It was an open weekend, with nothing on the calendar and nowhere I needed to be. The weather was beautiful, so I decided to do what I used to do often: take a drive around the Keweenaw to Bete Grise Beach. I chose the eastern side of the peninsula, a route I hadn’t explored since I lived here before 2017. This route is less traveled by most making their way up to the top of the Keweenaw.
Since moving from the UP to a bigger city, I’d forgotten what a luxury it is to get in the car, roll down the windows, turn up the music, and drive country roads without another car in sight. Growing up, that was one of the ways we spent our free time. The highways here are mostly single lane roads, winding through forests and past open stretches where deer and bears might cross. There are no billboards, no chain establishments, no industrial developments lining the road. Just the road, the trees, and the feeling that I could keep going as long as I wanted.
I remembered driving up to Bete Grise with college friends, back when it was a place you heard about from someone who knew someone who knew the area. It was on the map, but not in every social media feed. About an hour from town, it drew the people who were willing to make the drive. A handful of cars would be lined along the roadside, and families spread out across the white sand for the afternoon.
These days, there are more cars lined up along the roadside. Some of the old quiet has changed, and I miss a little of that feeling of having found a place that was secluded. Still, people seem to treat the beach with care. Bete Grise is beautiful, and I’m glad others get to find it, too.
The air was around 85 degrees, but the white beach warmed quickly, and crossing it felt like stepping over hot coals! At the water’s edge, the lake stayed shallow for what seemed like forever. I could walk very far from shore and still stand waist deep, looking down through clear water at every pale grain of sand and smooth stone beneath me.
Because the lake bottom stays shallow at the bay, the water temperature here feels more welcoming for swimming than it does along much of the Keweenaw shore, which remains bone chillingly frigid throughout the summer. My afternoon at Bete Grise went like this: lie in the sun, dip in the cold water, lie in the sun, dip in the cold water, then do it all again.
The hold-cold contrast felt like a natural version of the sauna and cold plunge trend people seek out now. As a kid, I always came home from a beach day feeling impossibly relaxed and refreshed. We’d been letting the lake work its contrast therapy magic all along.
And though Superior can look like an ocean, there are moments when it feels remarkably still. The waves soften, the surface turns to glass, and the whole shoreline seems to take a long breath.
After a few hours of hot and cold therapy, I packed up and headed back towards town. Along the drive back, I happened to spot a small sign on the side of the road displaying an arrow to a dirt lot with the words “Nordic Spa” at Mount Bohemia, the area’s only back country ski resort. I honestly hadn’t planned on a spa day, or really any day at all, but apparently my schedule was flexible enough to accommodate multiple saunas, plunge pools, and a live EDM DJ in the middle of the woods. I had stopped in “just to take a look” and stayed for two more hours of relaxing. When I tell you this was the last thing I expected to happen that day, trust me.
By the time I finally drove home, sun tired and loose limbed, the day had become exactly what I needed: open roads, clear water, warm sand, and nowhere I had to be.