Da Yoopers Tourist Trap
690 N Westwood Dr, Ishpeming, MI
Ishpeming, MI
A gleefully goofy roadside stop celebrating Upper Peninsula life, home to a giant rifle, a huge chainsaw, and the comedy band that made Yooper culture famous.
Da Yoopers Tourist Trap is a proudly silly roadside attraction near Ishpeming that celebrates the culture of the Upper Peninsula, whose residents call themselves Yoopers, from the initials U.P. Out front stand a collection of oversized oddities, including Big Ernie, billed as the world's largest working rifle, and a giant chainsaw, all of them irresistible photo backdrops for road-trippers.
The place grew up around Da Yoopers, a comedy music band that turned the humor, hardships, and pride of Upper Peninsula life into hit novelty songs, most famously about deer camp and long winters. Part gift shop, part museum, part outdoor sculpture yard of tongue-in-cheek gadgets, it is a warm, funny window into a distinct northern culture.
What Guests Love
- Big Ernie, an enormous working rifle, and other oversized outdoor oddities to pose with
- The affectionate, self-deprecating humor of Yooper culture on full display
- A large rock and mineral shop stocked with local U.P. specimens
- The home base of Da Yoopers, the comedy band behind the song The Second Week of Deer Camp
Worth Knowing
- This is a lighthearted, free-to-wander roadside stop that welcomes visitors, with a gift shop and museum inside
- The outdoor oddities are a favorite photo stop and are always there to see
- It plays up U.P. deer-camp and snowmobile humor, so expect gentle, family-friendly comedy
- It is right on US-41, an easy break on the drive between Marquette and the western U.P.
Details
Ishpeming, MI
Learn about Da Yoopers Tourist Trap
The band that made Yoopers famous
Da Yoopers formed in the 1970s and 80s, a musical comedy group that sang, in a thick regional accent, about the everyday life of the Upper Peninsula: the deer-hunting season, the endless snow, ice fishing, rusty trucks, and the gentle rivalry with downstate Michiganders they call trolls, for living under the Mackinac Bridge. Their song The Second Week of Deer Camp became a beloved regional anthem.
The band's popularity gave the wider world a fond, funny picture of Yooper identity, and their tourist trap grew into the physical home of that humor. It is where fans come to buy the music, laugh at the exhibits, and celebrate a culture that wears its quirks with pride rather than embarrassment.
Giant gadgets and goofy oddities
The outdoor yard is the star for most visitors, a collection of gleefully oversized inventions and jokes. Big Ernie, promoted as the world's largest working rifle, dominates the lot, joined by an enormous chainsaw and a rotating cast of homemade contraptions that poke fun at do-it-yourself Yooper ingenuity.
The oddities are free to wander among and made for photographs, and they capture the do-it-yourself, make-your-own-fun spirit of a region where winters are long and the nearest big city is far away. It is exactly the kind of stop that turns a long drive across the U.P. into a memory.
Rocks, gifts, and the museum inside
Indoors, the tourist trap holds a large rock and mineral shop, fitting for a region built on mining, stocked with specimens including local copper, agates, and other Upper Peninsula finds. Alongside it are gift-shop shelves of Yooper-themed goods, from T-shirts to the band's recordings, and a small museum of curiosities.
The shop reflects the U.P.'s deep mining heritage, the iron and copper that drew people to this remote country in the nineteenth century. For rock hounds heading into the Superior country, it is a good place to see what the region gives up and to pick up specimens and tools.
The Upper Peninsula around it
Ishpeming and neighboring Negaunee sit in the Marquette Iron Range, historic iron-mining towns in the central U.P. The wider region is a land of deep forest, waterfalls, rugged Lake Superior shoreline, and long, snowy winters, with the college town of Marquette and its Lake Superior harbor a short drive east.
The Upper Peninsula is Anishinaabe homeland, long the country of the Ojibwe (Chippewa), whose descendants remain in the region's living communities today, including the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the Bay Mills Indian Community. Their ancestors mined copper, fished the great lake, and traveled these forests for thousands of years, and the U.P. humor the tourist trap celebrates is only the newest layer of a long human story here.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Ishpeming
Marquette
About 15 miles east
The largest city in the Upper Peninsula, a Lake Superior harbor town with an ore dock, a historic lighthouse, and Northern Michigan University.
Michigan Iron Industry Museum
About 10 miles east
A state museum in Negaunee telling the story of the iron range that built the region.
U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame
In Ishpeming
A museum honoring American skiing history, fittingly located in a town that helped launch the sport in the U.S.
Lake Superior shoreline
About 15 miles east
The rocky, dramatic Superior coast near Marquette, with beaches, lighthouses, and Presque Isle Park.