Of the unlimited entertainments offered by the lower peninsula’s oft-forgotten northern counterpart, one of the best is observing disgruntled secessionists in their native habitats.

I knew it was ill-advised when I asked the bartender at the local dive whether or not northern folks were riled up over the present political fiasco, but I did so anyway. He simply tilted his head ever so slightly and raised his eyebrows, a gaze that seemed to challenge my very claim to the air we shared.

“We don’t think much of you,” he said without much tact, a direct swipe at those that some Yoopers have taken to calling “Trolls” for our decision to “live below the bridge,” so to speak. “We’d rather not take part.” He wiped the bar, and I had to admire the kind of bear-trap diplomacy.

“Ah,” I said. “Rather join Wisconsin?”

“Nope.”

“Canada, then.”

“Nope.”

Nope, as it happens, is the distinctive Upper Peninsula dialect for “I strongly suggest you take the pasty to go.” I reconsidered.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, draping the dishrag across his shoulder, “a lot of us’d just as soon be left alone.”

But of course, I thought. Secession: the natural alternative for a soon-to-be state sustained solely by pasties, prisoners and pessimism. A hardy diet, to be sure, but hardly decent. Is anyone outside the state of Michigan even aware an Upper Peninsula exists? The nation is surely, eye-rollingly familiar with our handy MPS, or, Mitten Positioning System, but are Americans really cognizant of the famous apparel’s accidental, mishapen cousin?

I think not. And let’s not forget that, after all, it was the citizens of the lower peninsula who, for the most part, shouldered the burden of the Bridge to a Pre-Ted Stevens Nowhere.

But I digress. The bartender is still looking at me, head slightly cocked. Am I an idiot, or just unaware, I ask myself. I settle on a meaty combination of both, sandwiched within a savoury, pastry casing.

This fight clearly isn’t going to end tonight. I withdraw to the dimly lit shadows, where a vintage jukebox sits dusty and idle. My traveling companion flips in a quarter and give the pages a whirl. From somewhere deep inside the creaking machine, an aging Canadian troubadour awakens from an icy slumber, rising to croon:

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down/of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee…”

A glass slams down in darkness. A dishrag falls. “You are banned,” a voice booms. “Banned from this bar.”

As the inimitable but hardly admirable Ted Nugent said, “The spirit of the woods is like an old good friend.”