EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference staff at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.

30 years ago

SAND RIVER — Wearing his official Mensa thinking cap and a pair of overalls, Dan Eisaman looked over his minimal supplies and polished off his last cigarette this morning before embarking on a three-day journey across Lake Superior in his kite-canoe. One of only a dozen kite sailors in the world, Eisaman left from the south Superior shore just across the highway from the Sand River Motel east of Marquette at about 9 a.m., braving the largest body of fresh water in the world in a 15-foot open canoe propelled by a high-flying, 16-square-foot kite. If all goes as casually planned, he should arrive somewhere near Wawa, Ontario, on the north shore of the big lake in two or three days. Of course, his estimate of the 100 mile journey all depends on how the wind blows. “With the kite I’m using I can go straight downwind or up to about 60 degrees off-wind,” said the white-bearded, bespectacled adventurer who writes computer manuals when he’s not kite-sailing the Great Lakes. He has crossed all the other Great Lakes, beginning with Lake Michigan in the summer of 1987, but saved Superior for last because of time and weather constraints.

90 years ago

MARQUETTE — In three days Marquette has experienced temperatures ranging from as high as 91 degrees to as low as 43, according to records in the U.S. Weather Bureau. Yesterday was exceptionally cool, compared with Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday afternoon the highest temperature of the year was recorded when the weather bureau mercury soared to 91. Street temperatures in the shade ranged from two to three degrees above this. Thursday morning the thermometer showed 73 degrees and at noon registered 80. The temperature dropped to 61 by 7 p.m. Yesterday at 7 a.m., the thermometer registered only 60 and the weather grew colder as the day advanced, the mercury at noon dropping to 47. At 7 p.m. last evening the thermometer registered 48. The lowest mark yesterday was 43 degrees.