Some Retirees Find Haven in the North

Suburban Detroit was no place to retire, so Virginia and Tom Powers packed up their belongings and moved.

They didn’t go to the Sun Belt.

The Powerses retired north, to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a flannel-shirted place even on July nights, famous for arduous winters and mosquito-bitten summers.

“Land of the Loon,” the T-shirts say.

The Powerses could have flocked south like so much of America’s retiring public, but it was in these snowbirds’ minds to head instead toward Canada.

“I think Florida is pretty crowded and in my opinion, there are not enough young people there,” she said. “All you do in Florida is get behind some large car going 10 miles an hour.”

Older Americans are a moving lot. The U. S. Bureau of the Census calculates that last year, 5.3% of those over 65 changed homes, one-fifth of them settling in another state.

From 1975 to 1980, more than 9% of those over 60 moved out of their home cities, while 13.4% moved within their towns, said Charles Longino, a University of Miami researcher who spent six years studying the migration.

Warmer, drier weather and life style amenities like year-round golf continue to draw most retirees south and west, said Don Fowles, a statistician for the U. S. Administration on Aging in Washington. “People are more sensitive to cold as they grow older.”

But a minority of the affluent elderly seek colder climates, as did the Powerses. Virginia, 67, and Tom, 68, found their haven on the tip of the Garden Peninsula, a remote spit of land on the north shore of Lake Michigan.

There is only one paved road down the peninsula. The largest town, Garden, has a single grocery store and two bars. Most of the residents are farmers, loggers or fishermen.

“After living in an area as congested as Detroit, you need the space the North provides,” Virginia said. “I think most retirees find it so blissful up here, with the clean air and the space.

“There’s no fear, and it’s such a relaxed feeling. There’s a friendlier attitude up here.”

There also are economic reasons for flying north.

The bottom dropped out of the Upper Peninsula’s economy five years ago. Homes entered the market at rock-bottom prices as iron ore mines closed and workers moved away to find jobs.

The economy has picked up since then, but housing remains a bargain. A decent three-bedroom home in the Upper Peninsula goes for $30,000, and $100,000 will buy you a dream house on the shore, said Escanaba real estate agent Jeanne Bonefeld. Her son in Florida tells her the same homes sell for two to three times as much among the orange groves.

The ruggedness has its definite disadvantages. Tom broke his leg recently when he was hit by a falling cedar tree. The closest hospital was more than an hour away, although the local ambulance arrived within 15 minutes.

And when Tom needed arterial bypass surgery two years ago, the Powerses elected to use a hospital in Green Bay, Wis.

Retirees living in the North Woods may find themselves isolated, financially and geographically, from health care.

A hearing in Houghton Lake held by Michigan’s Office of Services to the Aging in June turned up tales of 20-mile ambulance rides to the nearest hospital costing from $400 to $1,000 each.

“We need to determine if they’re paying actual costs or if they’re being bilked,” said Mary Lindemann, with the state agency in Lansing.

And then there is the snow.

Delta County gets an average 56 inches of snowfall a year--more on the Garden Peninsula since it is surrounded by water--so the Powerses own a snow blower and clear their 1,100-foot driveway themselves.

Their road is too narrow for a commercial plow. The Powerses could widen it, but that would ruin the remote atmosphere, Virginia says.