By Russell Magnaghi
For over three and a half centuries European immigrants have been coming to the Upper Peninsula and in the process changing the land and its culture. The French or French Canadians were the first arrivals coming as early as the 1650s as fur traders (voyageurs), soldiers and Jesuit missionaries. The land was claimed for Louis XIV in 1673 and they introduced an economy based on the fur trade, the Catholic faith, French language, agriculture and rudimentary industry. They laid the ground for the mixed or métis culture that followed. The major settlement was Fort Michilimackinac at the Straits of Mackinac. With the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War in 1763 they were replaced by the English who after being temporarily driven from the region by the Native Americans during Pontiac's Rebellion, returned and became the allies of the Indians and joined the fur trade along with the French who remained. At this time Eziekel Solomon and associates, arrived from Canada and were the first Jewish merchants in the U.P.
By treaty the English left in 1796 and were replaced by the Americans. The English retook Fort Mackinac during the War of 1812 and briefly returned. In the years that followed the conflict, immigrants made up the ranks of the U.S. Army stationed on Mackinac Island in small numbers. Onto the scene in the 1830 came Catholic missionaries who were of foreign birth. Historically the most famous was Slovenian-born, Father (and later Bishop) Frederic Baraga who arrived in the 1830s. Learning their language he evangelized the Ojibwe and Odawa and later went on to minister to the European immigrants.
The discovery and development of the copper and iron deposits in the western Upper Peninsula in the mid-1840s introduced hundreds and then thousands of immigrants as Americans were not interested in the hard and dangerous work of mining and milling. The dangerous jobs in the lumber industry also attracted immigrants who worked in the woods in the winter and in the sawmills in the summer. The first immigrants were: French Canadians, Cornishmen from the UK, Germans and Irish. The Cornish were in high demand as they had mined tin and copper for eons.
Immigrants trickled in beginning in the 1850-1860s and in Calumet you could find many Norwegians, the largest of the Scandinavian groups and a few Swedes, Danes and Finns. The tiny Duchy of Luxembourg found immigrants working in the mines. From southern European Italians and Slovenians had arrived. By the last twenty years of the 19th century Poles, Bohemians and Slovaks, Hungarians, Croatians, Serbians and Slovenians reached the mining communities. Early Irish found jobs at Mackinac Island as fishermen and later Finns, Scandivanians and the Metis dominated fishing along the coast of Lakes Superior and Michigan. Eventually, the most dominant of the ethnic group were the Finns who found the environment to their liking and provided their blood, sweat and tears to the economy. This migration has allowed the Finns in the U.P. to be the largest concentration of Finns in the United States. Immigrants from other Nordic nations also flourished in the U.P., but not on the same level as the Finns.
Two groups who came in large numbers but have been generally overlooked are the English and Anglo-Canadians. They spoke the language and quietly entered American society. On the other side of the coin were the smaller groups, such as, the Greeks who came in the early 20th century brought with them candy and ice cream making, the soda fountains and restaurants. Lebanese came at the same time and got into the same trades but those who were peddlers developed clothing stores. Jews from eastern Europe also arrived, including the Cohodas brothers from Belarus, who established a large produce network and others like the Jacobsons went from peddling to developing department stores in the U.P. and in Detroit. An extremely tiny group of Luxembourgers settled Delta County, possibly the only group in the state. They worked for the Chicago & North Western Railway on the ore docks and in the shops. The most well-known Luxembourger was millionaire and philanthropist William Bonifas. A small number of Chinese round up the immigration cycle. They first arrived from the Far West in the 1870s and soon laundries were found in most U.P. towns and cities. Later in the 1920s Chinese restaurants appeared in Ironwood, Calumet, Escanaba and Marquette.
Although most immigrants dominated the population in the western U.P. mining communities, others were concentrated in the industrial cities of Sault Ste. Marie and Menominee. In the latter, new lumber milling ended industrial development and they found jobs at the Lloyd metal wicker factory, electronics and show factories and even truck manufacturing. At the Soo there were jobs at the woolen mill, tannery and Union Carbide or across the river at Algoma Steel.
Immigrant women found limited jobs in department stores, wooden ware factories, and garment plants. The best example of this was work found in the Gossard garment plant in Ishpeming which closed in the 1970s.
A forgotten story is that of the ethnic agricultural colonies that formed across the U.P. The Finns developed 
dozens of such communities both formally and informally in the western U.P. and a major one on Drummond Island in the east. The Swedes settled Skanne in 1871 and were followed by Anglo Canadians of Scotch-Irish origin in Chippewa County concentrated around Pickford. A small Italian colony developed in northern Mackinac County while South Germans or German Hungarians were settled in Banat north of Menominee. Belgians settled near Rock on St. Nicholas Road. Polish immigrants had colonies in Bark River and Goetzville-De Tour. Today Amish and Mennonite communities are found in numerous locations in the eastern U.P.
The immigrants sought to create cradles of settlement for themselves. They brought with them Catholic and Lutheran churches while Baptists and Presbyterian had missions for immigrants where ministers and priests used foreign languages. Mutual beneficial societies, in an era lacking Social Security benefits, for a monthly fee provided medical, sick and death benefits while they could attend monthly meetings with familiar people. There were literary, theatrical and athletic societies. Many of these groups had halls. A host of foreign language newspapers in Finnish, French, Swedish, German, Italians, Croatian and Slovene were published in the U.P. These papers provided local, state and foreign newspapers that made people at home and led to Americanization.
The immigrants brought with them their traditional foodways. The Cornish introduced the pasty, a free standing meat pie. Northern Italians introduce the sausage known as the cudighi. Scandinavians and Italians operated bakeries with their unique breads and pastries. Greeks and Lebanese introduced candies and ice cream. Today Italians restaurants and pizzerias dominate the food scene followed by Chinese and Thai restaurants. The Swedes are represented by the Swedish Kitchen in Escanaba and a number of restaurants in Houghton and
Hancock provide Finnish baked pancakes and other bakery goods. In Laurium, “potica” Slovenian-Croatian walnut rolls are still available. Germans immigrant Nickolas Voelker opened the first beer brewery at Sault Ste. Marie in 1850. 
Within a few years there were breweries in every large community of the Peninsula. Hard liquor was illegally distilled in basements and the woods during Prohibition by many immigrants. Despite myths to the contrary most of these immigrants sought to Americanize. Many quickly sought applications to be naturalized and became citizens. Northern State Normal School was mandated by the state board of education to teach immigrant children to Americanize. Many of the children who entered school did not speak English but rapidly learned the new language. Adults served in public offices: sheriff, mayor, city councils on a regular basis. The end of active immigration to the U.P. came simultaneously with a number of events. As the early 20th century progressed it became evident that natural resources were on a decline. Miners saw that they were taking out poorer ore as they dug deeper into the ground. They saw it was a matter of time that mines would have to close. Timber industry was seeing few trees to cut and process. These jobs connected with resources were ending. The booming auto industry in Metro Detroit and elsewhere became attractive and attracted many from the U.P. Then in 1924 Congress passed an anti-immigration bill that greatly reduced the United States to immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The Great Depression further made emigration less attractive. In general the population of the U.P. began a constant drop from its high point in 1910. Although many immigrants and their children left the region by the mid-twentieth century others remained especially among the Finns. In areas of former concentrations of immigrants many traditions remain and surprise people who think that the traditional ways still thrive in the U.P.