(bright music) - Hi, everyone, and welcome to this edition of "Destination Michigan."

We have an action-packed program ahead and can't wait to take you along for the ride.

Looking for a hobby that's both physically and socially fun?

Well, we got you covered.

Pickleball is great for all ages, and as you'll find out once you start, it's really hard to stop.

Then, we're off to the races in Alma, where we have a front-row seat to radio-controlled car racing.

Plus, we'll take you to the Narrows of Lake Charlevoix and show you a scenic and historic shortcut.

And we venture into darkness at the Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum in Ishpeming where they pay tribute to the area's rich mining history.

- [Announcer] Support for "Destination Michigan" is provided by the CMU Bookstore.

T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, maroon and gold memories, and an official outfitter of Adidas apparel at the Central Michigan University owned and operated, CMU bookstore.

Online shopping seven days a week at cmubookstore.com, on campus at the University Center, and game day locations at Kelly/Shorts Stadium and the John G. Kulhavi Event Center.

(bright music) - Hi, everybody, welcome back to "Destination Michigan."

I'm here kicking things off in Mt.

Pleasant today.

Now, behind me, it might look like some tennis courts, but it's actually a little bit more than that.

After years of intrigue, I finally took the plunge and learned more about the sport that's been sweeping the country, pickleball.

It's been surging in popularity and has a huge following across the state.

And after playing a few rounds, I now get why this sport with a funny name is such a hit.

- One, zero, two.

(paddle claps) Oh!

(laughing) - It doesn't take a great deal of strength, conditioning, and you can have a lot of fun at it right away, and I think that appeals to a lot of people.

- [Stefanie] Head to Mt.

Pleasant's Island Park and odds are, you'll find their pickleball courts packed with players who all found themselves drawn to the sport in their own way.

(player speaking indistinctly) - I had a good friend, a retired teacher of mine, and she was talking about it all the time, and I'm like, "Pickleball is kind of a strange name, "but okay, I'll try it."

So she and I came down, and we did a couple of practice sets and I thought, oh yeah, I like it, bought a paddle that day, and I've been playing ever since.

- [Player] Oh yeah!

- My friend and I, we were looking at things to do, and they had a beginner pickleball clinic and so we decided, we were like, "Oh, might as well go give it a try."

So we went, and we became instantly addicted.

- [Stefanie] Safe to say, once you start, it's hard to stop.

It's a similar story for Al Montoye Once he the ropes and rules, he couldn't get enough, so he contacted the city, and together, they established several pickleball courts, bringing with it even more fans eager to play.

- But it wasn't long before the first two painted courts were inadequate.

In about a month, we had to paint the other two courts to accommodate the number of people that were interested.

From there, it just exploded.

Then we had people waiting for a long time to play, and eventually, the city decided that it would be worthwhile to invest the money in rebuilding the entire Island Park facility, and that's what we have behind us here today.

There are six courts here.

There are lines painted on the other two tennis courts, which will accommodate portable nets.

If we get to the point where we have a larger tournament venue, we could have up to 10 courts.

- [Stefanie] Pickleball isn't a new sport.

According to USA Pickleball, it began as a game born out of boredom in 1956 by then Congressman, Joel Pritchard and businessman, Bill Bell.

They used a hodgepodge mix of various rackets from sports like ping pong and badminton and a perforated plastic ball.

The idea was to make it easy to play for everyone, young and old.

It evolved rapidly into a more specialized racket and wiffle ball.

Today, it's considered one of the fastest growing sports in the country, with tournaments held nationwide.

- You can play it at many different levels.

Of course, the professionals look like professional tennis players.

They're very athletic, and they have all kinds of skills, but that's a small part of the sport.

The majority of this sport are played, I hate to say it, but some of the older folks.

It appeals to retirees a lot, because they can play during the day and so on.

I think the most popular part of it is that in a very short time, you can be having fun at this game.

You don't have to spend years developing a stroke like you would in golf or in tennis in order to start having any fun.

So to get to the higher level skill levels, it takes a long time as it does in any sport, but.

- [Stefanie] As I learned during a brief tutorial, the game looks and feels similar to tennis with a shorter net and a smaller court.

The rules and score keeping differ, but it really takes just a few swings to get the hang of it.

- You only get one serve as the server, unlike tennis where you get two chances to put the ball into play.

But most pickleball is played as doubles, so they can be played as singles, but most is played as doubles, and you can only add a point to your score if you win that point on your serve.

So if they both lose their points, then the serve goes back over to the other side.

You must serve into the opposite rectangle from the serving side.

Everyone knows that's what it is, so you're not allowed to be in the kitchen unless the ball bounces in the kitchen first, then you can go in and hit it.

