Winter has finally returned to the Upper Peninsula. I say finally, because it feels like the “real” winters of years gone by.  Anyone in the area born before 1980 probably has a story or two about long hard winters of years past. Eight- and 10-foot snow drifts, and storms that lasted so long the kids had “snow weeks” off from school rather than snow days.
    Over the last 20 years or so, those winters have dwindled to a few months of moderate snowfall, fewer days with temperatures below zero, and some years no snow on the ground in March. March! My grandparents never would have dreamed of such a thing!
    The locals who once organized sledding parties and bonfires in the snow with hot chocolate can hardly be convinced to even go outside this year. Plain and simple: We got used to the mild winters. We let ourselves forget about digging deep to find the mailbox, “banking” our houses for insulation, and our number one tool being a “scoop.” No one was ever out and about without a winter hat, scarf, and gloves back then.
    Now we grumble if it’s cold enough that we need our heavy coat on. I hear parents complaining when school isn’t canceled for six inches of snow, yet I can remember my bus driver plowing through 10 inches or more down Bay Mills Point to pick us up in the mornings.
    Gone are the days when the only way to get to the store was your old snowmobile. Pictures in my old albums show me and my friends standing on snow banks as high as the roof of my house. I can recall being a youngster and sledding off the roof of Ben Carrick’s bunk house, much to Miss Katie’s chagrin. It was the best entertainment we had back then and we owed it all to the U.P. winter.
    Now Ponte’s hill is a golf course, and no local plow drivers build a berm at the bottom of Mission Hill to keep sledders out of the woods. There are no giant tire fires that make you blow black stuff out of your nose for days, and the last time I had a cup of hot cocoa, it was in front of my cozy fire place; not outside in the cold.
    We spend our winters dreaming of a summer that we know will take forever to get here, and then be gone before we know it.
    I think the winter of 2012-2013 will make us Yoopers appreciate spring and summer more than we have in quite a few years. Until then, happy shoveling!

    Sanders is a member of Bay Mills Indian Community.