[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 84 (Friday, June 21, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1132-E1133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TRIBUTE TO THE UPPER PENINSULA VILLAGE OF BERGLAND ON THE OCCASION OF 
                             ITS CENTENNIAL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BART STUPAK

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 21, 2002

  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to call your attention and 
that of our House colleagues to a ceremony that will take place in the 
Upper Peninsula of Michigan on July 3-6. On those days, with all the 
fanfare and activities that local residents have been planning for a 
year, the community of Bergland will celebrate its centennial.
  As Bergland residents frequently note for distant acquaintances, this 
is a small community that's easy to find on a map of Michigan. Just 
find Lake Gogebic, a lake in the western end of the U.P. that looks 
like an upside-down boot, and Bergland is at the toe. On the map, it's 
just another black dot--you need to see Bergland as I have seen it so 
many times, passing through on my way west on M-28 to Ironwood or 
turning north on M-64 to go to Ontonagon. Then you would see a tidy 
village of wood-framed structures, tucked in the forest on the shore of 
a lake. It's the kind of friendly community that says, ``Why are you 
rushing by? Stop here a while, and your life will be enriched and at 
peace.''
  Like so many northern Michigan communities, Bergland is a village 
created by the lumber industry. In 1902 Gunlek Bergland, then age 55, 
and his wife Hanna signed the

[[Page E1133]]

Plat of the Village of Bergland, giving birth to a community that was 
located within the 18,000 acres of timberland Bergland had obtained. He 
had already constructed a sawmill and a short-line railroad into his 
timber holdings, and the new town's location along the Duluth, South 
Shore & Atlantic Railroad ensured his wood products would find distant 
markets.
  The town of Bergland was born at a unique time in Michigan's 
lumbering history. Most of the virgin strand of giant white pine had 
been harvested, but the land Gunlek Bergland purchased was far enough 
away from the Lake Michigan shore that it had remained uncut. This 
North Woods stood at town's edge. Charles Freed, a 12th grade graduate 
of Bergland's first school, built in 1904, once reminisced about this 
timber stand, saying, ``Within a few feet of the rear of the building 
there stood a forest which had not yet been touched by the ax. ``
  It's quite amazing, Mr. Speaker, when you consider that within the 
20th Century and right in the Midwest, a community was being built on a 
forest frontier. It would not be frontier for long, because 20th 
Century changes were having an impact on the lumber industry. Witness 
the fact that Gustav Bergland built an actual town for families, which 
in itself was a change from the tradition of the 1800s, when 
lumberjacks spent all winter living in isolated lumber camps to do 
their work. In the 19th Century, logs were floated down rivers to 
communities like my home town of Menominee, where sawmills cut them and 
shipped the lumber south by water to growing cities like Milwaukee and 
Chicago. In the dynamic new 20th Century, railroads reached inland to 
small communities like Bergland to bring out wood products. Hardwood 
was now needed by the Upper Peninsula mines, and the growing auto 
industry needed lumber, too, as much as 250 board feet--the equivalent 
of a 27-inch diameter, eight-foot-long log--for each vehicle produced.
  Those boom days are gone, but Bergland and its forest heritage 
remain. Forest products are still an important regional industry, a 
managed industry that recognizes northern Michigan's forests as a 
renewable resource, Bergland stands surrounded by the million-acre 
Ottawa National Forest, an area that is also rich in recreational 
opportunities,
  Residents and former residents of Bergland will gather in July to 
celebrate this history, and they will also honor some of the 
community's oldest residents. Among those to be honored are Walter 
Borseth, 90, and Stan Lackie, 85, both of whom were born of Bergland 
pioneering families and have spent their entire lives in Bergland.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask you and our House colleagues to join me in wishing 
the best to the people of Bergland on this celebration of their 
centennial, and in saying a hearty, ``Well Done! `` to the Bergland 
Centennial Planning Committee of Gay Frulik, Junior Gray, Winnie 
Borseth, and Tom Borseth. We hope many former Bergland residents are 
drawn back home for this celebration, so that families may be reunited, 
old friendships renewed, and a remarkable quality of life 
rediscovered..

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