- [Stefanie] If you're new to pickleball, learning the game with a group in Mt.

Pleasant is as easy as just showing up.

Odds are someone will have a paddle for you and teach you the ropes.

While the game does require some level of physicality, the social factor also helps this sport shine.

- They're really great people, honestly.

(laughing) And I don't know, just the rush of getting a point or just the teamwork you have between everyone, and it's just a lot of fun.

- I think my favorite part is just being around the energy of the people and just being active in a different way.

- One thing that's unique about Mt.

Pleasant, and I've played many other places in the country, the attitude here is that we're here to have fun.

We're accepting of anybody who wants to come and play and learn to play.

- [Player] Good game.

(people speaking indistinctly) - I love it.

Now, a big thanks to Al for his patience, and Laura and Claire for playing a few rounds with me.

Al did tell me there are some people from Mt.

Pleasant that have competed on bigger stages.

He says there is a lot of talent in this area, but for most of them, it's just a fun way to work out and be social.

And, of course, like any sport, injuries happen, so play safely.

Now, from the pickleball court to the racetrack, we're cruising to Alma, where radio-controlled car enthusiasts gather to start their engines and maybe snag the checkered flag.

- [Announcer] Two, one.

(bell rings) - I was gonna get together with a few of my friends.

We were all getting back into RC.

I'd been in it back in the 90s and raced 'em, then I had a family, got out for whatever reason, (cars buzzing) and I do the services for the HVAC support for this strip mall that were in, and so I had the opportunity, and I went to the owners of it and I said, "Hey, my friends and I'd like to get together "in an empty space here "and just play with our cars one night a week."

And they said, "Sure, go ahead."

Well, here we are, (laughs) two and a half years later and in a minute, it got just a little bit of openness that somebody found out we were doing it, it just compounded into, you gotta open this as a full-time track, and so, here we are.

(announcer speaking indistinctly) - [Reporter] Marc grew up playing with RC cars, and as a teen, his family established roots in the electronic business.

- Every kid's had an RC car in their hand, haven't they?

I mean, the majority of us have to some nature, and yes, it was kind of a passion for me, I always loved it.

And then, when I was 16 years old, my parents bought the Radio Shack franchise, Family Electronics, here in Alma.

And we had that for 25 years, so I grew up with the electronics and all the RC stuff, and they had a really good toy line of RCs for you to play with.

So, and this is in a whole nother spectrum of that.

This has moved up into the hobby or sport-grade type, competition type racing stuff.

- [Reporter] For Marc, interest turned into appreciation as he moved his car from the backyard to the racetrack.

- Once you run an RC once, and you get into that, and then you get it on a track.

We all can take 'em out in the yard and play around in the yard with 'em and bash 'em, and it's fun and all that's really fun, but when you get 'em on a track, goes from being a hobby, playing with 'em out in the yard to more being a sport.

There's big national events to go to with all this now, and we do a lot of training here for those, and we've got teams.

As you can see, we've started a team here for team MMRC.

So, it just compound into a lot bigger picture than just six or seven buddies getting together to play on Thursday night.

- [Reporter] Drivers travel from all over, even internationally to put their car on the starting line and share this experience with others in the RC community.

- I'd say the state is primarily where we draw from, but we've had people come from Canada.

I've got a guy coming this weekend from Canada that comes from Windsor, Canada, comes over, 'cause there's no tracks over there that's close to 'em.

This is closest for him to come to.

There's every mix of person you can think of, comes in and races, and that's the fun part of it is, and we seem to get everybody.

We're all here for the same purpose, and that's to have fun and race a toy car of all things to say it is, but that's what it boils down to.

So, there's nothing to win here other than a, "Hey, that a boy, you got it, you won."

And a picture that goes up on social media that says you won and the bragging rights, that's where it's important.

But all the fun's had in the pits, that's where it's at with the camaraderie that happens in there, the friendships that achieve over...

I know of so many people now that have come together and formed friendships just because of this track being here, and that's what it's all about, (indistinct) it's all about.

- [Reporter] On most Saturdays, you'll find Marc setting up the day's competition.

That includes the challenging task of course design.

- I change the layout once a week.

Every single week we're on a different layout, and we very seldom repeat a layout so far.

It's been difficult at times.

I just go out and start changing things.

We've changed the barriers that we use.

We're using the white stuff that we're using now all clicks together with click-together connectors, and it's really much easier to change the layout than we were using irrigation tile, and that stuff just wasn't as easy to do the layout changes as it is now, so that change really helped with that portion of it.

We don't do much oval racing because we're so small here, but we do do the on-road, which is what we're set up for right now.

And then, so we do that one day, and then we do an off road the next door, vice versa.

