John McGivern’s Main Streets

- For over 150 years, this Lake Michigan harbor town shipped iron ore to ports all over the Midwest.

[upbeat music] - "John McGivern's Main Streets" thanks the following underwriters.

[soft music] - Greendale is proud to be the inspiration for "John McGivern's Main Streets."

This historic village is a real place where all are welcome to gather, to shop, to enjoy.

Charming, vibrant, joyful, welcoming.

You've just gotta see Greendale.

[upbeat music] - I'm on my way Oh, it's time to hit the road I'm on my way This is the freedom I live for - Remember when the American Dream was being able to say, "I made that, I built that?"

Wouldn't it be great if your kids and grandkids chose a career that provides that kind of pride, with good pay, but without a ton of student loan debt?

A four-year degree is n't the only path to success.

We need talented people to make and build on Main Streets everywhere.

Skilled work isn't a thing of the past.

It's a bright future.

- Additional funding is provided by the Friends of Plum Media and the Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Thanks, friends.

- Cause these are our Main Streets Something 'bout a hometown speaks to me There's nowhere else I'd rather be The heart and soul of community's Right here On these Main Streets - I am in Escanaba, Michigan.

Escanaba is no longer shipping out iron ore, but it is shipping in people who are interested in outdoor adventure.

Escanaba's on the southern edge of Michigan's UP, Upper Peninsula.

It's about two hours north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and about an hour south of Marquette, Michigan.

And to the east, well, it's obvious to what's to the east.

And as with most cities right on Lake Michigan, there is a ton of really interesting history right here.

So, Emmy, tell us everything you know about Escanaba, Michigan.

– Emmy Fink: Well, Escanaba was an Ojibwa settlement until the mid-1800s.

Now, it's debated whether or not the Ojibwa word "Escanaba" translates to "land of the red buck" or "flat rock."

But either way, settlers named the town after the Escanaba River.

Eli P. Royce founded Escanaba in 1863 as a port for lumber coming through the UP.

As the mining grew in the Marquette Iron Range, Escanaba also became an important source for iron ore supplied to the Union during the Civil War.

Though the last shipment of iron ore left the port of Escanaba in 2017, the commercial port remains active to this day.

Escanaba is a town of about 12,000 people, and it's the county seat of Delta County.

And gosh, I wish I was there because I've been before.

It's beautiful.

You're so lucky you didn't have a baby, John!

[soft music] - We're at North Shore Marine.

This is Nick Kobasic.

How are you, sir?

- Doing well.

How about yourself?

- Good to see you.

Yeah, this is a great family story, isn't it?

- It is, yeah.

- Can we talk your history?

- Sure.

- About your Uncle Dan.

– Nick Kobasic: He started sailing when he was young on the saltwater ships, and he sailed in the Merchant Mariners.

After that, he started a pizza business.

He used those funds from Shakey's Pizza Parlor to then go to shipbuilding construction.

Dan and his brother, my father, Claude, started this in the late- to mid-'70s.

They built the first fishing boat on a rented parcel.

Sold that, that went well, and they ended up purchasing this land from the city.

We're sitting on 41 acres of waterfront property.

So historically, I would have said we do new construction, new barge construction, ferries, fishing boats.

Now we're into mo re of the marine repair side.

- I learned something today.

That's a barge right there.

- Exactly.

- That's a big barge.

- Yes.

And that's a prime example of what we do here.

That barge was 43 feet wide originally.

- 43?

43 feet wide, you said?

- 43 feet wide, correct.

- And now, what is it?

- And now it is 59 feet wide.

- So you had to add 16 feet to that thing.

- Yeah, exactly.

You're good with math.

It's on; exactly 16.

It's one of the biggest in the Great Lakes.

- It is.

- Yeah.

So every five years, a vessel has to come out.

- They do.

- Yeah, regardless.

- That's the law?

- That's the law.

- That's the law.

- So we do five-year inspections.

We do paint, blast, electrical upgrades, just the marine repair side.

- A crew of how many do that main work that comes up?

- We're a very efficient yard.

We have a small crew.

We have good, talented workers.

Typically, this place could hold 40 to 50 people.

