Marquette artist Amber Dohrenwend uses castoff cardboard to create large-scale scuptures. Pam LeBlanc photo

For artist Amber Dohrenwend, discarded cardboard boxes and a stash of staples add up to community and art.

The artist recently used 5,000 long skinny strips cut from shipping boxes for bicycles and 37,500 staples to build a temporary, large-scale art installation called “Bending Trees of Future Past.” Volunteers helped her put it together for an exhibit last month at Lake Effect Community Arts Center in Manistique, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I caught up with Dohrenwend at Graci Gallery in nearby Marquette, where she displays some of her smaller works.

“It’s about connection,” she says of her large-scale sculptures.

Read more: Ten best things about a summer trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

She uses castoff materials from consumerism to make sculptures and says that each staple is a metaphor for a stitch that connects people.

“For me the challenge is getting people to see the tree inside the cardboard,” says Dohrenwend, who grew up in Marquette and lived in Japan before moving back to Michigan a few years ago.

She uses sustainable materials to create her artwork and began working with cardboard while living overseas. She gathered sheets of cardboard that neighbors had thrown away to make furniture for her children.

“I realized this was my medium,” the former teacher says.

Gradually she moved toward large-scale installations, including the one in Manistique, which was the size of a four-car garage.

Some of her smaller cardboard pieces, which look remarkably like fabric quilts, are displayed at Graci Gallery, opened by wood wall sculpture artist Joe Graci in 2020. The gallery carries paintings, sculptures, jewelry and ceramics by about 30 artists, most of whom are from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“For such a small, out of the way place, we do have a lot of artists per capita,” Dohrenwend says.

The sun rises at Isle Royale National Park located off the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Pam LeBlanc photo

I just spent six days wading beneath waterfalls, hiking through deep green forests, and plopping into the chilly waters of the world’s largest freshwater lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

As a Texan, I’m used to losing my will to spend afternoons outdoors during the summer. But when I landed in the UP, I felt like I’d stepped in front of Mother Nature’s version of an air conditioning vent.

I stayed in Marquette, Houghton and Isle Royale, and already want to go back.

Read more: When in Northern Michigan, hit the pasty trail

The highlights? Read on …

Chris LeBlanc paddles a canoe at Isle Royale National Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pam LeBlanc photo

1. Canoeing around Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale National Park ranked as the fifth least visited national park in the United States in 2023, and you have to take a ferry or a seaplane to get there. I rented a canoe at the marina in Rock Harbor and loved paddling among the pine-covered scattering of islands.
2. Swimming in Lake Superior. You thought Barton Springs was cold? Try taking a flying leap off a dock into the largest freshwater lake in the world (by surface area). It’ll take your breath away – in a good way.

Some of the old growth pine trees at Estivant Pines Wilderness Nature Preserve are more than 400 years old. Pam LeBlanc photo

3. Hiking through the big trees. Some of the trees at Estivant Pines Wilderness Nature Preserve in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan sprouted more than 400 years ago. A walk through the old growth forest, where shafts of light filter through 125-foot trees and moss grows on nearly everything, just feels different.

4. Trying a pasty. Cornish miners who worked in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the 1850s imported the tradition of meat and vegetable-filled pies called pasties (that’s pronounced “PAST-ees”). They made the fist-sized pies with wide crimped edges so if they ate them with dirty hands down in the mines, they could just toss the crusts away.

Miners Falls cascades over boulders in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pam LeBlanc photo

5.Hiking to waterfalls. Rivers and streams all over the Upper Peninsula splash down rock slabs, through rocky gorges and into glinting pools. Of the Upper Peninsula’s more than 300 falls, I saw five – Yellow Dog Falls, Pinnacle Falls, Canyon Falls, Manganese Falls, and Miners Falls, each the culmination of a glorious walk through the woods.

6. Learning about the mining history. The Keweenaw National Historical Park, a collection of more than two dozen sites, celebrates the copper mining heritage of the area. You can tour a mine where temperatures hover in the 40s even in the summer, or drive through downtown Calumet, headquarters of one of the mining operations.

Rocky cliffs line the shore at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pam LeBlanc photo

7. Visiting Pictured Rocks National Seashore. The park runs for 42 miles along Lake Superior, and for 15 miles of that, colorful, layered cliffs rise from the shoreline like a gigantic layer cake.

Visitors swim at Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan. Pam LeBlanc photo

8. Biking around Presque Isle. Rent a bicycle in Marquette and pedal to this 323-acre forested park, where you can stop for a swim in a rocky cove, buy a scoop of gelato, or settle on a bench and take in the views.

9. Eating the local catch. The Upper Peninsula is known for white fish and lake trout, and I tried both. The Vierling in downtown Marquette makes a perfectly seasoned grilled whitefish, and I lucked out on Isle Royale, where the family at the next table offered me some of the trout they’d just caught that day. It was the best fish I’ve ever eaten.

10. Sampling fresh berries. Wild blueberries, thimbleberries, strawberries and raspberries all grow in the Upper Peninsula and ripen in late July and August. Or stop by the Copper Country Strawberry Festival in Chassell and get strawberry shortcake for breakfast, like we did.