WHAT A SHOCKER! Home prices in Marquette County increased in the last year. Try a 20% jump…Average home sale price in the county last July was $250,000. This July, it was $300,000…Fifteen of the sales last July were all-cash; this year, it was 21…Currently 264 homes are on the market in Marquette County—only 58 of them are under $200,000, mostly in the hinterlands.
Who’s buying these homes? “With the higher priced homes, it’s mostly people from outside the U.P.,” says RE/MAX realtor Frida Waara. “On a piece of vacant lakeshore land, we’ve had inquiries from California, Vermont, and Mississippi.”
And how about this? Fourteen homes listed for sale now feature price tags over one million dollars. No, this isn’t California yet, but it’s not Marquette County circa 2015, either.
CLOSE THE MACKINAC BRIDGE! Cyclosporiasis, that intestinal disease that has slammed lower Michigan, hasn’t really made its way to Marquette County yet…Authorities tell us that the state has recorded about 11,000 cases of the disease since May, with 193 hospitalizations and two deaths…But here in Marquette County, only four confirmed cases have been reported. So far, so good.
CLOSE THE BRIDGE, PART TWO!! 2500 measles cases have been reported in the U.S. so far this year—that’s the highest rate in three decades. Panic all around because parents aren’t vaccinating their kids as they once did…93% of the cases are in unvaccinated kids…So, what about us? “We have had no reported measles cases in Marquette County since May of 2025,” Jacque Rose tells us. She’s the Communicable Diseases Coordinator for the Marquette County Health Department.
Both of these disease spreads—cyclosporiasis and measles—remind us of the early Covid days when the UP was said to be Covid-free…Tourists flocked here, and by the time they departed that first summer, they left us with a hefty dose of Covid in Marquette.
YOU GOTTA QUESTION the value of campaign yard signs. Driving around in the last month, you got the sense, in the District Court Judge’s race, that Derek Swajanen signs outnumbered Patrick Crowley signs by a 5-1 margin, and Bill Nordeen was up maybe 2-1 in signage. And yet, Tuesday night, Crowley outpolled both of them, setting up a tight race against Swajanen in November…Likewise in the County Commissioner’s race, Karl Numinen seemed to have far more yard signs, along with a heavy social media presence, and yet his opponent,Cody Mayer, won easily…Maybe, just maybe, campaign strategy involves more than just putting up lotsa yard signs..
TOURISM IS STILL trending up in Marquette, although the smoke last month didn’t help. Overall, hotel occupancy is up 3% this year, and was strong in June, but then the smoke settled in for those few, weird days. Occupancy on Sunday, July 20th plummeted 19% from last year. No surprise…Tourists who didn’t cancel their trips north had to be wondering where our gorgeous, clean air had gone.
“August is generally strong for tourism up here,” says Susan Estler, the CEO of Travel Marquette, “and I’m hoping we and Canada get some rain to take care of the fires.”
THAT WISH HAS been granted, according to meteorologist Chris Burling of the National Weather Service. “Canada has gotten a fair amount of rain lately,” he reports, “and that’s allowed them to get better control of the fires.”…However, he says, over the next week or so, we might notice a haziness in our skies arriving from the fires in the Northwest. A westerly flow is pushing the air our way…But nothing like the hellish skies that we experienced a few weeks ago when our Air Quality Index registered above 700…200 is considered unhealthy. 300 is hazardous. And 700 is off the books.
WONDERING WHAT TOURISTS are paying for hotels here this summer? Well, here’s a quick look at this Friday’s rates, as advertised earlier this week:
Explore $499 (sold out)
Landmark $469
Best Western $359
Ramada $279
Brentwood Motor Inn $139
“I SWEAR TO God we’re not writing the reviews.” That’s Charles Holsworth, co-owner of the Base Hospitality Group which operates the high-end Explore hotel in downtown Marquette. What he’s referring to is the hotel’s Google Reviews score. At last count, 232 Explore guests had weighed in on Google, and all 232 had given the hotel five stars. Remarkable…The 13 rooms, Holsworth says, are booked virtually every night in the summer. Despite the premium rates, guests are attracted by the breakfasts, the cocktails on the deck, the clean, classy rooms, the efficient service, the e-bikes, and more…Holsworth concedes that with only 13 guest rooms, they aren’t going to make a ton of money on the hotel, but it’s fun, he says, doing things first class in the heart of Marquette.
WE’VE KNOWN FOR some time that young people are drinking less than previous generations. What we’re now learning is that they’re also having less sex—contrary to what we might have expected…24-28% of young adults aged 18-24 now report having had no sex in the past year. Just a decade ago, only 12% reported having no sex in the previous year…The reasons? No one quite knows, but speculation centers on three possibilities: 1) The tech revolution, making pornography widely available 2) The overturning of Roe vs Wade, making abortions less available and sex potentially more risky 3) The MeToo movement which has given women more power to say No in potential sexual situations.
MOVIE THEATERS ARE making a comeback this year. Sort of. Ticket sales are the highest they’ve been since Covid, but nothing like 10-15 years ago. Streaming movies at home have hit the theaters hard…Still, fourteen movies have topped $100 million at the box office so far this year, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey are putting fannies in seats this summer. The Odyssey has grossed nearly one billion dollars so far, and Spider-Man, which just opened, had taken in $360 million as of a few days ago. Both movies are playing at Thomas Theatres in Marquette.
WHAT RETIRED PEOPLE DO IN THEIR SPARE TIME…
Plant milkweed in their garden, to attract endangered monarch butterflies, as urged by environmental experts…
Watch the milkweed plants wither and die…
Discover the next summer that several of the plants have surprisingly reappeared 20 yards away…
Stare at a single monarch fluttering about those plants, day after day, all alone, searching for a companion…
Wait hopefully…desperately…for a second monarch to appear. Almost giving up hope…
And then…As they’re walking past a milkweed plant one day, they notice two monarchs huddled on a milkweed leaf, copulating…
They smile at the monarchs for only a few seconds, thrilled, then leave them alone to do their business.
Nature at work.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
—-John Keats
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