We do it with 10 to 12, sometimes 15.

By keeping it small and efficient, we can do those jobs that a lot of the big yards can't.

So we can get some of that overflow work, and makes us a good niche for that.

- Yeah, do you need a painter?

- Yes.

- I can spray that down for you.

- We need help.

- Nobody would know.

- Exactly.

[both laughing] - By the middle of the 19th century, Escanaba had become a busy harbor town.

A lighthouse was needed to warn incoming ships about a sandy reef that jutted out into the bay.

The Sand Point Lighthouse you see here served that purpose from 1868 until 1939.

When it had become obsolete, it was handed over to the Coast Guard.

The building was completely restored to its original design in the late 1980s and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Now it's a museum and a great backdrop for photos.

- What is one item of regional food in the UP?

Yeah, pasties.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, Dobber's Pasties.

Sometimes people mispronounce those, and they call them "pay-stees," and just so you know, "pass-tees" and "pay-stees" are two different things, and never should they ever come together, in my opinion!

[upbeat music] We're at Dobber's.

Is that your family name?

– Brad Mantela: That's my dad's nickname.

The pasty shop's named after him, but we started out originally as Red Onion Pasty Shop back in the '60s and through the '70s.

And then, in the '80s, they changed over to Dobber's.

- Let's go make some, please.

- So, the first step we're doing here is preparing the crust.

We make everything here in-house.

So we'll roll all crusts on here every morning.

- Wow.

- We're gonna make 50 today.

I don't know if you-- if you want to come back tomorrow, you can make 2,000.

Now she's gonna trim those to get the right portion.

- Oh, there you go.

- Because we do want a uniform shape.

We'd make a ton of dough a week, about 600 pounds of beef, a ton of potatoes a week.

- Oh, no-- [speaking indistinctly] - Every single one of these is done by hand.

- It can be close?

[gasps] Oh!

Whoops.

Hey, look over there!

[laughter] It's a convenient food item, isn't it?

- It is, and that's why the miners would take it down into the mines.

They'd go down for a 12-hour, 18-hour shift.

They keep that pasty in their jacket, and then they would take it out and actually heat it up on their mining shovel over their candle lamps.

- People love them, don't they?

- They love 'em, and we love them.

- [laughs] Good.

So great.

- So that was a working person's meal on the go, and they ate that down in the mines and kept on working.

- What it looks like is like another interpretation of a calzone.

- A calzone, an empanada.

- An empanada.

- A lot of people say that's what it resembles.

- Sure.

- And it does.

- Do people eat them here, usually?

You have a big frozen business, though.

- Yes.

People have come in, have one for lunch or dinner or breakfast.

- Yeah.

- And then they'll take a dozen home.

- That's nice.

What kind do you sell?

- The traditional beef pasty, which is beef, potato, rutabaga, onions, salt, and pepper.

Vegetarian pasty, a chicken pasty, a breakfast pasty that has eggs and sausage.

We have a pizza pasty, which is kind of more like a calzone a little bit.

- Sure.

- And then we have a ham and cheese pasty.

- Do you serve it with a little gravy, the beef ones?

- That is a big controversy.

- It is.

Did I bring something up that I shouldn't have?

- No, no, I can tell you're not-- I can tell you're not a native Yooper.

- Okay.

- No self-respecting Yooper is gonna put gravy on their pasty.

- I'm from Milwaukee.

Come on!

- [laughing] - Drop the mic!

- Done!

[laughing] - You've probably heard the term Yooper, which refers to someone who lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or the UP.

It's one UP slang term.

All week, we've been hearing about what's happening downstate.

Okay, what does "downstate" mean to someone who lives in Escanaba?

- To folks in the Upper Peninsula, downstate means the lower part of Michigan.

But if you ask me, I think it would make more sense in reference to my home state, Wisconsin, because we're right below the UP.

It just makes sense.

[mellow music] - This is the tallest building in all of the Upper Peninsula.

It's an 18-story apartment building called Harbor Tower, built in 1970.

And I'm wondering who lives on the 18th floor, and if they let me in, because I would love to see if I could see my condo in downtown Milwaukee from here.

