The Yellow Dog Plains is an area north and west of Marquette, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States. The Yellow Dog River flows through it, as does the Salmon Trout River. The Salmon Trout River is unique in that it has a breeding population of coasters, a potamodramous form of brook trout. Coasters are virtually extinct from their native range on the south coast of Lake Superior, except for the Salmon Trout River. The Yellow Dog Plains is a remote and virtually untouched wilderness, aside from large scale logging operations. There are extensive forests of Eastern white pine, with reports of some of the trees in the Yellow Dog Plains reaching heights of 31 meters.
Kennecott Minerals Corporation, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, is currently considering opening a nickel-copper mine in the Yellow Dog Plains. The plan, called the Eagle Project by Kennecott, has garnered both local support and opposition. Proponents claim that the mine would produce jobs, while the opposition claims the mine would produce irreversible environmental damage.
Famous quotes containing the words yellow, dog and/or plains:
“They are very proper forest houses, the stems of the trees collected together and piled up around a man to keep out wind and rain,—made of living green logs, hanging with moss and lichen, and with the curls and fringes of the yellow birch bark, and dripping with resin, fresh and moist, and redolent of swampy odors, with that sort of vigor and perennialness even about them that toadstools suggest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All sailors pause to watch a steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and stood up as high as any of them, and looked as wise. But the skipper, who did not wish to be seen no better employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent him below. Such is human justice!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We hold on to hopes for next year every year in western Dakota: hoping that droughts will end; hoping that our crops won’t be hailed out in the few rainstorms that come; hoping that it won’t be too windy on the day we harvest, blowing away five bushels an acre; hoping ... that if we get a fair crop, we’ll be able to get a fair price for it. Sometimes survival is the only blessing that the terrifying angel of the Plains bestows.”
—Kathleen Norris (b. 1947)