Mikel B. Classen has been writing and photographing northern Michigan in newspapers and magazines for forty years. Creating feature articles for magazines and newspapers about the life and culture of Michigan’s north country. A journalist, historian, photographer, and author with a fascination of the world around him, he enjoys researching and writing about lost stories from the past. He is founder of the U.P. Reader and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association. In 2020, Mikel won the Historical Society of Michigan’s George Follo Award for Upper Peninsula History.

Classen makes his home in the oldest city in Michigan, historic Sault Sainte Marie. He is also a collector of out-of-print history books, and historical photographs and prints of Upper Michigan. At Northern Michigan University, he studied English, history, journalism, and photography.

His books, Au Sable Point Lighthouse, Beacon on Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast (2014) and Teddy Roosevelt and the Marquette Libel Trial (2015) were published by the History Press. His book of fiction, Lake Superior Tales, won a 2020 U.P. Notable Book Award. Points North (2019), a nonfiction travel book, received the Historical Society of Michigan’s, “Outstanding Michigan History Publication,” along with a 2021 U.P. Notable Book Award. Since then, he has released, True Tales: the Forgotten History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula  (2021), and Faces, Places, & Days Gone By, a Pictorial History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (2022 ).

Classen is co-author of the Yooper Ale Trails (2023) along with Jon C. Stott all published by Modern History Press. In late 2023, Mikel released his first novel, The Alexandria Code, an Isabella Carter Adventure, published by Modern History Press. Mikel’s newest endeavors are the Yooper History Hunter Series, the first of which is Old Victoria, a Copper Country Ghost Town and the infamous Piracy on the Great Lakes: True Tales of Freshwater Pirates.

   To learn more about Mikel B. Classen and to see more of his work, go to his website at www.mikelbclassen.com.