Off-road is here too, as we run the same setup.

We've just got jumps and ramps that we put in, and they're all carpeted so that they're not hard on the car and everything is all the same.

You got about the same grip as it is on the regular carpet.

So, it's just harder to run off-road than it is on-road.

It's 'cause you got the jumps, and you gotta make the cars do different things, and it's more complex.

- [Reporter] While batteries power the cars that cruise around the track, it's the full power of family that serves as the motor for Mid-Michigan RC Raceway.

- There's not a lot of money there.

There's not a lot of profits in it.

This is done.

These places exist, because there's somebody that has a passion that wants 'em to exist, and they put their heart and soul in them, and they put a lot of time in them, and we put a lot of time here.

My wife puts up with a lot, puts in with a lot with me and supports it a lot.

My son works here with us every weekend running.

He's our race director.

He runs all the races.

And so, it's a family thing, and it takes that, but it really is from a passion that somebody has to make it exist or it just wouldn't.

(bright music) - Now, Mid-Michigan Raceway usually has practice availability Wednesday through Friday and holds competitions on Saturdays.

Well, while drivers in Alma are speeding around the racetrack, in Charlevoix, folks are taking a different approach to arrive to their destination.

As you head north on M66, about six miles from Charlevoix, you'll come across Ferry Road.

It's not a fork, but we suggest you follow Yogi Bear's advice and take it.

It's your chance to enjoy a one-of-a-kind Michigan experience.

(bright music) - Well, in the beginning, in the 1800s, the late 1800s, after the two channels were cut in Charlevoix to allow access from Lake Michigan to Lake Charlevoix, the people around here realized that they had to have a connecting point for industry and commerce, and that is because Lake Charlevoix is split into two parts, the larger northern section, what is called the South Arm that goes south of Charlevoix to East Jordan.

So the only way to do this was to go across what is called the Ironton Narrows, which is about five miles south of Charlevoix, and that is what the crux of the whole matter was, to get people down there and then they could go across and go wherever they wanted.

But until that was done, it was very difficult.

- [Reporter] Industrious individuals had devised ways to navigate the narrows.

But the first instance of a ferry crossing happens just over a decade after the US Civil War came to an end.

- The first record we have of a ferry going across there was 1876.

It was a rowboat, 5 cents a head.

And then in 1879, 3 years later, along comes the big iron smelter in Ironton, which gave the town its name, and they are bringing in a huge amount of goods, et cetera, materials, building supplies, animals that have to be accommodated, and they have to have people from the other side of the shore coming over to help build.

So then, another boat was put into its place, and that substitute boat was done by a man by the name of Arden Sheldon, and that is what really started the idea of a ferry, because once the Ironton smelter was in place, then that was a daily thing for people to come over, especially the workmen to have to come across and not roll across themselves.

When you got on the ferry as a passenger, there was a thing called a cog wheel on the top that turned the gears, that pulled the ropes, and you, as a passenger, had to take this metal and (indistinct) thing and put it into the cog wheel and turn it yourself to get you across.

So, I think if you had that today, if any passengers were required to pull themselves off, you'd have a revolution down there in Ironton.

And of course, as the region grew, so did the Ironton Ferry, and it became an absolute necessity after a while.

- [Reporter] The ferry, as it's known today, was built shortly before the start of the Great Depression.

But there is some debate on the total cost of construction.

- Well, we have two sources in how much it costs to begin with.

One source says $12,000, the other source says $24,000, unless we find something that really knocks it on the head, but I'm gonna go with the $12,000, because this was back in 1926.

- [Reporter] Now Captain Kirk famously helmed the deck of the Starship Enterprise.

Captain Hook was the swashbuckling antagonist of Peter Pan.

And well, Steve Yzerman, he might be the most famous captain in our state, but captains of the Ironton Ferry have also found themselves in the spotlight.

- They've had a lot of captains, but the one who was most famous is Sam Alexander, and he started in 1890, and he lasted 51 years.

And in 1936, he was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not, which at that time was really a big deal in the newspapers.

And it said in there that he traveled no farther than a thousand feet from his own house, because he lived down next to the ferry, and he had traveled the equivalent of the circumference of the earth.

(ferry motor humming) - [Reporter] The Ironton Ferry moves by cables that are between 20 to 40 feet below the water.

It takes about three minutes to cross the Narrows, and you'll travel just over 600 feet on a one way trip.

But that's plenty of time to create lasting memories on this iconic, innovative, and invaluable piece of Michigan history.

- If you don't ride the Ironton Ferry on a visit to Charlevoix, you have not really completed your Charlevoix trip, just to brag to people of the fact that you have done so.

It is just something that you will remember your whole life.