What do you think?

[soft music] We're at the Terrace Bay Hotel.

You've had it how long?

– Jarred Drown: 2016.

This is a hundred-year-old property.

The hotel actually was built in 1922, so we've been spending the last six years working hard, renovating, and kind of bringing it up to what you'd expect of a luxury lakefront property.

– Rick Elrod: It's been amazing to see the trajectory of the growth and how quickly it's happened.

The biggest upgrade here in these rooms was putting as much glass as possible on that lake-facing wall.

- This was my view every morning.

- Yeah.

– And I made sure that the blinds were up at 5: 00 because this is what we saw.

- There you go.

So you didn't sleep in and miss the sunrise?

- Never.

No.

- That's good.

- Was this all here when-- - The boardwalk was here when we decided to buy it.

It was, yeah, right along the lake, and incredible view.

- So you couldn't be in a better spot.

- No.

- But then what you do is you just make the better spot better?

- Absolutely.

When people are staying on the lake, they've got an expectation of kind of, "This is gonna be a nice place."

So you want to make sure that you're living up to the standards and kind of have those nice touches and keep the place fresh.

- Yeah.

- And we tagline it, "Adventure included."

- So you have bikes, you have kayaks.

- And then we're also gonna have some e-scooters starting next year, so... - Oh, you are.

- All included when you rent a room.

- You have a restaurant, you've got a coffee shop.

It's like a small little city right here that you operate.

- We really worked on branding the restaurant, and it's become one of the premier restaurants in the area.

- Destination.

- Mm-hmm.

- What's going on, you guys?

- Wedding every Saturday, May through October.

- You're booked out.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And for a couple years in advance.

- So, ceremony here?

- Like, pretty much everyone does their ceremony here, yes.

- Occasionally, in the winter, we'll get a really nice freeze over with not a lot of snow, and there's a couple groups out of Wisconsin that come up with ice boats, and they'll do a big ice sailing regatta right out here in front of the hotel on the ice.

- We're adding about 41 rooms on the north end of the building, all lake-facing, so we hope that when you come back, you don't recognize it five years from now because we're just gonna constantly want to keep improving it and changing it and making it better.

I mean, coming from the East Coast, you know, you come to the Great Lakes, and you're like, "Wow, this is not a lake.

This is--this is huge."

This is a freshwater ocean.

We love it.

We never go back.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so get this.

Escanaba is on the west side of Little Bay de Noc.

What's the name of the next bay over?

Uh-huh, Big Bay de Noc.

You know, there's always gotta be someone that tries to show you up.

[upbeat music] - We are here at Beaver's Lures, and this is your shop.

– Katelyn Beaver: I just made my first batch of Beaver minnows.

- How did this start for you?

- Pretty much, I've just loved fishing.

And when we had quarantine, I didn't have school.

I didn't have work.

I was just home.

I was fishing all the time, though.

- You were.

- They start out like this.

So I started making fishing lures out of my bedroom, actually, and it kind of just went from there, really.

So I'm gonna put a white coat on here with the airbrush.

- So there's no machine involved in any of this?

- No, it's all by hand.

- And there's no paintbrush.

So you design something, and you go out and fish with it and see what happens?

- Pretty much, yeah.

- Do you just sell them in the store here?

Where else do you-- - Yeah.

So I sell them in the store when I'm here working.

I don't have set hours, but I do have a website.

And then I'm also selling to bait shops now.

- To bait shops.

- Yeah.

So that's my big thing I want to do.

- And there's bait shops everywhere.

- Everywhere, yeah.

I'll cast it out there and then let it sit, and if the bobber goes down, there's a fish on there.

And then this one is the Beaver minnow.

Perfect.

- What works when you're designing lures?

- So, each fish, I would say, is a little different.

Walleye fishing, I love to use a fire tiger pattern, which is this color actually, but I call it fish crack.

- Fish crack.

- Yeah.

[laughing] - 'Cause they love it so much.

- So that's a great color for walleye.

I like to use it for northerns too.

- What are these guys?

- So those are actually lake trout jigs, and all of those glow.

- Look at how they really take that light, don't they?

- Yeah.

