The high ridges and deep coulees south of La Crosse drew so many Norwegian immigrants in the 19th century that the area around Westby became known as "America's little Gudbrandsdal,'' after the valley in Norway.

The Norwegians had left their homes, but not their customs. Today, Norwegian flags fly from lampposts, and the visitors center is a stabbur, a top-heavy wood building used in Norway since the Middle Ages. In May, the trolls and folk costumes come out for the annual celebration of Syttende Mai, the Norwegian constitution day. Norwegian-Americans and even Norwegians from Norway seek out its imports store.

Looming over the Wisconsin town was a massive hulk lined with white lights, rising from the surrounding plain like a landing strip set on edge. It was a spectacular sight — and still is, day or night.

The snow appeared on cue, just as Wisconsin faded into the Upper Peninsula. One minute there was a dusting, and the next a whole layer, white and inviting.

It seemed too perfect, as if there must be snowguns hidden behind the "Welcome to Michigan'' sign. But there was snow beyond that, too, right up to the doors of the three ski resorts that line U.S. 2 just inside the state line.

After the second wimpy winter, I decided I might be using them a lot. So I called the ski school at Lutsen Mountains, on Minnesota's North Shore, and asked instructor Marcela Perez-Abreu how I could get over the “intermediate hump.’’

Ah, the smell of Coppertone in spring.

Leaning back on a chairlift, basking in sun bounced off acres of snow, my friend Shar and I were getting quite a tan — on St. Patrick’s Day.

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with its towering stacks of snow, is a good place for skiers to be in the spring. As of March 6, there were 17 inches on the ground, and the Ironwood area has had 127 inches this season. That's not so much, though;  by this time last year, it had had 164 inches. The average is more than 200 inches, courtesy of winds out of the Canadian Rockies, which, when they hit land after whipping across Lake Superior, dump enough to make the western U.P. one of the snowiest spots in the nation.

Craggy bluffs flank this working-class town of 120,000 on one side, and Lake Superior on the other. But the candy-striped smokestack of a paper mill is the first thing seen by those who arrive by air or U.S. highway.