Central UP Events

Northern Michigan University’s Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center will unveil two exhibits in its new gallery space in 223 Harden Hall: “The Conservationists: George Shiras III, Theodore Roosevelt and the Migratory Bird Act”; and a permanent display of artifacts, photographs and stories about NMU. The opening reception begins at noon Saturday, Jan. 31. “The Conservationists” focuses on the relationship between Shiras and Roosevelt and how the two helped shape conservation and environmental policy in the United States during the early 1900s. The exhibit will feature actual correspondence between the two figures from the collection of the Central Upper Peninsula and NMU

February 23, 2026-January 2, 2027 This exhibit showcases two hundred and fifty artifacts, photographs, and documents from our permanent collections. These objects connect local history to the national story while commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has often seemed remote from the rest of the country. However, the themes and movements of U.S. history can be seen here as well, especially since the War of 1812. When the country braced for the Civil War, U.P. iron miners raced to uncover iron for the Union army’s railroads and ammunitions. When labor movements exploded following

 America Beckons by Aura Jylhä-Vuorio Finlandia Art Gallery  presents  ME SIIRTOLAISET | WE IMMIGRANTS  Selections from our art + archival collections March 12 – April 16, 2026 Opening Reception: Thursday, March 12, 7-8:30pm  HANCOCK, Mich. – Art, artifacts, and oral histories come together to tell stories of Finnish migration to the United States in the new exhibit “Me Siirtolaiset | We Immigrants,” which opens March 12 at Finlandia Art Gallery. The artwork in the exhibit is from the gallery’s permanent collection and includes the work of nine Finnish-American and Finnish artists – Ariadna Donner, Gerald Immonen, Aura Jylha-Vuorio, Gladys Koski Holmes, Desiree

LEADING LADY: Stories from the Stage…and Life is a theatrical journey that blends storytelling, musical theater, and razor-sharp humor to explore ambition, identity, love, loss, and the courage it takes to keep showing up when life goes off book. Through iconic Broadway songs and deeply personal anecdotes, Leading Lady traces one performer’s path from an unapologetically loud, spotlight-hungry child to a woman shaped by Tourette’s, heartbreak, motherhood, divorce, and reinvention. With warmth and wit, she pulls back the curtain on the realities behind the applause-missed cues, failed relationships, bodies that don’t always cooperate, and dreams that refuse to die quietly.