- It's great.

So if you go out at night or you go deep fishing... - Yep.

You can kind of see what this is doing when I jig it.

That little fin makes it, like, zip.

Oh, and I got him.

- This is really your life, isn't it, fishing?

- Yeah--ooh!

That's a nice perch right there-- I love it.

[laughing] - Do you?

Yeah.

And do you go out as much as you like?

- Um, that's probably a no for any fisherman, but... [laughs] - Yeah.

- I definitely to get out a lot, being this is my job.

I get to go take a day off, go "test lures," right?

There is another fish down there.

Oh, that is a baby perch.

[laughing] - Aw.

- You're not cut out for this.

- I'm not, I'm not.

No, I'm telling you.

[laughter] - Yeah, exactly.

- I'm outside the Marble Museum.

I'm kind of excited about this because I have a jar of marbles from my grandmother, old marbles.

I thought, "Oh, a museum dedicated to marbles."

Then I thought, "Oh, maybe-- "maybe that's not what it's dedicated to.

"Maybe it's dedicated to the stone, like the marble countertops that I have."

Either way, it's gonna be great.

Well, I've learned that it has nothing to do with either of those things - Oh, John, all right.

I should have probably tipped you off to this one because the Marble in question, he's actually a man.

Webster Marble.

He coined the phrase "the great outdoors."

And he made it popular to get outside into nature for fun.

He moved to the UP in the 1800s to work as a timber surveyor before he started inventing axes, knives, and other outdoor products to make life in the woods a little easier.

Webster's gear became hugely popular as people started getting out into nature to escape city life.

- His legacy inspired Rapid River Knifeworks.

So I don't know much about knives.

I mean, I know a good steak knife.

And I'm glad that we've got butter knives.

But take a look at this thing.

It's a good-looking knife, but what do you need that knife for?

[bear growling] Escanaba is in Delta County, Michigan.

And Delta County swears that it has the most coastline of any county in the UP.

Can you guess how many miles of coastline there are in Delta County, Michigan?

- Delta County, Michigan, is the proud home to 211 miles of coastline along Lake Michigan.

So, in other words, it is the perfect place to take a long walk on the beach.

[upbeat music] - We're talking about outdoor activity, no matter what season you want to talk about.

– Robert Micheau: I'm the CEO of Visit Escanaba.

- Well, then, you're the perfect person to talk to, aren't you?

- Yes.

- Talk about the coastline.

- Our county has the most shoreline of any county in Michigan, so there is unlimited space almost for you to go find your own spot and get access to Lake Michigan, enjoy the lake and the fresh water and the fresh air.

People mostly say they kind of recharge when they're here.

It's like, you're here for about two days, and kind of the weight off your shoulders goes, and you really can kind of embrace the outdoor nature year-round.

- What do they do in the winter?

– Robert Micheau: You can snowshoe in the park.

You can cross-country ski through here.

You can go out and do ice fishing in Ludington Park.

- This park, what an incredible park you guys have in this city of 12,000 people.

- Yeah, 120-acre park with unlimited activities to do here.

We have a disc golf course.

We have fishing tournaments that are hosted here, weddings and family reunions.

- And a tourist destination spot.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Tourism has increased significantly in our community.

And that has brought with it a lot of new restaurants and businesses that cater to the tourists.

So there is a lot of opportunity and experiences for people to have when they come here.

I think we're only about an hour drive away from the whole UP, practically.

Right in the middle here, so... - Is this where everyone comes on the 4th of July?

- This is one of the places that everyone comes on the 4th of July.

All holidays, we usually have some activities in the park here.

Festivals, food trucks, live music.

We do a lot of live music here.

There's actually weekly concerts at the bandshell here done by the Escanaba City Band.

[band playing "All Star" by Smash Mouth] - Well, what happens is, Monday night, I pass out the music, and that's the first time they'll see it for that week.

And then, Wednesday night, whatever happens, happens.

[playing "All Star" chorus] - Are there other cities that do this?

– Bruce Cassell: There used to be.

It used to be a big thing all across the nation.

- Really?

- But lately, the last few years, they've been dying out.

