
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September 28, 2021 at 3:36 pm
Detroit has gotten not so safe again. Even areas like Greektown that we used to feel safe in the evenings there have been incidents, so I’ve been avoiding it this summer.
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September 29, 2021 at 11:14 am
Oh I love old buildings…the stories they could tell:)
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September 30, 2021 at 6:36 am
Your images are wonderful. So are your musings. I often wonder, too. We have a lot of abandoned houses down this way. When we moved here, seven months or so after Superstorm Sandy hit, I got an idea about why some were abandoned. People couldn’t afford to fix what was broken or had been flooded, or they tired of dealing with the weather, or they got old and had nobody around to take over the place (we see that a lot here — young people don’t stay because there are no jobs). It always amazes me how fast nature takes over an abandoned home. We’ve watched that happen with some fairly new (probably built in the 80’s) homes that were abandoned after Sandy.
I really, really, really want to visit the UP again someday. 🙂
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October 4, 2021 at 1:16 am
Oh, I love this Dawn. The dreams, the history. I sure hope I get back to UP one of these days. Thank you.
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