For whatever reason, Michigan's U.P. seems to get the shaft more than any other body of land in this country. People tend to downplay how BIG Alaska is, but that's mostly due to the size constraints of maps. (It's HUGE, by the way.)

But aside from most of us forgetting that GUAM is a U.S. Territory, the Upper Peninsula consistently gets overlooked, mislabeled, and even forgotten. And now, apparently, even Amazon Alexa can't get it right.

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A post on the Pure UP Facebook page showed an Alexa-enabled device with the question posed, "Alexa, what is the population of the United States?" Behind that question, is a questionable map of the U.S.

Pure UP Facebook Group/via Sam Goodsitt
Pure UP Facebook Group/via Sam Goodsit
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The longer you look at this image, the more you realize that the states aren't really proportionate, or correctly shaped. Michigan's "Thumb" alone looks like a lobster claw more than a thumb. And we won't talk about the absence of Alaska, Hawaii, and Delaware.

But notice the Great Lakes, and how, amazingly, there's a "new Great Lake" between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. That "lake..." is actually Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Somehow, Amazon Alexa misidentified the Upper Peninsula as a body of water (indicated by the white coloring similar to the Lakes), and just flat-out ignored that it exists as a land mass.

Really, ALL of Michigan is just wrong. Most of the other states are relatively close... like someone tried to draw them from memory or something. But Michigan... it's like they've never heard of it, seen it, been there, or even knew it existed, and someone told them, "hey, there's something else that goes there."

So, they drew... that.

There are, at least, lines KIND of drawn in the shape of the U.P. on there, so at least there's that. There's the acknowledgment that at least SOMETHING is there, and it's still part of the United States. Unlike some other outlets that seem to think it's part of Canada.

Regardless, if anyone knows someone who works for Amazon, or is directly with the Alexa side of things, maybe give them a heads up, AND apologize to the Yoopers for leaving them out again.

Discovering Waterfalls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

Over the week of Labor Day, I set out to the Upper Peninsula for the first time on an extended vacation to stay in Iron River and discover some of the waterfalls. I left Labor Day morning and returned Saturday evening and it was a pretty incredible trip.

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