[playing "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees] - The youngest in the band is... - Just graduated from high school.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- And the oldest?

- [sighs] 90s.

– John Chown: 92.

- You're 92.

- Right.

- There you go.

And you're playing.

- Oh, yeah, why not?

We cannot lose our City Band.

- No.

- Because it's kind of an institution in town.

- What do you play?

- I play trumpet.

- So you've been doing it for 15 years, but the band has been going on for how long?

- Well, officially, since 1926.

- Come on.

- That's when the citizens voted to fund the City Band.

And it's been funded since then.

["Walkin' On The Sun" by Smash Mouth] - Can you tell me the difference between the City Band and the orchestra?

- Well, this is a band, so we don't have any string instruments.

- No strings.

- No strings, no violins, or anything like that.

All woodwinds, brass, and percussion.

[film noir jazz] [upbeat music] - And what a gift for an evening in the summer.

- Yeah, it's a musical town, and to not have a band like this would be a shame.

- And it'll go on another 97, you think?

- At least.

- I sure hope they can play this.

[sad trombone "Waah, wah, wah, wah"] It's a beautiful piece.

["Wah, waah"] I am on Ludington Street, which is really Escanaba's Main Street.

It'll take you all the way down to beautiful Ludington Park.

So I have a question.

Like, did they call this Ludington Street because that was Ludington Park?

Or was Ludington Park named after Ludington Street?

I--I don't know.

And I Googled it, and I couldn't even find it on Goo-- so don't email me, because I couldn't find it.

If you have the answer, email me, okay?

[upbeat music] This is your hometown?

-P atty Tighe, Lorne Watson: Yes.

- When we got married, she always said, "I want to move back to Escanaba."

I said, "No way."

- [laughs] - "That's not gonna happen."

And here we are.

- Well, where'd you move back from?

- Brooklyn.

We lived in a fourth-floor walk-up.

- In Brooklyn?

- In Brooklyn.

Yep.

Yep, and with our bikes and everything we owned in one-bedroom apartment.

- 600 square feet.

- We were new parents when we left.

- Yeah.

- But so this house was an old railroad house.

You go from paying huge rent to having these extra spaces.

But this is the drum room.

And I can be loud whenever I want.

[playing mellow music] And then-- and then now I'm in the public schools and make the music that I want, and people appreciate what I'm doing.

I miss living in New York, but if I wasn't here, I would miss living here too.

- Right.

- The hustle and bustle and blending in, that doesn't happen here.

But you know, we have a washer and dryer in our house.

That's like a world of difference.

- Yeah.

- It's life-changing!

- Yes.

- It is.

- And then, like I said, having a car and having space and being able to walk right out your door and be outside is crazy.

- Yes, really good.

- When it's snowing, it's gorgeous.

For years now, Lorne and Asa especially have been shoveling off the water right there in the harbor to make our own ice skating rink.

- Yeah, we walk and swim in the lake every day.

It kind of has this, like, little beach town feel.

Even in the winter, it's just kind of relaxed.

- [laughing] You guys are so good.

I gotta go.

- Did you know Escanaba was home to one of the most notorious pirates to ever roam the Great Lakes?

Around the year 1900, Dan Seavey moved to Escanaba and bought a boat that he named "The Wanderer."

His biggest heist was the hijacking of a boat named "The Nellie Johnson."

He tricked the crew, got them drunk, stole the boat, and then sold the cargo in Chicago.

- Did you know there's a movie made about Escanaba?

It was a stage play called "Escanaba in da Moonlight," and it was adapted into a feature film in 2001.

Can you name the actor who wrote it, directed it, and starred in it?

And I'm gonna give you a hint.

In this one, his character wasn't as dumb.

- Even though Jeff Daniels is more famous for "Dumb and Dumber," he's beloved in this area for making "Escanaba in da Moonlight."

He plays a hunter named Reuben, trying to get his first buck before deer season ends.

And is the movie chock-full of UP slang and culture?

Oh, you betcha, don'cha know?

- The Upper Peninsula State Fair has been going on in Escanaba since 1928.

In fact, it is the largest annual event in the entire UP.

And it always takes place in the middle of August.

Guess what?