I've had people, house guests of my own, who have been coming for years, and they talk about how many years ago they remembered going across the Ironton Ferry, telling people what they did and having those people come up here to do exactly the same thing.

So, put it on your bucket list, put it on your to-do list, and you can tell everybody you know that you crossed the Ironton Narrows on the Ironton Ferry.

- You can experience a trip across the Narrows for yourself.

The ferry traditionally opens in mid-April and closes in mid-November.

Now further north we go, up to the upper peninsula where Adam takes us to the Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum in Ishpeming to explore the history of the great mining era and take in all the museum has to offer.

(gentle music) - Cliff Shaft Mine is credited with a 99-year operation from 1868 to 1967 when it closed.

This was a world class underground, hard hematite, iron ore mine.

There would not be a city of Ishpeming, a city of Negaunee, or even a city of Marquette had it not been for the discovery of iron ore and the subsequent exploitation by iron ore mining companies.

- [Adam] The museum occupies the same buildings and structures the mining operation once did.

Towering over the property still stands to shaft houses that once served a vital role.

- These shaft houses housed the hoisting equipment that got the men and the iron ore in and out of the mine.

And so they're very prominent, because they are naturally very high.

And you couple that with the fact that they were erected on some of the most prominent areas in the city, so that all told, they're very visible within the city.

- [Adam] Long before the shaft houses dominated the city skyline, the upper peninsula was an unexplored region.

Enter William Austin Burt, sent by the state on a geological survey expedition.

- He was in the area of Negaunee to the east of here when a local group of Indians, Chief Marji Gesick, in particular, pointed out what they called a shiny mountain.

And this shiny mountain happened to be an outcrop of iron ore, rock, basically, that had been polished smooth by the glaciers.

William Austin Burt had a geological background, and so he recognized that it was probably what we call banded iron formation or jaspelite, which is a rock.

The silica is stained red by the presence of the hematite, and so you have a very pretty and actually shiny rock.

- [Adam] After the initial discovery, it didn't take long for individuals, industry, and innovation to flock to the area.

- This building was built in 1904, and it's the oldest, excuse me, it was the first building in Ishpeming to have hot running water and electricity, and the iron mining company let the families come and take showers here on Saturdays.

So that was a big deal if you didn't have hot water.

- [Adam] Chris was our tour guide on our visit.

He shared his vast knowledge of the historical artifacts and displays throughout the buildings.

More importantly, he took us underground.

- All the ore that was being mine at the different levels flowed down to here through passages between levels, and it was fed into the crusher.

It would crush the oar, then it would fall, it would flow by gravity down here.

It would fill those skips, and those things would just haul up, continuously hauling.

And it would be fed onto a conveyor belt.

You can see there's a skip right there.

It dumps from the bottom, it goes on the conveyor belt, and it fills up an ore bin out there where the train cars would be loaded.

- [Adam] Our guided tour included a stop at the base of the 174 foot tower, dubbed the C-Shaft.

We stood atop the now capped shaft that ran 1,355 feet deep into the ground.

Our tour ended with a stop by this modern marvel, a 170-ton iron ore haul truck, donated to the museum by the Tilden mine.

The tires on this truck are 12 feet tall, and it takes two and a half gallons of fuel to go one mile.

The truck is just one of the many unique items housed at the museum.

- We have a very diverse collection of artifacts that have been arranged appropriately.

One of the primary examples here behind us that I'm very proud of and very involved with is the lighting exhibit in what we call the Lamp Room.

Years ago, my mother would fondly recall how she would periodically walk down from our house in Ishpeming and come over here to have lunch with her dad, my grandfather.

But we have a tremendous display of lighting, and you can trace the evolution of lighting technology through the years from the original candle in the hat, literally, to the battery-powered headlamp, electric headlamp.

You can imagine being underground at the end of a tunnel, and the only source of light that you have is a candle either on your hat or stuck in the wall to work by, and that's it.

- [Adam] The last shipment of ore left the grounds in 1972.

The mine stayed in reserve mode, meaning if the demand rose and it made financial sense, the iron ore mine could once again become operational.

- Cliffs kept this property until 1997, and at which time they conveyed it to the corporation that ultimately owns the museum and the property now.

- Now get this, that giant iron ore hauler, trucks like that are often driven by women.

Mine managers around the world found that women are more careful and consistent driving those massive vehicles.

Guided tours are available at the museum Tuesday through Saturday during the summer months.

Just head to Ishpeming and look for the shaft house towers.

Well, that wraps up this edition of "Destination Michigan."

We'll be back again soon with another episode showcasing some of your favorite places or soon-to-be favorite places.

Thanks for watching.

(bright music)