It's the middle of August.

We are filming our episode in the middle of August, so I've decided I am gonna go buy a ticket, because while I'd be lying if I told you I wanted to go to the agricultural barn, no, I want to find, like, a pork chop on a stick.

Come on.

[upbeat music] I've certainly shared the fact that I don't drink, so I'm sure you're wondering, why is he at a winery?

I love to see how things are made.

– Julie Lambert: This is our production area.

These are all our tanks.

– Tony Lambert: We process about 27,000 pounds of grapes.

So that's a lot of grapes for us in a small winery.

We press them all right here.

- And the fruits.

This is our strawberry right now, and we have our rhubarb going right here.

- A rhubarb wine.

- Rhubarb wine, and it is amazing.

- The rhubarb is handpicked by local farmers and us.

We go, we go to the garden and say, "Okay, how much rhubarb can we get?"

And we go, and we handpick it every spring.

- But it all happens here.

- It all happens here.

- So we have cherry wine, strawberry wine, raspberry wine, peach wine.

- Blueberry.

- Blueberry, blackberry.

- Mm-hmm, yeah, all the berries.

- Yeah, so we do a lot of fruit, fruit wine, what we call seasonal wines, small batch.

- How many different wines do you guys have?

- We have over 50 recipes.

We do about 30 a year, right?

So, they're cold climate grapes.

So the grapes come from here in the UP or Wisconsin.

- And how long you guys been doing this?

- Officially, about a year.

- Oh, you're kidding!

- We bought almost exactly a year ago.

So, yeah, I've been working here for about five years, but officially we-- - So you worked here before you took over.

- Yep.

I worked in the tasting room.

- Yeah.

And now, are you a pro?

- No.

[laughs] I'm still learning.

- But she has an award-winning wine now.

- Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

- Exactly, exactly.

- No, it's been a lot of fun, and I really do love it.

- What's really popular right now?

- Yooper Juice is always our most popular.

It's a sweet Concord grape wine.

- Can you help me?

I want to buy a bottle of this for my sister.

- You don't want to run out of it, so I would suggest you probably get more than one bottle.

- Wow.

[laughs] - That's my job.

- Laying it on.

- I am a tasting diva.

- Yeah.

- So I serve the customers the choice of their selections if they want to do a tasting.

- Can they taste three?

- They can taste six of them.

- They can taste six.

- Yes, six of them.

- That's more than three.

- That is more than three.

That's double-- double the amount.

Not only do we serve, but we always have ou r cheese and cracker platters.

- Can we have a bite?

- Absolutely.

You want to help yourself there?

Or do you want me to serve it to you?

[laughter] - You are killing me.

- Am I?

[upbeat rock music] - Escanaba, a pure Upper Peninsula Michigan town where the spirit of the outdoors lives on.

- There's nowhere else I'd rather be The heart and soul of community's Right here - Was Ludington the Street first, and then it became-- they named that--yeah.

[laughs] - I was throwing my "jeepers" in 'cause I figured it was very Escanab-ish.

- Aren't you tired of watching me eat?

Come on.

Not in front of my face, Tony.

[laughter] I'm so done.

Okay, we're done.

Hey!

- "John McGivern's Main Streets" thanks the following underwriters.

[soft music] - Greendale is proud to be the inspiration for "John McGivern's Main Streets."

This historic village is a real place where all are welcome to gather, to shop, to enjoy.

Charming, vibrant, joyful, welcoming.

You've just gotta see Greendale.

[upbeat music] - I'm on my way Oh, it's time to hit the road I'm on my way This is the freedom I live for - Remember when the American Dream was being able to say, "I made that, I built that"?

Wouldn't it be great if your kids and grandkids chose a career that provides that kind of pride, with good pay, but without a ton of student loan debt?

A four-year degree isn't the only path to success.

We need talented people to make and build on Main Streets everywhere.

Skilled work isn't a thing of the past.

It's a bright future.

- Additional funding is provided by the Friends of Plum Media and the Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Thanks, friends.

- It brings me back to my years in restaurant experience.

Excuse me, pretty girl with a tray coming through.

That's-- [laughter] That's what they used to say.